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Hey, my friends, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast, and we are in the middle of

what's probably going to be a multi-day arc exploring this concept of apostolic authority in the

New Testament. In Philemon 1, 8, and 9, it sure sounds like both Paul and

Philemon operate under the assumption that if Paul says something, it's kind of an order,

and that orders within the ancient church had teeth. But Paul goes out of his way to make it

clear that this letter here, this request

that Paul's making in the book of Philemon, it is not such a situation. Paul says, therefore,

although in Christ, I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to

you on the basis of love. I think pretty understandably, any talk of church authority or apostolic authority could

raise a lot of questions for somebody in the modern audience. And this is a place where maybe

it's not easy for us to put ourselves in the shoes of the original audience. So we're exploring

this idea that Paul is alluding to here. We started it yesterday, and I'm pretty sure we will continue

to explore it for a few days. So I'm going to have my buddy Jeffrey Foote play some music right now,

and then we're going to pick up right where we left off yesterday.

Philemen, yeah, philemen, yeah.

The whole thing has got to be voluntary because people's hearts are softened and stirred by Christ.

If you are convinced of that, and on top of that, you have not in any way been told

by Jesus or by the Holy Spirit, who has at times told Paul stuff in the past. But in this case,

he has not broken the laws of time and space to tell you how to handle the Onesimus Philemon

situation. So you have no audible, supernatural guidance from on high

here. You are just problem solving a real conundrum. And you're convinced that voluntary on all

...