“PERHAPS THIS IS why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back for ever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (Philem. 15–16). This portion is filled with beauty and dynamite: “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.” There is enough dynamite packed in that simple statement to blow every form of slavery to pieces. Someone has said, “There is no method of reform so powerful as this, that alongside a corrupt custom you lay an incompatible principle.” That incompatible principle will work, like the tiny roots that creep into a crack of granite, and will break in pieces the greatest monuments of man’s pride. That is how slavery was killed. The incompatible principle of every person’s equality before God killed the custom of man’s inequality before man, slavery. It silently worked its overthrow.
“More than a slave”—Africa, once the land where potential slaves dwelt, is now the land of potential possibility. The leaven of freedom is working. Over a dozen nations have received their freedom and others are slated to follow. An African pastor put it this way: “Before a baby is born it begins to kick. Africa is kicking, for Africa wants to be born.” Another African put it thus, “We are tired of being ‘under.’” The worm is turning, and nations and the world are shaking. The ideas at the heart of the gospel are responsible for this uprising of man. We will all be richer when Africa is free, and when the Negro is free in America. We are poor in their poverty, degraded in their degradation. We rise when they rise, and rise only when they rise. “More than a slave, a beloved brother” is the watchword of that rising.
O Lord God, the leaven of Thy love is at work. We feel its stirring everywhere. We rejoice in it, for I’m free only in every man’s freedom; I’m bound in every man’s bondage. Help me to give full rein to this freeing love. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: “No longer as a slave” can mean to me: no longer what I’ve been.
