“O come, let us worship and bow down: Let us kneel before the LORD our maker. For he is our God; And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your heart, As in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, Proved me, and saw my work. Forty years long was I grieved with this generation, And said, It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways: Unto whom I sware in my wrath That they should not enter into my rest.”
Psalm 95:6-11 KJV,https://bible.com/bible/1/psa.95.6-11.KJV
Every Good Thing We Share
In Philemon 1:6, Paul says, “I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share for the sake of Christ.”
When Paul writes this to Philemon, he’s not just sending a theological essay. He’s writing a personal letter to a close friend and fellow believer.
Paul is encouraging Philemon not only to embrace the truth of the gospel but to live it out in community. Their “partnership” wasn’t just a casual friendship, it was a mutual commitment to living for Christ, growing in understanding, and making the love of Jesus visible in the way they treated others. In this case, Paul is urging Philemon to welcome back his former servant Onesimus—not as a servant, but as a brother and co-laborer in Christ.
Today, we still need partnerships like this. Following Jesus was never meant to be a solo journey. We grow deeper in our understanding of the gospel when we engage in authentic ...