For love’s sake I appeal to you

Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet for love's sake I rather appeal to you being such a one as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ - Philemon 1v8-9

There is a lot that we can learn from Paul and how he deals with people. Here he is going to need to deal with Philemon on a difficult issue. Onesimus was Philemon’s slave who had run away. Paul had met him and Onesimus had been saved. Paul was writing to ask Philemon to take him back as a brother in Christ.

Paul mentions that he has the authority to command Philemon to take him back, but that is not how Paul likes to operate. “I want to appeal to you for love’s sake.’ So much of what Paul says and does is based on attitudes even more that actions. He did not want Philemon to receive Onesimus back because he had to. He would rather Philemon receive him back out of love. He wanted Philemon to do it just because that is how brothers and sisters in Christ treat each other.

What motives us to do right? Do we do it because we ‘have to’ or do we do it because of the love of Christ and the saints?

What is our motivation? I think it is clear that love should be out key motivating factor.