Philemon 1:16 Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh… Christianity entered on no superficial and obvious contest with this ancient, consolidated, and haughty iniquity, so general in the world and so intricately involved with the customs of the rude, the laws of the advanced, with barbarian ferocities, Grecian philosophies, Roman power. It sent no formal challenge to the system, to which it was as fatally hostile as it was to idolatry. But it smote it with blows more destroying than of arms, and caused it to vanish as summer skies and melting currents consume the glacier, which we call an iceberg, which has drifted down from Arctic coasts. The Sermon on the Mount, God's affectionate and watchful Fatherhood of all, the brotherhood of disciples, the mutual duty and the common immortality of poor and rich — these were the forces before which slavery inevitably fell. Where philosophies had utterly failed and eloquence had been wanting, and the progress of arts, cities or states, had only clenched tighter the manacles of the bondman, He who taught on the narrow Galilee beach overwhelmed, by the mystic energy of His words, the consummate oppression. It fell before Him as the warrior falls, more surely than by bullets, by famine and thirst; as the giant's strength fades in fatal atmospheres. "Not now a slave, but above a slave, as a brother beloved, so receive him"; it was the voice not of one apostle only, though he were the chiefest, but of the whole Church, to the master who was himself in Christ. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men," before that announcement slavery could not stand, any more than flax before shrivelling fires. (R. S. Storrs, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord? |
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