I've been sifting through Philemon in different translations for at least a week now. It's still a mystery to me the way a verse, a chapter, or a book, in the scriptures often expands and calls the reader to tarry while the Spirit speaks over it in new ways.
This morning, I was stopped at this common greeting of Paul's:
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Philemon 1:3 ESV
"God's best to you! Christ's blessings on you!" Philemon 1:3 MSG
Often I'll go back over scriptures in the Message translation to make sure I haven't missed a thread or concept. This translation is alternately disappointing and refreshing to me, like most things and people in life, it's good to accept limitations but appreciate the giftings as well.
Here, the Message loses something---grace and peace being reduced to "God's best" is too loose for my liking, especially in light of this commentary from BKC:
"It is important to note the word order. The word “peace” expresses a spiritual state denoting a proper relationship between God and man; it is the effect of only one cause: the “grace” of God. There can be no peace apart from grace." -Bible Knowledge Commentary
Peace precedes grace. Peace is a result of right relationship between God and man. It's what the angels declared outside the stable:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” Luke 2:14
Even pasting in this verse, the connection is more obvious. It's not an unconditional sense of peace, the peace of the 60's or Asheville hippie's. It has a prepositional phrase qualifying it: "among those with whom he is pleased."
Peace as a word, as a symbol, feels like an easy warm fuzzy that we can all land on in some sense--common ground. Is the opposite conflict? This is the way I see it set up--in our modern world, it has a sense of "live and let live" between men without condition. I wish you well you wish me well kind of thinking. I let you do what you think best and you let me do what I think best. And, yes, in a way, that's ground the non-Christian and the moralist can get together on.
But, BKC brings it back to "a proper relationship between God and man" as the foundation.
Stepping back into the context of Luke, it was spoken by the angels to comfort the shaken shepherds. The appearance of divine spirits evoking fear--God sending angels to comfort them and give context? It makes me want to go back and look at the angels again---are they just thrown in there? How do they function? What is their role? A declaration? A divine confirmation of the event? And the shepherds....how did they function? More to unravel and absorb...
Looking back at this section in Luke, first a single angel appears to announce "a Savior." Luke 2:11
More questions...why speak to the common shepherds? God gives the context to the common man of the day first?
Then, comes a multitude of angels and the the message of peace, "among those with whom he is pleased."
As many times as I've set up and looked at a manger scene, the shepherds seemed a given. There are always shepherds. I haven't stopped and thought about why or thought it odder than any other part of Christ's birth narrative.
The angels are the catalyst that set the shepherds off to find the baby. Why did God want shepherds there worshipping?
"And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them." Luke 2:17-18
Looking at the text--at least Luke, I don't see the worship. I just see that they verified what God had said via the angels and spread that fact. And the fact led to wonder....
Mary wondered too, if you look at the next verse--she stored the mystery in her heart.
God delights in mystery, just as we do. What exactly is mystery but the nature of chronological time concealing things and later revealing them?
So God sent first one angel and then many angels to a group of shepherds going about their work. They were prompted to pivot and take pains to see God's work:
“Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.”
Then after seeing it, they spread news of the event, creating seeds of wonder in the hearts of the people. And Mary wondered too.
Thread upon thread....I still don't feel I've come to terms with this concept of peace that BKC tossed upon my reading this morning. But, I do feel things moving in my spirit, my heart, and am left, like the people and Mary, to store up these things in wonder and get about my day.
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