Matt's mom here. We are here for Thanksgiving, and I want to take just a minute to thank you so much for supporting Matt and his family. We appreciate what he does, and I know you do too. And thanks. Philemen, yeah, philemen, yeah.

Hey, my friends, it's Matt.

This is the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast, and today is the last day of a big giant history run-up

in preparation for working through each verse of the little late New Testament book

of Philemon. But it hasn't really just been a history run-up. It's not just a story for the

sake of the story. I mean, really, the New Testament claims there is something special about the

moment in which the New Testament happened. In Galatians 4-4, it says, but when the time had fully come, or in the fullness of time, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law that we might receive the full rights of sons. Now, in the last season, on Galatians, we unpacked a whole bunch of that theology about what God did in sending his son and all

of that. You didn't listen to that season. Go catch it and you'll hear us work through some of the

big obvious questions there. But so far in this season, we've been fixated on that first phrase,

but when the fullness of time had come. The assertion here is that God owns time, God owns history, somehow his sovereignty

and what looks like human decision-making, the will of nations and kings, the outcome on

battlefields, all of these things are under his purview. And a verse like that in Galatians 4 sure gives us the impression that

none of the stuff that happened in the ancient world was a surprise to God.

Somehow, he was moving history where he wanted it to go, and that there was a moment that

was unique in history, not like all the other moments, but a perfect moment for that great event to happen,

the event that bridges the gap between the eternal and the temporal, the bridges the gap between

God and man, that bridges the gap between death and life, that is the incarnation of Jesus himself.

So the assertion of the Bible is that the stuff we've been

looking at the last few weeks in this history run up to Philemon, it's not just history,

it's God superintending his plan and picking his spot perfectly. You and I have put in a lot

effort toward understanding that spot and that moment,

in particular for this season. We've been focused on one little town, our favorite town this

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