Effective Faith

“…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 1:6

Are you forgiving? Are you willing to forgive those who have hurt you? Forgiveness is more than giving up the pursuit of justification for an act of someone’s wrongdoing against you; it is acceptance and restoration—a tangible expression of what Christ has done (and continues to do) for us.

The book that our Toolshed for today comes from is the small book Philemon. The book has three main characters: Paul, Philemon and Onesimus. Paul is the author of the text and he is writing to Philemon, a wealthy slaveholder living in the city of Colossae. Philemon had come to Christ under Paul’s ministry when Paul was ministering in Ephesus about ten years before the letter to Philemon was written. He writes to Philemon about a runaway slave of his named Onesimus. Onesimus had escaped from Philemon and made his way to the metropolis of Rome, possibly stealing some money in the process, and probably hoping to get lost in the crowd. Somewhere along the line, and surely a testimony to God’s sovereignty, Onesimus ended up meeting Paul, became a follower of Christ and later became one of Paul’s personal assistants. Desirous to keep Onesimus’ services, but aware of his past with Philemon, Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter, asking Philemon to forgive Onesimus and accept him not as a slave, but as a “beloved brother” (v. 16) and then release him for increased ministry to Paul.

Our passage for today is one aspect of Paul’s prayer for Philemon, where he asks that the “sharing of your faith may become effective.” The Greek word for sharing is koinoinia, which can also be translated fellowship. Paul wasn’t writing about witnessing or evangelizing in this passage, as much as he was talking about our fellowship becoming powerful as we are truly living in community with one another the way Christ intended. It was about showing the power of true fellowship that can only be experienced by Christ’s forgiveness among brothers and sisters in Christ. And by Philemon’s forgiving Onesimus of a very serious crime, he has an opportunity for experiencing the depth of Christ’s forgiveness of his own sins. He forgives to show that he is forgiven. The “full knowledge” that Paul writes about is not an intellectual knowledge, but the type of knowledge that can only come from experience. Here, Philemon has the opportunity to grow in understanding what God does to us by forgiving his former slave who wronged him, and by forgiving Onesimus his faith was going to go deeper, become more intense, real and powerful so that others might see his talk matched his walk and be drawn to the Christ whom he worshipped. It is a powerful story about the power of forgiveness.

How about us? Are we willing to forgive those who have wronged us? Think about the person who has hurt you deeply—have you forgiven them? If you haven’t, maybe it’s time to do so, because forgiving someone is paramount to being forgiven yourself. After all, Jesus said, "… forgive, and you will be forgiven”—Luke 7:37. And Paul wrote, “Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you”—Ephesians 4:32. If we can’t forgive those who have sinned against us, how can we possibly expect to be forgiven of all of the sins that we have committed against God? We can forgive because we know in our hearts how much we have been forgiven. May God give us the courage and strength to forgive those who have sinned against us, and may we experience the depth of knowledge that comes from forgiving others as Christ has forgiven us. Amen.