Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. I hope stuff is going awesome for you. It is going awesome for me. I'm a little too busy, but I've been fixing that here over the last few days. And sometimes the canary in the coal mine for me, when I get going too hard, is I pause for a moment and I think about the people in my life who I care about. And I think how long it's been since I've talked with them meaningfully. And if it feels like it's been a long time, that's the indicator that says, all right, well, better dial that back a little bit and get the priorities straight. So it's been fun. So I hope you're getting in a lot of that as well. I hope that you are building things and that that's going well, but that you're not underwater. I also hope that you are not staring at your phone that much. We just gotta dial that back, my friends. I know that has nothing to do with what we're talking about today in the book of Philemon, but it has everything to do with what is devouring our souls. We just gotta dial it back. Be with the people we love. I'm talking to myself more than you. I'm talking to myself more than you. You're not being lectured. I am being lectured. Social media isn't real. The phone isn't real. Humans being humans with other humans, going into the deep water of things that are eternal and timeless. That's real. So I hope you're getting a whole lot of that. All right, that's not what we're talking about today. What we're actually talking about today is Paul's letter to Philemon, this weird tiny little book at the end of the New Testament that is really hard to unpack and break down and that does not lend itself to the normal format of this podcast where we just pick a book of the Bible and chip away one verse at a time because we don't really get enough context clues in the letter itself to figure out what's going on with the story. So it isn't really narrative, and it's very personal, so there isn't tons of theology in it, but it's in the Bible. So that's pretty interesting. So, like everybody before me who's tried to tackle Philemon, it's uh kind of segmented. You got to come at it from a lot of different angles before you really get into what the actual text says. But now we are there. So if you're just joining us for the first time, here we are, actually unpacking this little 25-verse book of the Bible called Philemon. And we're gonna look at two of these verses today. But first, this is very important. We need to talk about Mel Gibson's The Patriot. Don't worry, it's gonna come around in a second. Do you remember this movie? As I'm recording this, I think it came out about 25 years ago. And when I was a kid and I saw it in theaters, I remember thinking, man, that should have been good, like really good. And instead, it was fine minus. I had John Williams doing the soundtrack. It's got Mel Gibson doing an action revolutionary freedom fighter role. It's got America in it. I like America, it's got freedom in it. I love freedom, it's got the Revolutionary War. I'm crazy about how that worked out. I should love this movie, but it just uh didn't work. They just tried too hard to do Braveheart, but not in Scotland. Braveheart, but in the Revolutionary War. And I watched it again yesterday with my kids with my finger on the fast forward button to reduce the violent content by 15% to bring it down to about, you know, what they can handle. You know, I thought to myself, watching it yesterday, yeah, I might have actually liked this movie a little more than it deserved 25 years ago. This this was really flawed. It just it just falls flat. But it's also not terrible. There are good elements to this thing. And one of the elements that I really liked and missed the first time I watched it, maybe because of my stage in life, was the relationship between the dad and his oldest son. So the main character, his name is Benjamin Martin. He's supposed to be Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox, a Revolutionary War folk hero who was a guerrilla fighter, bogged down the British. So Mel Gibson plays the Swamp Fox, but you know, a fictitious version of him. And his oldest son is played by the late great Heath Ledger. His character's name is Gabriel. And Gabriel, like all young men, sees his buddies going off to fight and he wants to go to war. But like all old, haggard, wise warriors, Mel Gibson's character is seen enough. He's like, no, nothing good comes of war. We're gonna sit this thing out. But the war comes to them, as is always the case in these kinds of shows. Heath Ledger's character, Gabriel, defies his father's wishes and joins the Continental Army. And his dad is frustrated but doesn't know what to do. And eventually, terrible things happen, and his dad finds a way to get things back under control, to help his son, who won't voluntarily quit and come home. So his dad re-enlists, trading on his reputation from his warrior past and the French and Indian Wars, and is immediately given a commission as an officer. And his only request is, I want my son in my little company. And that is granted. So now you get this really interesting dynamic. And the dynamic is what is stuff between them that is just relationship talk between a father and a son? It isn't maybe binding, but it's powerful. It's guided by love. And what is the stuff that is an order from a commanding officer to an enlisted man? Yeah, it was fun. You know, maybe I didn't care before, didn't catch it before because I wasn't a dad. Well, now I catch it, and it's really interesting. But even if you haven't seen the Patriot, you know the motif, the trope I'm talking about. It's the that's an order, soldier trope. Like often in the military, commanding officers tell people to do things and they're like, I don't know, maybe I will, maybe I won't. And then they have to clarify, no, that was an order. And then it was like, Oh, oh, well, if it was an order, oh well, let me just do that. Okay, I'll go take that hill then. I thought you were just throwing it out as like a buddy or something. On my way, Captain. But we do kind of get that dynamic in this little book of Philemon. Here's where it happens. Listen real close. Philemon 1, 8, and 9. Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. I then, as Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. There it is. Paul feels the need to clarify right on the front end of his big request, which is what happens in the middle chunk of Philemon. He feels the need to clarify whether or not this is an order, soldier, or a request. You're free to do as you see fit, but I'm asking as your peer, as your friend, as someone who loves you and has history with you, I'm asking you to do this. Now, some people have looked at this and they see manipulation here. I get it. I totally understand how people smarter than me could read this letter and to see manipulation all over the place. We talked about it a little bit yesterday that maybe we've got a turd sandwich structure going here where Paul opens with a bunch of nice things about Philemon, including nice things about maybe his wife and his kid, and then some particular praise from Philemon. I praise God for you because of your love of the saints and the way you refresh them. And then here's a really difficult request right in the middle. I want you to reconsider how you think about slavery. And then at the end, hey, prepare a room for me. I'm coming your way, another slice of delicious bread. Some people look at this and they see a manipulative turd sandwich. Some people look at this and they see a little bit of kid gloves. And these are intelligent people who write stuff like this about Philemon. Some people look particularly at these two lines that I just read you, and that is particularly where they say, okay, that's Paul really slathering it on thick. I could make you do this, but I want you to pick it. Like the trick that your mom in particular would do this one. I love moms, they're the best. This is not an implicit critique of moms. But my mom and many moms I know would say things like, You're getting to be a young man, and if you choose to go to that event instead of going to the thing you said you would go to, I'm gonna let you. But I will be disappointed if you choose to go to that. Oh dang. Like that's stung. Is that what Paul's doing here? I mean, I'm not saying my mom was being manipulative, but like maybe for my own good? I don't know. I don't know what you call that technique. Fair? Maybe Paul is just working over Philemon here. Maybe Paul is the vastly superior intellect of the two, and he knows all the buttons he can push with Philemon. We don't know, we just don't know anything about Philemon in terms of his capacities or whatever. But I still think I land in a different place than some really bright authors who see some manipulation here. I think that Paul is clarifying something that has to be clarified on the front end. It looks to me like apostolic authority was a real thing. And like that was just sort of the default setting when it came to people's interactions with Paul. Paul is constantly defending his apostolic authority. Whenever agitators come in to like Galatia or Corinth or wherever, they always criticize Paul and try to undermine his authority, his credibility, his commissioning from the original disciples back in Jerusalem. They try to undermine his connectedness with Christ to give the impression that Paul is just a guy with opinions, as opposed to a dude who speaks with the authority of Christ and the authority of the community of faith. But Paul definitely holds himself out at every turn, not as just a disciple, someone who follows Jesus, but as an apostle, one who was called, one who he says was unnaturally born. It almost sounds Macbethian in the way he described it. You know, the other disciples or apostles got there the normal way that an apostle would get there. They met Jesus and Jesus literally called them, but I got there the weird way, like the violent way, where I was an enemy of Jesus, and then I was struck down by him, and I was blinded, and then the scales miraculously fell off my eyes, and I actually encountered the risen Christ, and he sent me on this commission, and it was miraculously confirmed by the work of the Holy Spirit and affirmed by the other apostles who did walk with the physical embodied Christ. And now here I am. Yeah, I know I got here weird. Yeah, I know I have a checkered past, but I speak with the authority of Christ, and you would do well to listen to me. That's a lot of paraphrasing, but in terms of meaning, what I just said is not particularly paraphrasy at all. That is the heart of how Paul views his own authoritative apostleship. And it looks like from what I see in Philemon and its twin book Colossians, that everybody was on the same page, that the default setting of communication between Paul and Christians at this church, or really any of these churches, was that it was an order, it's authoritative. And if he says to do something that is a matter that involves church things, it is binding. So if you're Paul and you know that what is best for all parties involved is for this right thing to be done voluntarily, what do you have to do? I mean, literally, pretend you're Paul for a second. What would you do if you were writing this letter and you thought to yourself, uh, if I make this happen with the force of my authority, that is not going to be best for Philemon. It's not going to be best for his household, it's not going to be best for Onesimus, that there could be resentment there, it's not going to be best for the church in Colossae, it's not going to be best for my ability to continue to do what I'm doing, because that would be seen as a direct provocation to Rome, to Nero, the natural social order of things that people assumed was in place. No, if you're Paul and you're looking at this seemingly unsolvable problem, this Kobayashi Maru level conundrum, and you're trying to figure out how to unravel it, and you're like, oh, I see one way, one way, like Doctor Strange holding up the one finger. I see one way to solve this, and it is if the whole thing gets done voluntarily. I'm looking at the clock here, and could I have spent less time on that whole setup with the Patriot and all of that, so that we could have more time today to talk about apostolic authority in the New Testament? Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, I could have. Could I just go back and rerecord this right now? So we have more yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, it's an option. But I'm not gonna, because I had fun and we have time. And we're gonna unpack this over the next four or five episodes with a whole lot of bibling and plenty of intensity. So I am gonna do the old trick where I just pause here. I'm gonna keep recording in real time myself, but what I say next for you, it'll be tomorrow's episode. So we'll just pick up right where we left off next time around. Y'all are great. This is so fun. I love doing it. No matter how many times I've said thank you, it's not enough. I'm so thankful for you. I'm so thankful that you make time to hang out with me and that you would trust me with this time in your day. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm Matt. This is a 10-minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do this again soon.