Daily Devo - Sunday, April 20

“I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith that you have toward the Lord Jesus and for all the saints.”
Philemon 4, 5 (ESV)

My oldest son simply adores his mother. If we play a board game he must be on her team. If we are discussing where to dine out, he sides with mom’s choice of restaurant. If I ask him his opinion about a plan or idea for the family, his immediate response is ‘what does mom think about it?’ He is faithful and unswerving in his devotion to my wife. Though I ‘play the victim’ on occasion (“what about Dad?”), the fact is I deeply admire his loyalty to her.

Something similar is going on in the letter to Philemon. Paul is praising Philemon for the love and faith he has shown to God and the “saints” (a biblical word for those who have given their life to Christ). Paul knows of Philemon’s faithfulness and unswerving loyalty to the people in his congregation, and he deeply admires him for it.

Yet some translations mess this verse up horribly. While a good translation overall, the NIV rearranges the words so to separate faith from love. In that translation, they have Paul praising Philemon for his faith to God and his love to the saints. The original Greek does allow a little wiggle room in translation, but there is not much justification for such a radical rearrangement. So why do some translations do this? It is simply because they misunderstand faith. They view faith as something we have for God, and thus rearrange the passage to make sense in English.¹ Of course scripture does usually use the word ‘faith’ when referring to our trust in and loyalty to God—but the word is broader than that. Pistis, the Greek word we translate as ‘faith’, can also mean ‘loyalty, faithfulness’. Paul is saying that Philemon was loyal to both God and God’s people.

So many people claim to love Christ, but care nothing for his bride. The nineteenth-century poet Robert Southey once blurted out, “I could believe in Christ if he did not drag behind him his leprous bride, the church.” Though he was a nonbeliever, so many Christians have a similar attitude towards the body of Christ. Is she leprous, diseased, and tattered? Most certainly, yet Christ continues to draw her near to himself. In many ways, we prove our love to Christ by our love for his Church.
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¹ Elsewhere in Scripture Paul does use this language. In Colossians 1:4 he praises the Colossian believers for the (1) faith to God, and (2) love to the saints. But there the original Greek clearly demands such a translation. Some scholars try to rearrange Philemon 5 to make it “fit” Colossians 1:4. Yet is it probably more wise to see that Paul is emphasizing something slightly different when writing to Philemon. Considering that Paul is requesting that Philemon forgive Onesimus’ offense, it is understandable that he is reminding the church leader of his loyalty (which serves as a strong encouragement to extend that loyalty to Onesimus as well).