Luke and Mark are going to go on and write two of the four gospels. What Philemon does is going to affect our ability to actually experience and live out grace. It is going to encourage or discourage. It is going to discourage the Demases in our midst. Paul mentions Demas and we know from 2 Timothy 1:1–4:22 that Demas abandons Paul. I wonder how many potential Demases there are in our church, in our families? How many are discouraged about the reality of Christianity because they hear what their parents say, but then they see what they do. Or in our church; a high percentage of young people who grow up in the church walk away; will they say it was all hypocritical? And usually that is not even fair, but there are obviously some experiences that are true. We talk about grace but we do not know what it is. Paul says, do not let that be the case. My friends, our families are important today. The children are growing up, and it is important that we preach the Creed and live the Creed, that we stand on the Word of God, that we can forgive one another. Our church is important. I like to say to our pastoral staff, the fellowship and the love and the joy that we have is important to the worship of the church. You will not have a church where the gospel is real if the pastoral staff hate each other and are bad mouthing each other and fighting each other. We have to love one another and forgive, and we do that, and the church has got to do that, for the sake of the gospel.1
Richard D. Phillips
21 Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.