Philemon 1:3
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
As usual, after his formal salutation, Paul goes on to extend the Christian blessing that comes from the grace of God. Grace is defined as unmerited favour that comes from God through Jesus Christ. It is unmerited favour because no one can claim to deserve it because we are not perfect. Paul through his entire ministry was aware that he did not deserve to an apostle because of his past experiences of persecuting Christians. His conversion and call was an unmerited favour because God could have destroyed him on his way to Damascus. His Damascus experience shaped his entire ministry and understanding of God
In the greetings, we also learn that Jesus is divine by the use of the Christological title Lord Jesus Christ. This could have been taken by the Jews as blasphemy but Paul from the onset demonstrated that Jesus is divine. It is a conviction that comes from his encounter with the Lord on his way to Damascus and other ministerial experiences. The two lessons to take from this verse are that, 1. Jesus is God, and 2, that we survive by God´s grace
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