Philemon 1:15 For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that you should receive him for ever; The great idea underlying the present turn of thought is, that in every event of life, good or bad, God has not only an interest, but a meaning or purpose through it, all His own. There is not merely a general superintendence of Providence over the affairs of men, but a Providential agency at work in the very midst of them. Very different, no doubt, is the Divine agency from the human, with which it mysteriously mingles. Not more distinct is the Lord of all from the works of His own hands, than is His providential government distinct from what it regulates; yet moving freely in the midst of His creation, He no less freely interlaces human agencies with His own. Man's history, in short, is not the mere sum of his own thoughts and doings, any more than the well-compacted web is the mere sum of the weft threads shot across its range — there are the slowly unrolling warp threads as well; and not less surely is there the unfold ing of a providential agency to bind into one the crossing, and recrossing lines of human activity. Hence we continually see results issuing from trivial matters which the actors in them never contemplated. But the special feature in Divine Providence on which the apostle's argument proceeds is the fact that God brings good out of man's evil. (A. H. Drysdale, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever;WEB: For perhaps he was therefore separated from you for a while, that you would have him forever, |
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