{"id":524,"date":"2016-01-14T07:21:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T12:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/?p=524"},"modified":"2016-01-14T07:36:50","modified_gmt":"2016-01-14T12:36:50","slug":"second-chance-offer-lesson-8-wrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/2016\/01\/14\/second-chance-offer-lesson-8-wrap\/","title":{"rendered":"Second Chance Offer – Lesson 8 Wrap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the Christmas break I cleaned out some unused audio equipment and office supplies. I’ve been selling them on Ebay where there is a provision that if the winning bidder doesn’t pay, you can click a button to initiate a “Second Chance Offer.” \u00a0This letter from Paul to Philemon is just that – an opportunity to make things right a second time around<\/strong> for his runaway slave Onesimus.<\/p>\n

It is a beautifully written letter that is crafted in a way that brings humor, compassion, persuasion and conviction<\/strong> all in one package. If you haven’t read it, take a moment to go to page two of our handout<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An idea that resonated from our morning discussion (shout out to those who braved the cold and the morning after the national football championship<\/i>) was how this letter was written in a way that helped show the world how Christians are different<\/strong>. The apostle Paul was in prison when he wrote this and most likely his mail was read by the Roman officials, the original NSA. This idea of treating a slave with compassion would have really stood out to them. Slaves were just property – the punishment for a disobedient slave was at the owners discretion and could go from a slap on the hand all the way to execution. For a runaway slave who caused “pain and grief”, the expectation would be for a severe punishment. Yet Paul is begging for Philemon to receive him back in love.<\/p>\n

The way in which Paul eloquently leads Philemon to consider this request is a great model for how we too can be an advocate<\/strong> for someone who needs a second chance. Paul’s advocacy even goes as far as offering to help pay the debt out of his own account. (Even with a comment that we all laughed at when Paul says, “I won’t remind you of the fact you actually owe me your very life”).<\/i><\/p>\n

A key thought from the noon discussion centered around how Paul described his prayers for Philemon. He used powerful words which carry a lot of meaning. The observation was made how Paul’s prayer for Philemon carried the mindset of developing a strength of character and a stronger walk with God<\/strong>. So often our prayers tend to focus on the needs people express (health, finances, jobs, travel, safety, etc.) – it’s not wrong to pray for those things. Yet a good question to ask ourselves is how often we pray as Paul did for people to “put into action the generosity that comes from your faith and understanding of Christ.”<\/p>\n

All in all a great book… fantastic read<\/strong>. May we all look for those opportunities to live our lives in a way that sets us apart from how the world normally lives. God so often has given us a second chance, shouldn’t we do the same for others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the Christmas break I cleaned out some unused audio equipment and office supplies. I’ve been selling them on Ebay where there is a provision that if the winning bidder doesn’t pay, you can click a button to initiate a “Second Chance Offer.” \u00a0This letter from Paul to Philemon is just that – an opportunity to make things right a… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lessons","category-wrapup","xfolkentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/menslifebloomington.org\/bloomenlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}