PHILEMON 1:21

Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask.

TO PONDER

Will Gidara graduated from Cornell University School of Hotel Administration in 2001, within ten short years later he became the General Manager of a fine-dining restaurant in Manhattan, New York called Eleven Madison Park, a restaurant that never lived up to it’s potential.

At the age of twenty-six Will began to systematically guide the culture of the struggling restaurant into a restaurant which was named the “Best Restaurant in the World” eleven years later through the ethos of unreasonable hospitality, by “giving people more than they expect”.

Today’s verse is from a letter Paul had primarily written to the leader of a small church plant by the name of Philemon, a convert of Paul’s.The letter is primarily addressing what Paul calls a personal favour he was requesting of this church planter and as a result, the church.

The favour was to welcome back a runaway slave, a slave who had runaway from Philemon but Paul was asking Philemon to not accept him back as a slave but as a brother, a member of his own family.

Paul knew this favour would have a considerable cost to Philemon and offered to pay any financial restitution required but Paul knew Philemon had already demonstrated the ethos of grace, the principal of unreasonable hospitality before.

Philemon understood that God had first shown him grace through unreasonable hospitality when God welcomed Philemon as His family since forever (Ephesians 1:3-6) so obeyed Paul’s request of unreasonable hospitality towards Onesimus a runaway slave. 

PRAYER: Forgiving Father, I thank you that while I was still your enemy you demonstrated your love for me, a runaway slave, welcoming me into your family since forever. Amen.

Today's devotion written by Danny Brock, LifeWay Westside