A True Human Love
Bp. Wm. Alexander. Philemon 1:5 Hearing of your love and faith, which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; Some translators in ancient times, and many in later days, would at once accept M. Renan's version, as an equivalent, and, indeed, as a judicious correction — "De ta foi au Seigneur, de ta charite pour tous les saints." Yet those who reverence Scripture may justly maintain that St. Paul's own arrangement of the words has a higher rhetoric, under the guidance of a better wisdom. Let us suppose a writer to have before him two propositions, one of which is of special importance for his immediate purpose. He might be able to bring out that purpose most effectively by beginning and ending his sentence with the motive to which he wished to give prominence. From this point of view, it is instructive to compare the two contemporary letters to the Ephesians and Colossians. In those more elaborate and dogmatic pieces the idea of faith is of principal significance, and in one or other of its aspects is the leading subject of consideration. But in the Epistle to Philemon the writer's great object is to appeal to the principle of Christian humanity, to that true human love which flows from the constraining power of Divine love, believed in and accepted. "Love toward the saints," and therefore to the brother for whom he pleaded, is consequently placed in the forefront. It is the first note of the whole strain. Let us conceive the epistle presented to Philemon, when the delegates first arrive, and the returned fugitive anxiously awaits his master's decision. The letter is received with reverential joy. Philemon listens, or reads, in breathless expectation, and the very first word which falls upon his ear, or meets his eye, after the salutation, is love. It has a force in this place which no other word could supply. St. Paul, therefore, places love first; but as he never can forget faith, and Christ as the central object of faith, he puts love first, the object of the love last, faith towards Christ in the middle between the extremes. (Bp. Wm. Alexander.) Parallel Verses KJV: Hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints; WEB: hearing of your love, and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints;