A Full Understanding

Today’s reading (Philemon) is a short letter Paul wrote asking a guy to forgive and love a runaway slave. And, obviously, our need to forgive everyone for anything that’s been done to us is huge and one of the things that makes Christ’s followers.

But the fascinating thing to me in here is verse 6: I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.

Listen, there are all kinds of wrong ways to share your faith – being judgmental, condemning, forcing yourself on people rather than asking permission, the list goes on and on. And some Christians don’t share their faith because of all the wrong ways to do it, rather than finding a right way, a way that is loving, gentle, graceful, respectful, positive, and includes lots of listening.

And if we don’t share our faith, it’s obvious that the people we’re not sharing our faith with miss out, but this verse reveals that we too miss out. For some reason sharing your faith is one of the keys to having “a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.” So if your spiritual life feels dry, if you don’t have the kind of gratitude or passion you should have, if God doesn’t feel as present as you’d like … maybe that’s because you haven’t been sharing your faith?