Philemon (Timeless)

We do a study on the oft overlooked little book of the Bible Philemon.  We look into the personal letter of Paul to Philemon and the church he hosted in his home to ask what the text has to say for us today.  Bafflingly, we also manage to work in dubstep and discover a new weapon of mass destruction - the bass cannon.

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Transcript

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Dave [00:00:02]:
How do we get from bass cannon to Philemon back to bass cannon to Dubstep? 
Are you playing a game, Greg, on your phone? Is that a no? Is that yes? Apparently, he doesn't wanna engage. Apparently not. Okay. That font side size is huge.

Chad [00:00:44]:
I think we already did that joke.

Dave [00:00:45]:
I know. Okay. I gotta throw a bunch out there and something stick.

Greg [00:00:50]:
So we're

Dave [00:00:50]:
gonna do a book today.

Chad [00:00:51]:
We're gonna do a book. Soon as it's go time.

Dave [00:00:56]:
Oh, it's go time.

Chad [00:00:57]:
It's go time.

Dave [00:01:00]:
Is that like the

Greg [00:01:02]:
It's go time.

Dave [00:01:02]:
It's like the drop. What's that what's that kind of music? My son was

Greg [00:01:11]:
in Dubstep? Were you trying to do dubstep? Yeah.

Dave [00:01:13]:
I'm not good at imitating dubstep. Is that what that was? An attempt on your part, though?

Greg [00:01:18]:
No. I just made a

Dave [00:01:20]:
sound. I'm

Chad [00:01:22]:
not sure what that was.

Dave [00:01:23]:
Do you know yeah. I didn't the only thing do you know you don't know what dubstep is?

Chad [00:01:28]:
I'm about to. You don't

Greg [00:01:29]:
know what dubstep is?

Chad [00:01:31]:
I've probably seen it or

Dave [00:01:32]:
Oh, it's that it's that kind of, like, what feels like alternative heavy electronic music. Wait for the drop. Are you are you serious?

Greg [00:01:44]:
You're serious?

Dave [00:01:45]:
You seriously don't know what dubstep is? Hold on. I'm gonna Andrew, my son was deeply into dubstep. Yeah. I wish I could just name off the top 5 dubstep songs of all time.

Greg [00:01:57]:
I was

Chad [00:01:58]:
gonna say, let's hear some. Yeah. Let's play it. Oh, wait. Here we are. Dubstep essentials.

Greg [00:02:04]:
There you go.

Dave [00:02:05]:
Make sure

Chad [00:02:06]:
there's no e.

Dave [00:02:07]:
And you got when you listen to dubstep, you gotta wait for the drop. That's not this is not a typical dubstep.

Chad [00:02:16]:
Okay. We'll try this one.

Dave [00:02:18]:
Okay. There you go. It's it's a good

Greg [00:02:20]:
start now. Dubstepping yet.

Dave [00:02:22]:
Yeah. It's When does it do it? You'll you'll know. Is it doing it? No. Nope. Rate? No. Not yet. You gotta wait for the drop. It's a good start.

Dave [00:02:41]:
Is it doing it now? It's about ready to.

Greg [00:02:45]:
There it is.

Dave [00:02:46]:
That's the drop. Oh, yeah.

Greg [00:02:50]:
There's your dubstep.

Chad [00:02:53]:
And you guys like this?

Dave [00:02:56]:
I said my son liked it. Oh. There's a few dubstep songs that I like, but I I could not

Greg [00:03:01]:
Now what's really neat is to go on to the YouTubes and to watch, you know, how people do beatbox. Oh. Beatbox battles. That's Do beatbox dubstep and watch people do it. That's pretty impressive.

Dave [00:03:15]:
That what you experienced was you were waiting for the drop, and you experienced the drop Yes. Where they went into the the defining

Greg [00:03:23]:
So he's he's not it's led the beat drop. I don't know.

Dave [00:03:30]:
No. No? Dude, my son was into dubstep. You don't wait for the beat. You sound like a wait for the drop. You sound like a boomer. I sound like a

Greg [00:03:37]:
Do we? Yeah.

Dave [00:03:38]:
You're pretty hip, Dave. I'm hip to that jive.

Chad [00:03:42]:
Yes. You are.

Dave [00:03:42]:
Yep. Dave goes has to be part of our banter division.

Chad [00:03:46]:
Dave goes to all the all the trendy sock hops.

Dave [00:03:49]:
Yeah. That's right. I was the queen of king and queen of the sock hop. I said queen. I can't believe it. I just set myself up for that

Chad [00:03:56]:
one. No way there's that's getting cut out. Alright. No way.

Dave [00:04:00]:
The reason I said that was because my father and mother-in-law were literally the queen and king of the soft hop, and they always talk about that. And I say that lovingly. They that was one of their, you know, defining moments of their childhood. And because they dated in high school and then and got married. And, but so that's why I said queen and king in that order because they always said it in that order.

Greg [00:04:21]:
Speaking of the Super Bowl, Dave said to me the other day, I don't know who this Taylor Swift is, but he sounds fast. Yeah.

Dave [00:04:28]:
Good dad joke. That's nice. Uh-huh. This is a timeless episode, Greg.

Chad [00:04:33]:
So it is. It is. But Taylor Swift will probably go to

Dave [00:04:37]:
all the Super Bowls from now. True.

Chad [00:04:40]:
I I do have to say I'm I'm just just kinda going through the list of the random Apple Music list of dubstep songs. Mhmm. There's one here called Bass Cannon.

Dave [00:04:52]:
Bass? I think it's our bass. Oh. Did you was that on purpose? I really You read that like a fisherman and a musician?

Chad [00:04:59]:
I I suddenly I've never heard of a bass cannon before, but now I really want one.

Dave [00:05:05]:
I just wanna shoot fish. I just wanna shoot fish everywhere. You need to you need to play bass cam

Greg [00:05:10]:
because I Does Catfish Ministries have it in the budget to buy a bass cam in? That's right.

Dave [00:05:15]:
I didn't even think about the correlation between catfish and bass.

Chad [00:05:18]:
I know. Oh, he's really

Greg [00:05:19]:
close to the night, isn't he? Man. Buymeacoffee.com/catfishministry.

Chad [00:05:23]:
Go there now.

Dave [00:05:24]:
Yeah. We need our bass cannon. We need our bass cannon. We need to be able to shoot Dave in the head when he says stupid things. Yeah. But let's play bass bass cannon. We gotta play that. Wait for the drop, and it's not dropping of the beat.

Greg [00:05:39]:
I don't hear any bass.

Chad [00:05:41]:
Yeah. There's, like, 0 bass. Wait for it.

Dave [00:05:44]:
That's the point. I'm waiting. Not for the beat. The bass. There's no bass. Go time.

Greg [00:05:52]:
So while we're waiting

Dave [00:05:53]:
Go time is coming. So oh. Still not there yet.

Greg [00:05:59]:
We're getting close to it? I don't know.

Chad [00:06:05]:
Not that much bass really.

Greg [00:06:08]:
Yeah. I I feel like that's false advertising. Yeah.

Dave [00:06:13]:
Base cannon. I would rather have a bass cannon. A bass cannon does sound quite appealing, actually. I can just see it at the at the next home volleyball match, shooting bass out into the crowd.

Chad [00:06:28]:
Well, we are get

Dave [00:06:29]:
hit in the head by the bass cannon.

Chad [00:06:31]:
Well, I'll tell you what. You know who would like that? People that people that do the lent thing. Having a bass cannon during lent

Dave [00:06:39]:
for Oh.

Chad [00:06:40]:
Fish fry Fridays?

Greg [00:06:42]:
It isn't it fat Tuesday coming up? I did see out at the grocery store the other day. Do you know what you call a fish with no eyes?

Dave [00:06:54]:
That's from my dad too. It's like Jesus turned the water into fish. I mean, the Oh my. Multiply the multiply the 1.

Chad [00:07:05]:
So Wait. I I haven't

Greg [00:07:06]:
We know another person who'll never be prosecuted by the DOJ.

Chad [00:07:09]:
Yeah. I was gonna say I haven't checked the bylaws of Catfish Ministries, but I'm pretty sure we're close to the 25th amendment here.

Dave [00:07:17]:
Is isn't that posse comatatus, isn't that? Is?

Chad [00:07:19]:
I'm not sure.

Greg [00:07:20]:
Yeah. I do. He thinks he's a woman. He thinks Jesus turned water into fish.

Dave [00:07:26]:
Isn't that the story?

Chad [00:07:27]:
He He thinks he

Dave [00:07:27]:
was at a wedding and he turned the bread into fish. What? Like, there was 5 loaves and 12 baskets left of it. My goodness. And all the people were like, wow. Normally, at a wedding, you bring out the bad fish first. You don't save the good bread for later. I do know this story. I know all those stories.

Dave [00:07:54]:
I'm mixing them up on purpose.

Greg [00:07:55]:
Yeah. And that's what happens when you go to an inferior Bible college

Dave [00:08:01]:
and seminary. At least it wasn't an institute.

Greg [00:08:06]:
You'd have done better.

Chad [00:08:10]:
So

Dave [00:08:10]:
So what are we talking about today?

Chad [00:08:12]:
I okay. I haven't nailed the pronunciation right once yet. Filemon.

Greg [00:08:20]:
No. Filemon is what you do in Jamaica to a pass that you've shot out of a cannon.

Dave [00:08:24]:
Okay. Filemon. That was good.

Chad [00:08:27]:
I like that. Alright. What's the official pronunciation?

Dave [00:08:30]:
The accepted English pronunciation is Philemon. Philemon. Yeah.

Greg [00:08:35]:
Even even if you're Bible Colleges.

Dave [00:08:40]:
Oh, even Dwight l Moody would have.

Greg [00:08:42]:
God bless the school that DL Moody founded.

Dave [00:08:45]:
Yeah. See, my my school my school, song isn't about a man. It's about following Jesus and following his word.

Greg [00:08:56]:
So Watching him turn water into fish. Bring out the good bread before the bad fish. What?

Dave [00:09:03]:
It's not the the I'm not even gonna go there. Yeah. I do have a really interesting theory about, you know, that one passage in the gospels where where I wanna do these interesting theories. No. No. No. Where he he Jesus heals the guy in stages. It's a very unique healing.

Dave [00:09:21]:
Yes. Because he heals him by he goes, what does it look like? They look like trees walking around, money, and then he heals him again. I have a interesting theory about that one, but we don't have time to talk about it today. So we need to talk about that sometime because it has to do it it it actually has a huge impact on how you interpret the book of

Greg [00:09:40]:
Mark. Okay.

Dave [00:09:42]:
Yeah. But make fun of it if you want.

Chad [00:09:44]:
But Yeah. I really important. I'm super patient that because I have looked through that myself. Mhmm. And even from the first the book of Mark was the first book that I read as a person, you know, I think yeah. Like, almost God was drawing. Yeah. Yeah.

Chad [00:10:02]:
Almost a believer, and that was the first book of the bible that I read because I wanted to.

Dave [00:10:06]:
So Cool.

Chad [00:10:07]:
That one, I keep coming back to it. So I would be super interested to hear your take on that.

Dave [00:10:13]:
Well, it's right in and it's right in towards the middle of the book. Mhmm. And that's a really interpretive. That section of the book is really interpretively key. So I think it has it has it revolves around the 2 different stories of crossing the Sea of Galilee. Mhmm.

Chad [00:10:29]:
It

Dave [00:10:29]:
has to it ties into yeast, ties into the the disciples' lack of belief in Jesus and his the why he was able to do the feeding of the 5,000 and all that. So it's a really it's a really interesting really interesting narrative. So, there's there's all sorts of theories on why he did it that way. Mhmm. But, yeah.

Greg [00:10:55]:
Okay. Well, we'll save that

Chad [00:10:56]:
we'll save that for another time.

Dave [00:10:57]:
But today, it's Philemon. Philemon. Philemon. Philemon. The book that Philemon wrote. Right?

Chad [00:11:03]:
Right. And which chapter are we going through today?

Dave [00:11:05]:
Wait. You you didn't catch that? I said the book that Philemon wrote. Philemon never wrote a book that we know of. Oh. It was Paul that wrote Philemon. Alright. 2. 2 Philemon.

Dave [00:11:17]:
See? They probably didn't teach you that at your Bible Institute. Correct? Oh my god. Just watching you close your eyes. Just sheer frustration was worth it.

Chad [00:11:31]:
The neat thing about the institutional back and forth is that I get to claim nothing because I went to a school I went to a party school. To a party school that was known for absolutely none of that.

Dave [00:11:46]:
So you just for physical therapy.

Greg [00:11:48]:
So nothing can I nothing to the and Wow?

Dave [00:11:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. Must be that homiletics preparation at the movie bible institute. Says the guy who messes up

Greg [00:12:04]:
all the time.

Chad [00:12:05]:
At at both

Greg [00:12:06]:
at some point queen.

Chad [00:12:08]:
At some point, you've both sounded

Greg [00:12:11]:
like soft hop.

Chad [00:12:13]:
You've both sounded like you came from my school at some point after one of our legendary all night keggers. Oh, that's painful.

Dave [00:12:22]:
For the record, mom and dad, I was never involved in an all night kegger.

Chad [00:12:26]:
Oh, they cut it off at 3, 4?

Dave [00:12:31]:
Oh, if if we would have had a kegger at the school that I went to Oh, yeah. The world would have come to an end. Yeah. Clearly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure there were people that went off campus to drink, but I was never one of them.

Dave [00:12:42]:
Yeah. So yeah. Alright. Philemon, though. Paul's letter to Philemon, it's one chapter. It's actually his shortest letter. Yep. Mhmm.

Dave [00:12:55]:
And it wasn't just written to Philemon, which is really interesting because it just it's a really strange book in some ways because it seems like it's purely a personal communication because it has to do with you wanna summarize it, Greg?

Greg [00:13:11]:
No. You're gonna do a great job. Oh, wow.

Dave [00:13:13]:
Okay. So wow. That's rare. Greg doesn't wanna talk? What? No. Ouch.

Greg [00:13:20]:
Wow. I'm just thinking of a word count of the of Yeah.

Dave [00:13:24]:
I don't know. If we would if we if we didn't edit that last one down, you would have been

Chad [00:13:28]:
the more words in that one. And last one. How many ounces have we done now?

Dave [00:13:33]:
I have no idea, and I don't even know I don't think it's true anyway. But, anyway, the background to the book is that, Paul is in prison in Rome, and he's in house arrest. So he he is actually free to take visitors and things like that. Well, somehow along the way, this slave named Onesimus, who is owned by Philemon, who is a friend of Paul's from Colossae, like, where the book of Colossians was written to.

Greg [00:14:05]:
Okay.

Dave [00:14:06]:
And he was a bad slave because he ran away. And then he met Paul, and when he meets Paul, he hears the gospel and he converts to Christ. And at some point in there, he confesses to Paul, or maybe Paul knew already, not sure which, that he was still a slave owned by the Onesimus, of course, is still a slave owned by Philemon. And so Paul writes back to Philemon and, basically, says, hey. You need to accept him back. But if you really love me, you'd let him come back to me and help me. And so it's a really interesting particularly interesting from a modern perspective because it hits some really interesting issues like, how can you so casually say he was a slave owned by a Christian? Yeah. Right? Right.

Dave [00:15:01]:
And why should he have to go back? Why wouldn't Paul say, slavery is wrong. You need to free him, and then he's free to serve with me, serve the Lord here and roam with me. So that's a couple of the issues. Another really interesting issue is the book is actually not just written to Philemon, though. It's actually written to Philemon, to Apphia or Appia, depending on how you pronounce the name. Mhmm. And it's written to the church at Colossae k. That's in his home.

Dave [00:15:36]:
So even though the bulk of the letter is written to him about Onesimus, it's actually written to the church at large. It rather not the church at large, but to that specific church. And the question then becomes why? Why is it written for that church? So that's a that's a really interesting interpretive question that that happens along the way. So I think we've probably all heard well, that's not fair. I've heard several different pastors preach on slavery in the Bible and basically make these blanket statements. The Bible condemns slavery period. End of story. And and then they move on.

Dave [00:16:22]:
But if we're gonna be intellectually honest, that's really not true. So the the Bible has some seemingly conflicting notions about slavery, and so that's a big issue that we need to talk about when we talk about the book as well. So any other thoughts you want to add to quick an overview of the book or review of the issues?

Greg [00:16:41]:
I think that we're gonna have to talk a lot about the word slave and what it means Mhmm. And what slavery looked like at the time. I I think we're gonna have to talk about the composition of the church and and how many how much of the church was composed of slaves then and what that looked like. And, and then how much of the church was Jewish. And when Paul writes there is neither, Jew or free or slave nor or free and Jew, what he what does he mean by that? What's going on there? Those are those are some important things that we're gonna have to address.

Chad [00:17:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. And I I believe I can kinda speak with some credibility to the nature of slavery in general in the Roman empire. Mhmm. And that was that it had very little resemblance to the slavery that we're familiar with from American history where slavery was race based, predominantly race based, but not entirely, but predominantly race based. And a slave had no legal standing, no means of income, no none of that. So in in the No above.

Dave [00:18:01]:
No hope of earning their freedom.

Chad [00:18:03]:
No. Zero chance of that. Yeah. Unless the owner died and left it in his will, which was more common Oh, interesting. Than a lot of people realized. In fact, in some of the border states, like, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, it was common to find families where one spouse was free and one spouse was a slave. And that was because they would they would get married and then and then one of their masters would die and free, and they would leave it in their will. And that was was actually kinda common.

Chad [00:18:36]:
I believe George Washington did that. But not to get too much on American slavery, but in Rome, slaves did have legal standing. Slaves could bring their owners to court. Slaves could have income, and it it was it was very different than what than the American experience or even predominantly Western European experience was. It was slavery.

Dave [00:19:01]:
And so there there were some slaves that were treated kinda like the American slaves were, where you might go off to the salt mines. Right? If you lose in war or something, you might be kidnapped or whatever. But there there are even cases I know we've talked about this before, Chad, but there's even cases of people who sold themselves into slavery to work their way up the societal ladder. Right. Because if they served as a slave to some leader in Rome, 7 years later when they were freed, they would suddenly be a high class person now. So they it was like an investment and or sometimes they would just continue to stay. So, yeah, there's lots of seemingly conflicting in statements even in the Bible. The Bible doesn't seem to the new testament, in particular, doesn't seem to condemn slavery.

Dave [00:19:53]:
In fact, Paul uses the metaphor, and he calls himself a slave of Christ, right, multiple times. He says, if you're in Christ, you're a slave to righteousness. You're no longer a slave to unrighteousness. So there's all sorts of slave references. And if there was anywhere in the Bible if the Bible just wanted to carte blanche destroy slavery as an institution, this would be the place to do it. Right. Right. And he doesn't and he doesn't.

Dave [00:20:21]:
So so yeah. Now but at the same time, Paul also was it first Timothy? There's a description where Paul's describing people who are not part of the kingdom, and he says slavers, and those are those are people who go out and kidnap people to make them slaves. And he basically describes if that's something that you hardheartedly do, you're not a believer. So there's a it's a very, very nuanced conversation. And the reason I I think it's a mistake for pastors to come out and just take the easy route and say, well, we all know today that the Bible is leaves no place for slavery. That's, 1, not intellectually honest, and it's really not helpful when you have maybe a person who's thoughtful and reads the scriptures and maybe is thinking about become a believer or as a new believer and ends up thinking you're a liar because you make a lazy statement like that. And so, we need to be willing to kinda have the nuanced conversation.

Greg [00:21:29]:
Yeah. So so just to be clear, what would you say the Bible says about American slavery then?

Dave [00:21:37]:
I don't I don't that would be a scripture condone it. Absolutely not. Because that would be enslaved. That would be, like, was it John Amazing Grace? Is that John Owen? No. Not John sorry. That's not John Owen. Who wrote Amazing Grace? The former slaver. You know what I'm talking about? You don't know who

Greg [00:21:54]:
John Newton?

Dave [00:21:55]:
John Newton. There we go. Olivia Newton John. I mean, maybe John Olivia Newton. No. John Newton was a slaver Yeah. And that kind of slaver would be slaver would be

Greg [00:22:06]:
I was just letting you sweat it out with your bible college education to see if

Dave [00:22:10]:
you could figure it out. If I could figure out Yeah. Yeah. Because

Greg [00:22:13]:
k. Go.

Dave [00:22:14]:
Okay. John Newton. Olivia Newton. So water to wine, bread to bread. So back to

Greg [00:22:20]:
the point of it.

Dave [00:22:21]:
Back to the point. I think I think it's really interesting that it's the West, which the modern West is the first place in the world to outlaw slavery, and that is follows from the biblical tradition of men and women being made in the image of God and that they found over time society as it embraced more and more of Scripture found that chattel slavery, shall we call it, is incompatible with biblical theology. And so I think that I think that's why we have what we do. But, you know, let's look at the composition. Depending on where you were living, 30 to 60% of your local population may have been slaves. God could do it if he wanted to. He could have just said, nope. No more slavery.

Dave [00:23:10]:
Period. But God seems to be really patient with society's changing. You think of I've always used parallel in the Old Testament of, like, you know, there was polygamy, a lot of polygamy in the Old Testament. Well, it's very clear that that was not God's intent from the beginning, but it took a long time for for that to work itself out. But it happened. Because the more you embrace scripture principles, the more you line up your life with those. And so over time, the words of God from Genesis 12, Moses' statement, Paul Jesus' statement about divorce and remarriage and his statement affirming marriage, polygamy fell away as it were. Mhmm.

Dave [00:23:57]:
And I think that's the same thing here in terms of biblical slavery is that it's actually the west. Can we maybe take a side note to talk about the modern Yeah.

Greg [00:24:06]:
Because you said chattel slavery, but I think you need to define it.

Dave [00:24:10]:
Okay. Yeah. Chattel slavery is ownership of property that allows you to do anything carte blanche, and you own them in perpetuity. Like Onesimus, when he ran away, he could have been killed. Philemon could have legally killed him as a runaway slave or had him executed, shall we say, as a runaway slave. That doesn't even look like an option for Paul at that point. Yeah. There's a really fun figure of speech with an SMS and a little play on words that Paul uses we can look at in a few minutes.

Dave [00:24:43]:
But but, yeah, Paul asked for forgiveness and reconciliation, and I think those are 2 of the main themes of the book as as we when we get into the details. But

Greg [00:24:56]:
Yeah. Yeah. Forgiveness. Yeah. And that that's one of the big themes when you talk about it being written for the church there too. It's forgiveness and reconciliation. Yeah.

Dave [00:25:08]:
It's almost like Paul's using Onesimus and Philemon and asks them to be a model for their local church Mhmm. To how to deal with situations like this. And I I yeah. We could talk more about some of the themes as we go along here. But anything else we we wanna talk about slavery before we get into the book?

Chad [00:25:31]:
I think that's a pretty good setting of the table.

Dave [00:25:34]:
Okay. Let me let me mention one more thing. There is a, if you wanna call it, a school of interpretation that's gaining popularity today. You're gonna think it fits really nicely with the kind of the CRT thing in in our culture. Mhmm. But it's it's, it's called post colonial interpretation. Oh, yes. And it's basically, and I'm I'm using I'm not using a lot of technical language here.

Dave [00:25:59]:
I'm using kind of popular language to how to think about it. If you think about Paul, those who interpret him from a post colonial perspective would argue that Paul is subtly undercutting the Roman worldview and really he wants to bring about a Marxist kind of revolution, but he can't do it because Rome is too powerful right now. And so he's slowly undercutting them, but it always the post colonials always take it to a kind of a Marxist end. Sure. So I do think there's a sense in which he is undercutting, right, her view of slavery there. And I think once we get into the text, we're gonna see that he actually wants him to release him and let free him. He actually says, you know, can you send him to me? Forgive him. Send him to me.

Dave [00:26:56]:
The he never said I don't observe how many times I've read this a lot of times, but I don't remember him actually saying free him. But he he he kind of implies that.

Chad [00:27:07]:
Yeah.

Dave [00:27:07]:
So there is a sense in which the post colonials have this kind of close to being right, but if you if you read post colonial interpreters long enough, the overlords tend to be capitalists and Sure. Right? Rome was never really particularly capitalist.

Chad [00:27:22]:
Do you want me to read the first few verses? Yeah. Okay. That sounds good. And I'll be reading from the ESV.

Dave [00:27:29]:
Wow. Not the Chad Standard Bible?

Chad [00:27:31]:
I wanted to read from the CSV, but I figured you'd probably memorized everything in, the ESV.

Dave [00:27:36]:
The NASB.

Chad [00:27:37]:
Oh, really? Okay. From the ESV, Filemon.

Dave [00:27:42]:
Philemon.

Chad [00:27:43]:
Philemon. Means Philemon. Philemon. Sorry.

Dave [00:27:48]:
There you go. Learn something every day.

Chad [00:27:51]:
Yeah. I'll just do the first four verses.

Dave [00:27:54]:
Go 3. 3.

Chad [00:27:55]:
Okay. Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy, our brother, to Philemon our beloved fellow worker, and Ophia our sister, and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house, grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Dave [00:28:16]:
You wanna make any comments there, Greg? No? No. No. Yeah. I think we've already mentioned that it's written to, right, more than just Philemon. Yeah. And so that that makes us think that there's something broader that the whole church needs to learn from this, which is one of the reasons why it was included in the canon. Yeah.

Chad [00:28:35]:
And the church in your house. Yeah. The house churches. So they had a church in a house.

Dave [00:28:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. Most churches started in synagogues in the new testament era. Okay. And then they moved off because Paul always went first to synagogues. And then eventually, they'd get kicked out of the synagogue Yeah. Because not everybody converted and then they became house churches. This also probably means that Fanihem is probably pretty wealthy when he owns at least one slave.

Dave [00:29:04]:
Yeah. And he probably has a large enough house. Because remember, houses are, like, they could have courtyards and

Greg [00:29:11]:
Mhmm.

Chad [00:29:12]:
Yeah. And so I'm thinking he must've had 2 20 service to run the fogger and the and the light machine.

Greg [00:29:20]:
And the lasers?

Dave [00:29:21]:
Yeah. They had it by lakes so they could bring the phone.

Greg [00:29:24]:
They didn't need lasers. They had flaming tongues.

Dave [00:29:27]:
Oh. Oh. Snatch. That just happened. Pentecostal. Yep.

Greg [00:29:32]:
There you go. Alright.

Dave [00:29:33]:
Turned off.

Chad [00:29:34]:
Alright. Someone else wanna read the next couple of verses?

Greg [00:29:40]:
Sure. I could read. Alright. I'm just scanning ahead for big words before I volunteer.

Dave [00:29:45]:
Whoops. I thank my god always making mention of you in my prayers because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the lord Jesus and toward all the saints. And I pray that the fellowship of your faith may become effective through the knowledge of every good thing which is in you for Christ's sake. Excuse me, for I have come to have much joy and comfort in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother. Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to order you to do what is proper, yet for love's sake, I rather appeal to you since I am such a person as Paul, the aged and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus. This is some really good rhetoric. And I don't mean that in the negative sense. I mean, in a really good sense.

Chad [00:30:34]:
And for our listeners, we just switched versions. So if you start with us

Dave [00:30:38]:
on the ESV You switched over to the NASB.

Greg [00:30:41]:
Yeah. And I like, because the ESV says, I, Paul, an old man. And I really like the the NASB because it says Paul the aged.

Dave [00:30:51]:
Yeah. It seems more like a title. Right? Paul the aged. Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a couple of things that I think are really kind of fun plays on words that Paul uses. It's very clear here.

Dave [00:31:00]:
He's setting it up, right, that he wants Philemon to voluntarily do this. Right? He he doesn't want he doesn't want Onesimus' service to be something that Philemon does begrudgingly. Mhmm. Right? He wants he wants, Philemon to prioritize ministry over personal wealth. Right? We can talk more about that in terms of application later. But, but he says, I have come to have, verse 7 here, much joy and comfort in your love. Philemon means what? Right. Phileo, you've heard

Greg [00:31:41]:
the Filetteo is what you do to the bass after you get it out of the cannon.

Dave [00:31:44]:
Bam. It also means love or the name can actually mean kiss or love or, like so it's a it's it can mean affection.

Chad [00:31:54]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:31:55]:
Right? So Philemon, he says, you know, hey, Philemon, and he takes advantage of that name. He goes, yeah. You kinda like your name, dude. Right? And he he says, I've taken much joy and comfort in your love because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother. And then he says, look, there's a proper thing to do here. Right? There's a fitting thing. There's an appropriate thing to do, but I don't wanna make you do it. I want this to be something that you do voluntarily.

Dave [00:32:21]:
Right? So he has this little play Paul in this book loves plays on names. Mhmm. So Onesimus means useful, and you're gonna see in a minute here that he he uses a really nice play on words with the term useful coming up here. I don't have anything more to say about that. Do you have anything to add to that?

Greg [00:32:37]:
No. You're doing a good job. Yeah.

Dave [00:32:38]:
Well, thank you. I've been wanting to talk about this book for a while.

Greg [00:32:41]:
I can tell.

Dave [00:32:42]:
Yeah. Excited.

Greg [00:32:43]:
Where where did you read to?

Dave [00:32:45]:
I wrote to read, excuse me, to 9. Okay. Alright. Paul the aged. Old. I need help.

Chad [00:32:52]:
CSB says an elderly man.

Dave [00:32:55]:
I do like the Nasby's making it sound like a title. Dave the younger. Or as you guys try to constantly say the older. The older. Dave the aged. Not the boomer, though. You guys keep adding that title to my now I'm not.

Greg [00:33:10]:
Dave the boomer?

Dave [00:33:12]:
Dave the aged. You can you can call me Dave the aged. I'm fine with that, but I'm not a boomer. Pretty close. Don't insult my mom and dad.

Greg [00:33:19]:
All in favor of calling Dave a boomer, say aye. Aye. All opposed?

Dave [00:33:25]:
What? No.

Chad [00:33:27]:
He had to think about it.

Dave [00:33:28]:
I know. I didn't.

Greg [00:33:29]:
I was

Dave [00:33:29]:
just I knew it was useless. I think

Greg [00:33:31]:
that was 2 to 1. I think it was pretty clear.

Chad [00:33:34]:
I went

Dave [00:33:35]:
down just on fact, though. He Facts don't care about your fault.

Greg [00:33:38]:
Remember to vote against the motion.

Dave [00:33:40]:
I know. Like, I I just wanna call the question and move on.

Greg [00:33:44]:
We were already we're calling the question. See, again Yeah.

Dave [00:33:49]:
The key term being move on.

Greg [00:33:51]:
Alright. Who's next? Verse 10. Right? I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became in my imprisonment. Formerly, he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful to you and to me. I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart. I would have been glad to keep him with me, in order that he might serve me on your behalf during my imprisonment for the gospel. But I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion, but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant, but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord.

Dave [00:34:50]:
Yeah. So I love how you read that. You could tell you were playing off the word useful. Right?

Greg [00:34:55]:
Could you tell me? Yeah. I tried to

Dave [00:34:56]:
do it in my heart. You did a really nice job. That was very well done. So, yeah, so in verse 10. Right? Onesimus literally means useful one or useful. And so Paul says, he was useless to you while he was an unsaved slave, but now he's both useful to you and to me. I love that little play on words. I can keep going, but I don't wanna.

Chad [00:35:18]:
Verse 12, in the CSB, it reads, I am sending him back to you. I am sending my very own heart.

Dave [00:35:25]:
Yeah.

Chad [00:35:26]:
That's that's quite the quite the statement. Yeah. Really, if there was any doubt that that Paul considered Onesimus to be an important person despite being a slave, that that would be it. Right?

Dave [00:35:39]:
Mhmm. Yeah. He's sending his very heart back to him. Yeah. So he he's developed a close bond with Onesimus, and he's particularly helpful for the sake of the gospel at school. And I again, there's there's nowhere where Paul explicitly states that he needs to free him, but he certainly hints at it. Yeah. Right.

Dave [00:36:05]:
Whom I wish to keep with me so that on your behalf, he might to me in my imprisonment for the gospel. But without your consent, I did not want to do anything so that your goodness would not in effect would not be in effect by compulsion, but of your own free will. Again, what's the subtext there? Free him up. Right? Free him up to to come serve with me. And it's not serving Paul. It's serving for the gospel. Right? Right? It's not that just Paul needs a slave. It's that he needs a partner in reaching Rome for Christ.

Dave [00:36:42]:
For perhaps he was for this reason, verse 15, separated from you for a while that you would have him back forever. Which is a great picture of of a relationship you have with someone who is not a believer, and you have them for a while. Mhmm. But when when someone you know comes to Christ, you now have them not just for the short term, but you have them forever. Yeah. Just kinda really cool thing. That is. Just one of the reasons why we evangelize.

Dave [00:37:07]:
Right? Verse 16, no longer as a slave, but more than a slave. So just when you think, oh, if he wants to be explicit about it, he could say

Chad [00:37:16]:
it right here.

Dave [00:37:17]:
Mhmm. I'm gonna send him back to you no longer as a slave, but more than a slave so he doesn't right? And some people would say, see, the Bible's evil that way. Well, I think you have to take into account the big picture of what's going on in the Bible.

Greg [00:37:33]:
Could we take just a minute? Because the the bible translators because you you the NASP says slave. Mhmm. The ESV says bond servant. Mhmm. CSB says slave. The CSB says slave. Yep. Some translations will just say servant.

Greg [00:37:52]:
Yep. It's all the same word.

Dave [00:37:54]:
Correct.

Greg [00:37:55]:
And dulasi comes from the same word. So why the discrepancy in choosing, which word do you use? I know the answer, but I'm setting you up.

Dave [00:38:08]:
Yeah. So the truth of the matter is, right, that the word can refer to servants. Right? It can refer to slaves, and I think the term bond slave, is a can refer to that too, and that's a specific reference back to what it's it's either Deuteronomy or Exodus where, you know, you would have a slave that has in Israel would it's time to be freed because you could not if you're in Israel, you could not hold a fellow Israelite as a slave for more than 7 years. Right. So that was the longest you could ever and then you had to free him. But that slave who was then freed could go to your doorway, take an awl, and pierce his ear to your door, and because he loved you as a as a master, he loved serving you. You were a good employer as it were, and he wanted to serve you, knew you would take care of him. He could commit to being a slave for the rest of his life.

Dave [00:39:16]:
And so the term bond slave, that's that's the term bond slave. And so part of the problem, I think, of translation is what does it mean. It's clear from the context. I think it's, at at the very least, a slave, but I think I do think some translations try to soften, and I don't know if this is where you're going. This is my personal opinion. I think some translations try to soften the term slavery because it's not so palatable today.

Greg [00:39:42]:
Correct.

Dave [00:39:42]:
And so they use the term servant or bondservant to make it sound a little bit better Mhmm. Because of our modern, you know, sensibilities. Yeah. And Yeah.

Greg [00:39:54]:
There are just some translation committees just, excuse me, shy away from using that word slave because of the negative they're okay with using it in the old testament, but they really shy away from using it in the new testament because of the connotations with with the more modern western slave trade that we see that we saw and and how horrible, it was, and they just they don't wanna put that in the bible. They don't want it associated. Yeah.

Dave [00:40:24]:
So he says, verse 16, to read to reread it. No longer as a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me. But how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord? So, there's a lot of times the Bible makes this distinction and they take about talk about in the flesh and in the spirit or in the flesh and in the Lord. Those aren't necessarily categories that are if you wanna call them ontological categories, it doesn't necessarily mean there's 2 parts. There's the in the Lord part and then there's then there's the the in the flesh part. Right? Or the the flesh and the spirit. There's more categories that the Bible used in that. Bible has at least 12 different categories it uses for parts of man.

Dave [00:41:06]:
Right? Mhmm. But basically saying there is in the flesh means from a human perspective, and in the Lord means from a spiritual perspective. Right? So basically, he's saying, right, how much more could he serve me? He could serve you in the flesh and take care of your physical needs, but there's spiritual things that he could be doing, and you could be he could be helping further God's program, if you wanna call it that. Right? Spiritual things. So then in 17, if then you regard me as a partner, accept him as you would be. This may be the closest thing he's saying to free him. Mhmm. He's like, treat him like you would treat me, but he never never actually said that.

Dave [00:41:55]:
And and Paul is not afraid. Right? Paul is not afraid to conflict with Rome. This is one of the things that the postcolonial interpreters, I think, have wrong. They say that Paul's kind of subtly undercutting because he does he never wants to confront Rome directly. Paul confronts Rome very directly. Like, even the term use of the term gospel. Right? A gospel was a declaration of good news. A king who won a battle would send a gospel back to the town that he's headquartered for or, you know, the capital and would send a gospel of good news that they'd won the war.

Dave [00:42:30]:
So when Paul talks about the word gospel and Paul talks about Jesus is Lord, that that completely flies in the face of Rome as we can see in Philippi when they accuse him of being an insurrectionist. So it but it's interesting that Paul is actually willing to take responsibility for whatever finances if if he needed to. Yeah. Right? Verse 18.

Chad [00:42:54]:
Yep.

Dave [00:42:54]:
He's like, charge it to my account.

Chad [00:42:56]:
Yeah. If he's wronged you in any way Yeah. Or if he owes you anything, charge that to my account. That's a pretty steep commitment right there.

Dave [00:43:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. And it I think he I think he probably knows. I I'm I'm not saying it wasn't a legitimate offer. I really do believe it's a legitimate offer. Mhmm. But I think he's saying that knowing full well that Philemon is not gonna do that. Right.

Dave [00:43:21]:
It it would be just I don't know. That would be pretty that'd be pretty bad. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Alright. He can serve you, but you gotta pay me. That wouldn't be very

Chad [00:43:29]:
Right. Right.

Dave [00:43:31]:
But he says in 19, I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will repay it. Yep. Not to mention to you that you owe to me even your own self as well. So so, again, the rhetoric is powerful here. Yeah. But if you think about it, you owe me your spiritual life too. So

Greg [00:43:51]:
Yeah. So the the writing this with his own hand thing, like so for a lot of Paul's letters, he would have dictated. He had someone with him when he's writing them. And even this one here, he he may well have had somebody writing it for him. And at this point, he may have taken over writing and see see right here, I'm writing this with my own hand.

Dave [00:44:12]:
Correct.

Greg [00:44:12]:
I will repay you. Yeah. Like, he dictated up until that point and decided, you know what? I need to make sure they see my handwriting. I did this. It is me. And and he writes it in his own hand.

Dave [00:44:25]:
Yeah. That there's a if anybody's interested in this, there's a really good now I'm gonna forget it. Maybe y'all look it up. We can put it in the show

Chad [00:44:32]:
notes. Yeah.

Dave [00:44:33]:
But there's an actual really there's a really good treatment on letter writing in the ancient Near East and and so I used to ask this trivia question, for as a just kind of a kick when I when I used to teach Romans at the Bible College. I'd say, who was the author of Romans? And then I would ask who wrote Romans. Right. Right? Because Tertius wrote Romans, but Paul's the author. Right? Because Tertius was the scribe Yep. That Paul used. And so I used that. And it wasn't just a meaningless thing because I used that to teach this concept and then we would often go like, this is a great example of that where Paul actually takes over the writing to say, hey.

Dave [00:45:11]:
Again, great rhetoric, though, because it's like, no. You don't think I'm serious? I'm gonna take over writing this, and you can recognize my handwriting.

Chad [00:45:18]:
Yeah.

Dave [00:45:19]:
I wonder if it's really good handwriting or if it's sloppy handwriting.

Greg [00:45:21]:
It probably looked worse than mine. He he is pretty old at this point. Paul, the age. Mhmm. His eyes are failing him.

Dave [00:45:30]:
Yeah. So so far, the only message he's given though is to Fatima. Yeah. Right? Mhmm. Like and he doesn't say until he gets to the very end, which is the traditional closing of a letter Yeah. He never is gonna mention anything else that anybody else should do. Right. So then why include everybody else? Right? Maybe I'm jumping ahead of myself too much here.

Chad [00:45:56]:
No. It's okay. Do you want me to read 20 through 22?

Dave [00:46:00]:
Yeah. Let's do that.

Chad [00:46:01]:
Yes, brother. May I benefit from you in the Lord? Refresh my heart in Christ. Since I am confident of your obedience, I am writing to you knowing that you will do even more than I say. Meanwhile, also prepare a great room for me since I hope that through your prayers, I will be restored to you.

Dave [00:46:21]:
He's like, I I know what you're gonna do. You're gonna do the right thing. Hint. Hint. Right? And And then he says, I'm hoping I'll be able to come visit you maybe because he was convinced that God would let him. At this point, he's clearly hasn't written second Timothy. Yep. Right? He doesn't he doesn't know at that point, right, that he's about to die.

Dave [00:46:48]:
But, yeah, but it's go ahead.

Greg [00:46:52]:
And who he lists that are that he's got with him still

Dave [00:46:55]:
Yep. Yeah. Is his fellow workers.

Greg [00:46:58]:
He hasn't ridden Timothy yet.

Dave [00:47:00]:
Right. Or

Greg [00:47:01]:
Mars. He's got Demas. Yep.

Dave [00:47:03]:
Yeah. Demas ends up being the bad boy.

Greg [00:47:05]:
Mhmm. Yeah.

Dave [00:47:06]:
He's a bad boy. Right. Yeah. He lives. Yeah. And so then in terms of, like, the obvious the obvious thing is, okay, what's what's Paul want Philemon's priority to be? Property or ministry? Mhmm. Right. I think that's one of the great takeaways if you wanna talk about an application or takeaway from the book is that it's really important for us to know that regardless of what we do for a living, like, ministry is priority for us.

Dave [00:47:43]:
As a believer, right, there's no I'm, like, we're all in full time Christian ministry. Mhmm. It's just some of us get paid for and some of us don't. Right. Right? And it's not and take it a step further. Like, how much how much personal wealth am I willing to sacrifice in order to serve? Mhmm. Am I willing to serve at my church even if it means putting a little less time at work, which might affect my long term retirement program? Mhmm. I got a longer retirement program for you to invest in.

Dave [00:48:23]:
Yeah. Right. True. But, so I think that's one of the big takeaways, right, is, what what's priority for us? Is it a life of ministry? Is ministering to my family? Is ministering to my local church? Is ministering to my neighborhood? Is that more of a priority to me than making a bunch of money? Yeah. And that I mean, that's I've heard people say it. Well, I'm going to ministry, but I can't I can't take a minister's salary. Okay. Yeah.

Dave [00:48:57]:
That's sad if that's really the case. But at the same time, if that's what you really think, don't go into ministry because Seriously. Yeah. You don't wanna ruin ministry by going into it when you're not don't have the right heart. Clearly. So that's that's one of the themes. Do you have any other I have got a 1 or 2 more that I think is worth thinking about from here. But anything else you guys wanna

Greg [00:49:21]:
add? Well, the the he's really being asked to forgive a lot because he's being asked to forgive a runaway slave and not just to not just, like, forgive him, bring him back, but to bring him back and let him go, and remembering that this is written not just to him, but to the church too. So the application is when someone has wronged you and you have rightful demands for that wrong, can you forgive and let it go? Because he had a rightful demand Yeah. For the wrong that was done to him.

Dave [00:50:02]:
Yeah. He could have had him executed.

Greg [00:50:06]:
Mhmm. Yep. And he could have been merciful and let him live and put him right back to work. Yep. But he's being called to turn him loose for ministry's sake. Yeah. And so in the church And

Dave [00:50:21]:
accept him as a brother.

Greg [00:50:22]:
And accept him as a brother. When you've been wronged by another believer, can you forgive them and accept them as a brother and he calls on their head Of course. And serve alongside them. Mhmm. Yep.

Dave [00:50:40]:
Can we take a little side note here? Because I think that it's a really interesting thing because I think people often misunderstand Paul in Galatians when he says there's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female. And how does that neither male nor female often get interpreted by the, shall we say, the the noncomplimentary view, the egalitarian view. They say that verse means that there's no more category of male or female, that all of a sudden gender roles are completely gone in the bible. Right. Right. Despite anything else that's said. Mhmm.

Dave [00:51:19]:
But if you think about Paul never says get rid of the category of slave. Right. He says he's more than a slave. Mhmm. So when Paul also says there's neither male nor female, there's neither slave nor free, he's not destroying those categories. He's saying before Christ, there's an equality.

Greg [00:51:36]:
Right.

Dave [00:51:36]:
Right? That doesn't mean you get to erase all of those other categories that exist that deal with male, female, slave, free.

Greg [00:51:45]:
So the because that verse specifically is from Galatians.

Dave [00:51:49]:
Correct.

Greg [00:51:49]:
And the Galatian church is really established like, most churches were started in synagogues. There wasn't really a strong Jewish presence where Galatia the Galatian church was started.

Dave [00:52:05]:
Correct.

Greg [00:52:06]:
And so it was started largely in amongst slaves. And then the Jews the Jewish Christians come. What I keep hitting this.

Chad [00:52:16]:
Oh. Oh, here. Okay.

Greg [00:52:18]:
So and then the Jewish Christians come, and they try to Judaize the church. Mhmm. And it's and it's in that context that Paul is saying, you know, Christ first. We're all 1. There is neither Jew nor gentile, free nor slave. He's not eliminating all those roles. He's saying first and foremost, we're brothers and sisters.

Dave [00:52:45]:
Yeah. Exactly. Yep. Exactly. So and I the reason I tied that to Philemon is because I think Philemon helps us for misunderstanding what Paul's saying in relations there, and you can't just categorically get rid of if you wanna be an egalitarian or to say that, you know, women could be elders or pastors or or, you know, there's no there's no categories. If that's the case, if that's what Paul meant, then Paul would say here, hey. He's no longer a slave. He's a brother.

Dave [00:53:15]:
There's no category. He says, no. He's more than just a slave. And I I do think this the reconciliation is a really big piece, and I think, you know, you've said it one way. I've said it in a different way before. And I just say to think about the implications of that even more, I think, is that this isn't just a short term reconciliation thing. This is, like, oftentimes in church, we have conflict, and then, like, that defines that relationship in the church forever.

Greg [00:53:49]:
Mhmm.

Dave [00:53:49]:
And, I mean, this is a 30, 40, 50 year process. Yeah. Right? So that if you've had if you're committed to reconciliation, it's not just like, okay, we're good. Now let's never talk to each other again. But over time, there needs to be a coming together relationship so that you can truly treat each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. And can that happen right away? Probably not. But you have to kind of commit to it. And as I like to say with attitudes and sports, fake it till you make it.

Dave [00:54:24]:
Like, you you don't like her as a as a teammate, fake it till you make it. Yeah. Because guess what? You're gonna be rooming with them until you become good friends on away trips or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's I think it's it's a commitment we have not just but in today's church, it's like, I'm not happy. I'm just gonna quickly leave and go

Greg [00:54:45]:
somewhere else.

Dave [00:54:45]:
And I'm not saying there's never a reason to leave a church, but I'm saying the commitment needs to be there knowing that this could be, like, I'm committed to this for

Greg [00:54:53]:
long term. So maybe rather than fake it till you make it because it sounds it doesn't sound like it fits really good with biblical theology. Maybe at a certain Bible college, it did. But, how about serve them? Because it's really hard to not, develop a loving relationship with someone you're serving. So just serve them.

Dave [00:55:17]:
That's how I would define fake a toothpick. That was a joke, by the way. Okay. Number 2 In other words, you do the right thing until your heart follows.

Greg [00:55:26]:
Yeah. Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah.

Dave [00:55:28]:
That's what I meant by fake to make it. Yeah. So you go, okay. I know the right thing to do. I know the Bible says forgive. I don't feel like forgiving Oh. But I do the right thing and then you treat that you do the right thing until you've

Greg [00:55:40]:
So that's that's authentic. That's not faking it.

Dave [00:55:44]:
Right. But that's Okay. It's a it's a play on words.

Greg [00:55:46]:
Oh, yeah. Just making sure.

Dave [00:55:47]:
It's a figure of speech. Okay. Just wanted Greg doesn't like figures of speeches.

Greg [00:55:51]:
Oh, I like figures of speech. I also like clarity.

Chad [00:55:55]:
That's true.

Dave [00:55:56]:
That's true. I will give you that that figurative make it could could be easily missed.

Greg [00:56:00]:
But if you wanna be queen of the soft hop Yeah.

Dave [00:56:03]:
Then you

Greg [00:56:03]:
can be queen of the soft hop. That's it. From your lips to God's ears. Yeah. And all 18 of our listeners.

Dave [00:56:12]:
Just not gonna approve this this this edition, clearly.

Chad [00:56:18]:
Do you approve this edition?

Greg [00:56:19]:
I.

Dave [00:56:20]:
I.

Chad [00:56:21]:
Oh, he just that's 3 to nothing. He just approved it.

Dave [00:56:26]:
I just gave up.

Chad [00:56:28]:
Oh, man. Alright.

Dave [00:56:30]:
Yeah. So Philemon. It's Philemon's book. It is. Philemon, as you've been saying.

Greg [00:56:35]:
So is next week chapter 2?

Dave [00:56:37]:
Yeah. Yeah. You can take the whole like, it's gonna be a short it's gonna be a really short short episode.

Chad [00:56:44]:
So let me ask you this. What do we know from before this and after this? Anything? Is there any evidence as to why Onesimus ran away? Is there any evidence to what happened after this letter was used?

Greg [00:56:56]:
We know that Demas, left for worldly pursuits. We know that, Mark was useful, but there's not no. Don't know anything about. Okay.

Dave [00:57:08]:
I'm sure someone somewhere has some apocryphal writing about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just curious. There's a lot of there's a lot of early church literature out there.

Chad [00:57:19]:
Yeah. And I've I've heard of some of these things where it's like, oh, you know, there's some evidence. Water into

Dave [00:57:26]:
bread and fish or something. I think he had a base a bass cannon.

Chad [00:57:33]:
Maybe that's what the steel locusts are. Flying fish.

Dave [00:57:37]:
Woah. The ultimate tie callback and tie together. We got it all. That's it. Steel bass cannon.

Greg [00:57:44]:
That's right.

Dave [00:57:45]:
That's what the lukus shaped bass cannon.

Chad [00:57:48]:
That's what the battle of Armageddon will be. The primary weapon won't be won't

Dave [00:57:52]:
be predator drones. It won't be Laser shooting out of the eyes of the locusts. It'll be bas cannons. Bas cannons.

Chad [00:58:01]:
That's what that's what they saw in the vision.

Dave [00:58:04]:
Oh, that's fine. Bass cannons. I just you know how they have t shirt cannons for for sports events? I'm just like I'm just picturing the the next volleyball match I coach. There's somebody pulling out the bass cannon. Alright, people. Get ready. We're shooting out bass. Wait for the drop.

Dave [00:58:25]:
We really need to close out with with dubstep music.

Greg [00:58:29]:
Sounds like a Les Nesman special.

Dave [00:58:33]:
I just don't I think that's

Greg [00:58:34]:
just an aging It's after the turkey drop.

Dave [00:58:36]:
I know.

Greg [00:58:37]:
It's the bass cannon.

Dave [00:58:38]:
The bastion.

Greg [00:58:39]:
Okay. I know the turkey drop was a really bad idea, but I heard of this

Dave [00:58:43]:
Oh, the humanity. For those of you who are too young to know what we're talking about, go back to the YouTube and and look up WKRP in Cincinnati and, Turkey Drop, and it was one of the greatest episodes of any sitcom of all times. I think we've talked talked to him pretty much out. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Maybe. Probably.

Dave [00:59:06]:
How how often have you heard this book preached, though?

Chad [00:59:09]:
Almost never. I'm trying

Dave [00:59:10]:
to think if I've ever heard it preached. Johnny Mac. Of course. Of course.

Greg [00:59:14]:
Twice. Dude. He did it early on, in the eighties, and then, just a couple few years ago, he did it again. Wow.

Chad [00:59:24]:
So was that the 19 eighties? Yeah, he's been at it for a while.

Dave [00:59:29]:
And, did you see he just hit his, like, 60th?

Greg [00:59:31]:
And it and it always takes him at least 3 messages to get through it.

Dave [00:59:36]:
Yeah. I would guess it probably took him 3 messages to get through verse 1. Yeah. Philemon comes from phile, lee, and mun. Wait for the drop.

Chad [01:00:21]:
Thanks for joining us at Catfish Ministries. We hope you learned something with us and maybe had a laugh or 2 while you're at it. Please subscribe and leave a 5 star review. If you really like what you heard and wanna help us make more of these, look us up on buy me a coffee dot com. We can't wait to talk to you again next time. This is Chad for Greg and Dave signing off and saying, remember America, it's always a great day to get catfished.