Masters to Slaves Commands & Prayer
Colossians 4:1-4 · Andrew Molloy · Sep 15, 2019
Colossians (2019), No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261916124664

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Colossians 4 is where we're at, 1 through 4. So I put up Roger's summary from last week, because I liked it. In view of the fact, therefore, that you've been raised with Christ, the things above you're constantly seeking, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, these things Above constantly you should be setting your mind upon not on the things of earth point three for you have died in your life has been hidden with Christ in God and Point four wherever Christ is made visible our life, then you shall be made manifest Then you shall be with him be manifested in glory and then I added thus so therefore I since you are freed from all the encumbrances of the sin nature and the flesh, because as you recall, we were crucified with Christ, co-buried, co-risen with Him, because you have your newness of life in Christ, therefore I, Paul, implore you to live in harmony with these above principles as you conduct yourself in your family life, and conduct yourself in, I call it the economic life.

So we, last few weeks, we talked about husbands' responsibilities to wives, right? And wives' responsibilities to husbands, and fathers to children, and children to their fathers. And this is the family life and you can see there's a hierarchy of value there that a couple commentators pointed out and it's good because the highest hierarchy is husbands and wives and then below that is fathers and the relationship to children and then below that is your economic life or back then it was slaves and masters, right? And it's strange that today we're on that topic, masters to slaves.

Every commentator said, why did they put a chapter break right there, put the masters section at the beginning of chapter 4. And I heard at one time that someone who was responsible for putting chapter and verse breaks in, every time he was in his horse and buggy and it jolted or tripped or something, he would put a verse break or a chapter break if it stopped or something. So there's sometimes no rhyme or reason to it. But that's not the inerrant part of scripture, is it? It's the content itself. So there's our topic to start. And then we're going to do a little can-can here, and then we're going to switch to ballet in just a minute.

So masters, the point that the masters should they should exhibit justice and fairness to their slaves, right? Those are the two requirements, the two parameters that masters should give to their slaves. And you have the, I have the bullet points up top, and Merriman says this, you as master must render these two things, and you are the one deciding these parameters, and that's justice and fairness. The tense, the Greek underlying information, it's in the present tense, the middle voice, it's an imperative command. So the question a master wants to ask himself, if he's living his life in Christ, in his position as master, is what is just and right? And what is fair?

And is the reward and compensation that I offer my slave, is it equal to the task of what I'm asking him or her to do? So you can see that, and a lot of people will switch those out and put employers and employees, right? And everyone does that. And that's great, but I think For the purposes of today's study, I'll just keep to the historical, the true meaning, and I won't modernize it in any way. And if I get put in jail by the SLPLC or whatever for talking about slavery, well, that's how I'll be.

So masters to slaves. I have a point about the golden rule. Does anyone see what the golden rule is in verse 1? It's sort of a reverse golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. But God... He's our master. do unto your slave as you would have God do unto you, right? In a certain way. God is just and God is fair. Well, that's that horizontal line. Because you're getting that on this vertical line, you should give that back to your slave.

And it's amazing because slavery was just just all over the place in that day and age, right? Everything, households had slaves. It was like they didn't even notice that there was slavery because one in three or one in five people were slaves. In agriculture, the mines, mining, military, manufacturing, services in cities, So, this gentleman, K. Bradley, A.K. Bradley, he puts it like this, freedom was not a general right, but it was a sacred privilege. So, that's the exact opposite of what we have today, is freedom is not a privilege, it's a right, right? So, they had the exact opposite back in this day.

It's sort of amazing that Paul, and he does this in several verses in the Bible, he elevates that relationship of slave and master to incredible heights, much higher than they were ever meant to go. And what I want to do is, you know that we're We're in Philemon's church, right? In the Colossian church. It's his home and so he's getting this letter from Paul, the Colossians letter. But Paul sends him a message directly to Philemon himself. And I just want to really read it because no one You never study Philemon, right? You never do. But we're going to do this book quickly fast. It's right before Hebrews, yeah.

And it's just this little short... and it's amazing that it's in the canon of scripture because it's a very personal letter. And it's written to one guy, you know. So he says in verse 10, Philemon, I appeal to you, Philemon, for my child Anesimus, whom I have begotten in my imprisonment, who formerly was useless to you, but now is useful to both you and me. I have sent him back to you in person, that is, I am sending my very heart.

I wish to keep him with me so that on your behalf he might minister to me in my imprisonment for the gospel." So you see how Anesimus was with Paul in Rome and he was doing something that Paul really needed, providing some sort of ministry. It could be that Philemon was doing this I'm sorry, Anesimus was doing this for Philemon as a slave, but he escaped and he went to Rome. Now he was doing it as a free man for Paul, but Paul found it incredibly useful.

And in verse 14 he says, But without your consent, I didn't want to keep him, I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be in effect by compulsion, but of your own free will. In other words, he doesn't want to force Philemon to give up Onesimus, make him free, keep him with Paul.

So he's returning to them. As you know, Epaphras came back with Onesimus to the Colossian church and back to Philemon. And that's why we have the letter to the Colossians. verse 15 for perhaps for perhaps he was for this reason separated from you for a while that you would have him back forever no longer as a slave but more than a slave a beloved brother especially me but how much more to you both in the flesh and in the Lord verse 17 if you regard me as a partner accept him as you would me But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account. When Onesimus escaped Philemon, he took some stuff. I'll just modernize it. He took a sleeping bag, a camp stove, maybe a tent, some shoes, maybe a coat. So he took some stuff to make this journey and escape. Ended up with Paul. So do you see the Christology of verse 17 highlighted in blue? Charge that to my account. Isn't that what Jesus Christ did for us with sin? He took on the sin of the world. That was put on His account.

And now Paul with Philemon is saying, put all of Anesimus' wrongs for escaping, for taking some of your stuff, your food, provisions, charge that to my account. So that's really neat. Then he says in verse 19, I Paul am writing this in my own hand, I will repay it. Not to mention that you owe me even your own self. I like that because he's saying I'll repay it, but remember Philemon, you're eternally saved because of my, the gospel that I brought to you. So you, he's saying that very subtly there, that you owe me your life.

It's kind of neat. Then in verse 20 he wants to come and visit Philemon to be refreshed. Verse 21 he has confidence that Philemon is going to do the right thing and either take and treat him as a slave but as a brother in Christ and treat him well with justice and fairness. Or that maybe he'll release them. But at any rate, he's appealing to the conscience of Philemon here. So he has a high opinion of Philemon as a master to the slave Onesimus.

And then he ends up, and I like this at the end, he says, prepare for me some lodging for I hope that through your prayers I'll be given to you. And then he ends the letter, and we've studied the whole book, Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, greets you. And of course, Epaphras is the the pastor, teacher of the Colossian Church.

So they're coming back together. I have an article that I read, verse 22, he makes a point about, this gentleman makes a point about, there's a Paul is asking Philemon to be essentially a Motel 6. You know, leave the light on for me, because I'm coming. Prepare a place for me, leave the light on for me, because I want to come see you and be refreshed.

So I just thought that the book of Philemon that we just covered right now goes perfectly right in chapter 4 verse 1, because it's masters to slaves, And he's talking generally, there might have been more than one master in the Colossian church. But we know of one, and it's Philemon. So it's a very personal, very personal, and this is the place to do it. Chapter one, verse one of chapter four, isn't it?

Talking about masters and slaves. So I'll close that portion of it. And now we're on to the closing remarks of Colossians. We're going to segue a bit. It's like I said, we were doing hip hop, now we're going to do the waltz here. So two different things. So Paul, I put up this chart. I put up most of Paul's epistles on the left-hand side.

Romans, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, Galatians, 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, 1st and 2nd Timothy, Titus, and Philemon. And then on the right-hand column, I said, I did a little, just a quick study, and I wanted to know how many of those books does Paul ask for personal prayer for himself and his ministry? and you can see all the times that he does that in Romans and then Ephesians, Colossians he does and they're very parallel and we're going to look at that he does so in Thessalonians but the only thing he asks is that he asks brethren pray for us so that's there's not much there in 2nd Thessalonians he asks that the word of the Lord would spread quickly, so the gospel would spread quickly, and that Paul would be delivered.

He asked for deliverance from perverse and evil men. Now if you go back up to that Romans prayer, you can see that he prays the same thing. I ask for those who are disobedient in Judea, that I'd be rescued from their treachery. So Romans and second Thessalonians are parallel in a way for that. And you can see where I underlined he asked for that Paul might come to the church at Rome and find refreshing rest in your company. The same thing he asks of Philemon in the book of Philemon, right? He wants to meet these people and Just like my mom and I did yesterday, we found refreshing rest in the company of fellow believers. It's very refreshing and invigorating.

Even at a memorial service. The other books that he does not ask for prayer, I have a theory about that. The condition of the believers in Corinth, in Galatia, were having so many problems, Paul can't ask them personally for personal prayer. They're just not at that level yet.

But the Ephesians are. The Ephesians are, I think, the highest I mean, they were citizens of heaven. They had the heavenly gospel. Colossians were closely behind them. So he asks for a lot of personal prayer from those two churches, where he doesn't in his other letters to the other believers. So I thought I would do Ephesians and Colossians. Colossians 4 and Ephesians 6 side by side.

Colossians 4.2, and that's our text for today, is devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving. Verse 3, praying at the same time for us as well, that God will open up a door for the Word, so that we may speak forth the mystery of Christ, for which I have also been imprisoned. verse 4, that I may make clear in the way I ought to speak. We'll compare that to Ephesians 6 and verses 18 through 20. Paul says, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. and pray on my behalf that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, and to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

And he ends in verse 20, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So what I did in this side-by-side comparison on the right-hand chart there. I brought out the connective tissue between those two prayers, the points of connection. And the first thing is, he tells them to be alert, to keep alert.

And you'll notice the second thing in Colossians 4.2 is, devote yourself to prayer. And down below in Ephesians He asked for, in verse 18, he asked for perseverance and they're sort of the same. Perseverance and devotedness are sort of the same concepts. Then the third point that are connected between these two prayers that Paul asked for is that God would open a door, either open a door or open my mouth for utterance. And the fourth thing is, he wants, he's praying that his message will be made clear, or made known, or manifest.

And what's the content of that? The content is the mystery of Christ. In one, the mystery of Christ, he says in Colossians, in the Ephesians passage, it's the mystery of the gospel. Right? And then the last point of connection is that in both of these prayers, he says, I'm in prison. I'm in chains for the gospel, or for the mystery of the gospel. So those are the points at which those merge. And I just thought, those must be important aspects of prayer. Alertness, devotedness, that God would open the door, that the gospel would be made clear to unbelievers, or even believers who don't have some of the growth truths, right? If you're praying for believers, and the content is always Christ, or the mystery of the gospel, and the imprisonment part wouldn't apply to us, but So those are just important points that I think are important in these verses two through four.

Yeah. In what way do you think these things use the word? Oh. What that means. We'll look at that. Yeah. So I'm going to do a little study on the words here. So devote. Devotedness is prosketerero. And it's a strong word for maintaining a constant attention to a thing or unremitting care to a thing. And if you persist in something with strength and intensity, that's the idea of this prosketerero. Or to, I like that, to be busy with something, busy oneself with something. So that's devotedness. And do you see where I kind of also take the word perseverance? And it sort of falls into the word of devotedness, because in the Ephesian passage he uses perseverance.

So this prosketerero is used at least two times in the Gospels, and that's an axe after Christ goes to heaven, And he's gone, leaving the disciples all alone, and leaving Mary, and Martha, and his close circle of disciples and family, his brothers, all alone.

So what's going to happen? They don't know if they're going to live or die. They don't know if it's the end of the world. Their master is gone. Their savior is gone. They're Messiah. He's gone. They saw him go into heaven, but they don't know what's going to happen.

So they, in Acts 1.14, they devote themselves to prayer, it says, in the upper room. And they would do this daily, maybe several times a day, devotedness in prayer in the upper room.

And then Mark 3.9 is an interesting use of prosketerero devotedness and that is Jesus would get crowded by these huge crowds that everyone wanted to be healed everyone wanted to be touched everyone wanted just something from him and he'd get crowded and he'd have to escape so he said put a boat ready at the shore so that I can make an escape so he he said someone a devoted disciple to stand, I imagine, stand up to his thigh in the Sea of Galilee with a boat ready to go so that Jesus could come down, hop on the boat, and they could get over and get on the water and kind of get out of there, I guess. And one time he they just took the boat just offshore right and he gave he gave a sermon so that's that it's like a secret service man you know stay with the president's limousine have it ready have the door open have it ready to go because if oh remember ronald reagan you know that his car was ready and he uh those guys got shot that car was ready to go they shoved him in there and they They took him out of there. So it's like a secret service, a military sort of term of devotedness. The second thing, alertness, it just is to stay awake and watchful with vigilance. And I'm going to tell you what it's not.

It's not like in Luke chapter 9 verse 32 where Peter, James, and John fell asleep and missed a lot of the transfiguration of Christ. They saw some of it, but they didn't see maybe many hours of Christ talking to Moses and Elijah. Wouldn't that be nice to be there for the whole thing? But they caught the last act of that because they were sleeping. They weren't They weren't prosketerero. They weren't devoted. Or, I'm sorry, they weren't alert. We're on alert now. Alertness. The Greek word, I'll just say it's gregario, but that's alert. Does that make sense? Lonnie, yeah? Maybe, I'm not sure. Alertedness?

Stay away. Be a watchman, right? A watchtower. They would set a guy up in a watchtower Yeah, looking around. So in your prayer, be looking around, be alert. Especially when you pray. I'll pick on myself. When I pray at night in bed, my alertness is... right? Does anyone want to raise their hand and help me out here? And it's not... I'm not alert. and I'll fall off to sleep, just like James, John, and Peter.

So that's what it's saying, be alert in your prayer. And doing this study, I've taken these points and I said, okay, I gotta, and not as a law, but as a just, yeah, I should keep it short, begin it, end it, and if it's night, you know, and don't, be alert in your prayer. It might help to say that we're devoted to the Lord and we're alert to the circumstances.

Yeah, right. Or a lot of times I'm thinking and I'm praying, but there's that gray area, what are you doing? You're thinking, your mind is on the above things, but you're praying, but you're not in an official prayer. It's just, I think it's sort of like that. Be alert.

And then three, open. In both passages, he asked for an open door. Or that God would open to us a door of utterance. Whose job is it to open the door? Yeah. Yeah. And we have that in Revelations 3-7. These things says, he who is holy, he who is true, and Christ says, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens, I know your works.

See, I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it, for you have little strength. for you have a little strength, have kept my word, and have not denied my name." So, it's Christ himself. Think of that strength, or who can open a door that Christ shuts? No one, right? Who can shut a door that Christ has left open for someone? No one can do that.

And I always wondered why J. Vernon McGee named his church in Los Angeles, Church of the Open Door. I just thought, that's a weird kind of thing, right? I thought he was in Kansas City. No, J. Vernon McGee? It was in Los Angeles. Oh, that's Chester, yeah. So anyway, I thought, that's kind of New Age-y. But then, oh, he's getting that from Revelation. Right. Verbatim. And that's a good thing.

So I like what Ron Merriman says regarding prayer for unbelievers, because you're never sure how to pray for non-believers. And he says, do not pray for one's salvation. And you can see this in this prayer that Paul asked for. He doesn't pray for their salvation, but God would open a door for the proper hearing of the gospel, that the content would be communicated clearly.

Someone will come along, communicate clearly the content of the gospel. So the mystery of Christ, or the gospel of Christ. And here we have what is the content in point five. the mystery of Christ. Before in the book of Colossians, the mystery of Christ was, and I'll read it, even the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to the saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. which is Christ in you the hope of glory and this again is from Colossians 1 and we looked at this earlier in the study verses 26-28 whom we preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Jesus Christ or Christ Jesus so the mystery there is Christ in you the hope of glory which is a big theme of this book In Ephesians 3.6 the mystery is that the Gentiles, and I won't read the whole thing, the Gentiles are the fellow heirs and fellow members of the body and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. And then I highlighted that the Gentiles, and they're going to be unbelievers, that they can come to know the unfathomable riches of Christ, or Gentile believers, all the riches of Christ.

And to an unbeliever, the mystery would be that that was a mystery unrevealed to them, but now someone's revealing it, is the Gospel. You know, Jesus died. He was buried, and then he rose again for your sins, and he takes care of your sins. So it's all that.

There's a lot of uses of the word mystery of Christ, or mystery of the gospel, in Paul's writing. And he uses it a lot, and he's a minister of it, of course. And then point five, and this is the last word kind of study I want to do, and that is the manifestation, to make manifest or make clear. And that's, what's the content? It's the mystery of Christ, or the gospel.

You can see that, where is that? Make all see, one of these passages has make all see, so that, I think it's in our passage here, hold on. I think it's in the Ephesians, but I have it there. It's there somewhere, trust me. Make all see, in the New American Standard, it's what I have, it's make it clear. In the King James, it's ye may understand, or to bring to light.

So you see how in both of these prayers, the one in Colossians and the one in Ephesians, he makes this point twice. So it's the content, and it's that he would make it clear and that he would have utterance to be totally clear with what he was... whether it's an unbeliever who needs to hear the gospel, or a believer who doesn't know some of the great deeper truths, right? the heavenly gospel that he's given to these Colossians, or Ephesians, the richest Christ, things like that.

And then I'll stop here, but note the symmetry with John 17, and Christ says in verse 3, this is eternal life, that they may know you, and you catch that, that they come to know God, which is exactly what Paul, he wants understanding, and Christ wants that they understand. And in verse 6 of John chapter 17, Christ says, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of this world. There's our word manifest, make clear, make known, Now they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you. For the words which you gave me I have given them and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from you and they believed that you sent me." So you see Christ himself, you see that understood, you see that manifestation of of God there, the same thing as what Paul is asking for in his prayer. So I think it's important to point out these five or so points of similarity, and that's what I did. So I hope that's clear. Questions or thoughts?

I think it's interesting that in the passage there in John, a disciple that leaned on our merch dress, who was right there next to him. And he was focused on him and his discipleship. He was there listening, meditating on the things he was saying. That he would say these things about, this is true worship. This is an intimacy that he wants all of us to have. Yeah, John wants us to have, yeah, right. Of all the disciples, he was the one that meditated, I think, on that.

The most, yeah, right. I mean, who, what of the other apostles, the disciples, leaned on Jesus Christ? chest, his breast, you know, and took in his words. It just means he was near. Yeah. It also means he had access to hear and to interact with what he heard. Yeah.

And I've heard, too, that when they would eat, there's no tables, so they would lean on each other. Does that make sense? Have you heard that before? So when you'd sit, A guy would... Sometimes they'd be on the floor though, so they would recline, but they would lean up against each other. So they would lean up against a guy or something like that. You know what I'm saying? Maybe not. You've never heard that before. No, it's a social order for males. And then, they would do that, they didn't have like tables. Yeah, right.

Right, different, but and there's that, well, I don't know if that's probably spiritualizing the nearness, but that's what I've always thought is that John would have always been the guy maybe nearest, even physically, to Christ. And that's part of the mystery too. That he would have killed us as Gentiles. Right.

Yeah. And before that point, you know, we were outside of all those promises and outside of the church. We had to go through these rituals. Now we're at liberty to go right to them. Yeah. I'll put up this that my dad did way back when for the Holly Hills Bible Church Ladies' Fellowship. Now probably the Women's Fellowship. I don't think people use the word ladies anymore. But it's a... Yeah, it's women now. You can't use gals anymore. You can't use ladies. No, right. You've got to say women or the pronouns. But it's just a simple seven point, that's very helpful.

The act of prayer, the content, what he presented to these ladies as what their prayer should be, what do you ask for, how do we pray. We don't know how to pray, right? What is the frequency? prayer requests. And I took, see that point six, Paul asked for, where did he ask for prayer? We looked at those first two references in Ephesians and Colossians. If you can see that in the back, I don't know. And in model prayers, John 17. And then Paul, and we didn't look at this, but Ephesians 3. Yeah, at the very bottom is kind of an eye opener. Why isn't this prayer phone, buddy?

Yeah. That is really interesting. Yeah, and there's no page 2. It's not in there. Actually, we're going to do that. Oh, yeah, yeah. We'll put it as a supplement. Yeah, we'll have a copy next week. Oh, yeah, because I have it up here. Because I sent that to her last. So it wasn't in your copy. Yeah, you could print that off.

Because it's really cool. I left it in his handwriting because he's a neat writer. Neat penmanship. I'm sure, Roger, you are too. Roy, I bet you are too. So it's a little refrigerator list, I guess. So, yeah, I took a little of it. So, hey, we'll go get some donuts. Carolyn's not here, so. Well, I've heard what McCoy talked about.

We should pray for those to bring the gospel, you know, to bring the gospel to the unbelievers. We're not praying for them, not for the unbelievers. It's not sort of backing away from the ministry. We're praying for the Lord to open their eyes. We're praying for the people, for all who work for these people.

And what's the verse, um, how beautiful are the feet that bring the gospel? Yeah. And it's, uh, um, the, the only thing I, I think that Paul asked that, uh, Israel might be saved, right? Definitely. That was a real prayer for him. He wanted to exchange his own salvation. If he could, he would give it to them, right? He would be damned, and if all of Israel could be saved, that was his prayer. But that's Israel. For the church, yeah. You never pray for...

Because, and I think, Mike Devine from yesterday, it's someone's will, someone has to come willingly, right, to Christ. Yeah, it's... He said... It's hard to beam over the head. Right. Yeah, all you do is present the information, open the door, make sure it's understood, and then let the Holy Spirit do His work. And it's never pressured, never... Yeah, think of all that. It's gentle, it's inviting, but Yeah. We don't really know the audience that he is. Yeah, right. Sometimes when we say things, we wonder, why would they say that? Right. You never know what's going on on the spiritual level of all your interactions.

Oh, but what Mike Divine said is, Without someone's free will, I'll say free will, but without free will there's no love. You can't love someone and compel them to do something. They've got to be freely with you or they'll reject you, you know, and that's love. That's the love of God that He would...

He just opens that door but He wants people to come, never forces them. We're not robots, we're not automatons, so that's what I think it is. Should we close in prayer? Yeah. He gives the message to those who would believe but he never forces them to believe. So his foreknowledge includes who will respond but his foreknowledge doesn't make each of us respond. Right, yeah. And he woos, right? He woos the unbeliever. That's really amazing. Alright.

Our dear Lord, Father in Heaven, we thank you for this study in Paul's prayer and that he asked for it. And we pray here this morning for Roger and Mike, the elders, and JD, the teachers of Holly Hills, and we pray that everything we say is communicated clearly and accurately and that you'll open the door here for for people to learn more truth if they're saved and if if anyone's listening and they're not saved we pray that they understand that Jesus Christ is the answer to their sins and their sin nature and that through him they have eternal life and pray that they get that message clearly and they accept it and we pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.