4 I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, 
5 because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have 
toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints, 
6 and I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective 
for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us 
for the sake of Christ. 
— Philemon 1:4-6, ESV

We often turn to the pastoral epistles of Paul for an ordination service, especially for the charge to the candidates.  This is only fitting, since these are the definitive texts to pursue the  qualifications for the office of Bishop/Elder/Pastor and Deacon.  

For the charge to the church, however, I want to turn to an often overlooked prison epistle of Paul tucked in behind the three pastoral epistles.  It is one of four books in the New Testament too short to need chapter divisions.  It is named after its original recipient, Philemon, a friend of Paul and devoted laymen in the church at Colossae.  

Philemon is controversial in our day because he was a slave owner in his day, and the substance of Paul’s letter regards one of his runaway slaves, Onesimus.  People who have a problem with Philemon suffer from a historical myopia that cannot see the stark differences between first century Roman household slavery and antebellum chattel slavery on some southern Louisiana plantation.  

Let me say for the record I am opposed to slavery of any kind, anywhere, that takes away the freedom of any person.  Let me also say that I am convinced Philemon was a good and godly man, else he would not have been addresses as such by Paul, nor have his name included in our canon of Holy Scripture.  

For the purpose of this charge to the church, I want to use Philemon as the prime example of the church.  I want to challenge you to feel about your church the way Paul felt about Philemon.  I want to challenge you to be the kind of Christian Philemon proved to be.   

This charge is for all of the church, every member, the newly ordained, the previously ordained Pastors, Elders, and Deacons, and every layman and laywoman of this, Christ’s, church.

Pray with Thanksgiving

I hope every member of our church devotes themselves to some regular time of prayer for the fellow members of their church.  This is why we provide a directory of our members to every member.  Use it to get to know one another better.  Use it to pray for one another better.

Paul says for a better prayer, pray with thanksgiving.  If you can think of nothing else to pray for someone, simply apply thanksgiving.  Thank God for them, their salvation, their membership in your church.

You will find when you thank God for someone, it is almost impossible to be angry or upset with that same someone.  Serving together with fellow sinner-saints in the Lord’s church comes with inevitable differences and conflicts.  Prayer, with thanksgiving, is God’s abundant supply of living water that can douse the flames of conflict before they fan into full-blown division.

Pray, people, pray, with thanksgiving, and you will find yourself loving one another more.

Love One Another

John is the preeminent Apostle of love, but the Apostle Paul makes an ongoing argument for the priority of love as well.  He commends our ambassador, Philemon, for his love for all the sinner-saints, all the members of the church.  Every church member should love every other member of their church.

Prayer and love are different.  Prayer is private, mostly.  Love is public, mostly.  And though love, agapē, is used as a noun in this text, it is mostly used as a verb, as action word, throughout the New Testament.  

Show love by taking action to let the members of your church you love them.  Pray for them and let them know you are praying for them with a text or card or some other action.  Provide a meal for someone.  Host a dinner party at your home and invite several members.  Love those you know well enough to warn them if you see them stepping into some unbiblical ground (but don’t be a Pharisee!).  Exercise love and you will see love grow.

Increase Your Faith

Grow your love and increase your faith.  Paul commends Philemon for both.  A stellar faith cannot be stagnant.  It feeds on God’s word, like I am sure Philemon absorbed and accepted admonitions Paul wrote in the epistle that bares his name.    

Faith can grow in a church that is biblical, exegetical, theological.  Silly churches grow silly Christians.  Serious churches grow serious Christians.  You want to be in the latter.

And you are!  But you must apply yourself to absorb and accept God’s word.  Keep taking the Lord’s Day seriously.  As we open God’s word together, open your minds and hearts.  Exercise with obedience everything you learn.  Your faith will grow.

Share the Work

Next to agapē, the most common Greek term transliterated into the English church vocabulary is koinonia.  Koinonia is a rich and colorful word that it appears 35 times in the New Testament in 12 different forms.  It is translated by using about 10 different English words in our major versions of the Bible.  In Philemon 1:6 alone, koinonia is translated “fellowship” (NASB), “communication” (KJV), “activity” (NIV), “generosity” (NLT), and “sharing” (NRS and ESV).  In other places in the Bible it is translated “partner” (ref. Matthew 23:30), “contribution” (ref. Romans 12:13, 15:26), “participation” (ref. 2 Corinthians 8:4), and “partaker” (2 Peter 1:4).

I like the ESV rendering, “sharing.”  It can refer to sharing food and time together, which I particularly enjoy.  But it mainly means sharing the load, the burden, the work of the church.  It means sharing our time for church services and work, sharing our tithes and offerings for the financial support of the work of the church, sharing our gifts and talents that do the church work.

Pastors and Elders are the primary prayers and teachers in the church, but you can pray and encourage someone with Scripture, too.  Deacons are the primary caregivers to the elderly and needy in the church, but you can pay a visit to an older member to lend a hand or word of encouragement.  We even have a church custodian now, and what she does matters as much to God as what the Pastor does, because we do it for the Lord’s church, but you, too, can pick up a piece of paper and clean up a classroom, too.  That’s what koinonia is and does!

Promote the Gospel

An amazing thing happens when church members believe and behave like church members should.  Just as indifference and hypocrisy can drive the unchurched away from the church, so can prayer, and love, and good faith, and putting good faith into practice, cause the unchurched to be drawn to the church.  

This charge is not just for challenging church members to be good to one another.  More than our good fellowship is at stake here.  The gospel is at stake.

Functioning as a biblical, healthy, and loving church is the best way to get people into the church.  It validates the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ.  It shows, in the closing words of Paul in this text, “Every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ” (vs. 6).  

So, for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I charge you, our new ordinates, our old ones, and all the members of this, Christ’s, church: pray, love, believe, share, and watch as the gospel grows in our lives, and in the lives of others.