Edward Donnelly

Our subject today is the epistle to the Philippians, which I’ve called Worthy of the Gospel. To recap for those who are new to the conference, this series of addresses—and we’re finishing this morning the Pauline letters—is the fifth year in which we’ve been looking at them together. I’m not trying to give an introduction to the letters, and certainly not an exposition. We’ve been treating them as pastoral documents written by a pastor, addressed to real-life situations in the churches. We’ve been looking at them as providing us with help for shepherding the people of God.

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Edward Donnelly

We come to what are called the Pastoral Epistles. They’ve only been called the Pastoral Epistles for about 300 years. Thomas Aquinas, 450 years earlier, did describe them as Pastoral Letters. They are of particular interest, because they’re Paul’s last extant writings and they’re the only letters of his sent to individuals, rather than to a church. You remember that Philemon was sent to the church as well as to Philemon. Although even then we need to qualify that. In a sense, to contradict myself, it’s by no means certain that they were intent just for individuals. John Calvin says of 1 Timothy, “In my view, this epistle was written more for the sake of others than for Timothy himself.”

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Edward Donnelly

Let us come to Philemon. Our subject this morning: reconciling believers. This is of course the shortest of all Paul’s letters, 335 words in Greek. I find it intensely depressing that a new commentary on Philemon has just been published which is apparently over 560 pages. This is evangelical scholarship gone mad. I mean that brethren. That strikes me as quite absurd. Paul was satisfied with 335 words.

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Edward Donnelly



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Edward Donnelly



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Edward Donnelly



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