Colossiand 4:7-18 - Onesimus and Mark - Rising Above Personal Failure
Two other names that appear among the ten names in Colossians 4:7-18 are the names of Onesimus and Mark. Both of these men had significant failures in their pasts.
- Onesimus’ failure was that he committed what amounted to a capital offense in the 1st century world. He was a slave who ran away. His master was a man named Philemon who lived in Colossae. Philemon was a member of the Colossian church and there is some indication that the church may have actually met in his home. For a slave to run away from his master was punishable by death, but to make matters worse, Paul’s letter to Philemon which appears later in the New Testament seems to suggest that Onesimus took some of his master’s money as he left.
- Mark, who is also known as John, has one of the more interesting stories in the New Testament. He was the son of a wealthy widow who lived in Jerusalem. We are first introduced to John Mark in Acts 13 where he accompanies Paul and his cousin, Barnabas, on Paul’s first missionary journey. Mark’s failure was that when things got a little tough, he bailed out and went home. This so angered Paul that when it came time for the second missionary and Barnabas wanted to take Mark, Paul flatly refused. The incident caused a rift in the relationship between Paul and Barnabas.
By the time Paul wrote the book of Colossians, both Onesimus and Mark had overcome their personal failures. From their examples, there are some principles we can learn about overcoming personal failure.
PRINCIPLE 1: To overcome personal failure, we must face our failures honestly
It is interesting that neither Onesimus nor Mark ran away from their failure. As matter of fact, they both seemed to run toward it. Onesimus returned to Colossae to face Philemon and own up to what he did. Mark apparently worked for years to re-build his broken relationship with Paul. In our lives, we will never overcome failure if our only response to it is to cover it up. That doesn’t mean that we must announce our mistakes to the whole world. But it does mean that within ourselves we face them and honestly deal with them.
PRINCIPLE 2: To overcome personal failure, in times of failure we must seek wise counsel, not sympathy
It’s interesting that the paths of Onesimus and Paul crossed in Rome. We don’t know how that happened, but since Paul was under arrest and his movements were restricted, it is safe to conclude that Onesimus sought out Paul. No doubt Onesimus had heard of Paul and perhaps had even met Paul through his master, Philemon. Knowing Paul’s reputation, Onesimus certainly did not go to him seeking sympathy. There is no way Paul would have sympathized with someone who was deceptive, dishonest, and deliberately violated another person’s trust. Instead of seeking sympathy, he went to Paul seeking wise counsel. And that’s exactly what he got. Paul led him to faith in Christ and then sent him back home to face Philemon.
PRINCIPLE 3: To overcome personal failure, we need to resist the temptation of using failure as an excuse to stop trying
Failure is never permanent unless it causes us to give up and stop trying. That’s a temptation which both Onesimus and Mark resisted.
PRINCIPLE 4: To overcome personal failure, we must allow failure to spur us on to greater things
Instead of frustrating us, we need to learn how to allow our failures to motivate us. Many of the world’s most successful people found that failure can be a stepping stone to success. Both Onesimus and Mark went on to much greater things after their failures. Onesimus found salvation in Christ. Mark became the author of one of the four gospels.
PRINCIPLE 5: To overcome personal failure, we must remember that God is a God of second chances
It is God’s nature to be redemptive, to be forgiving, to allow us to begin again. That doesn’t mean that God doesn’t take sin seriously. He does. It doesn’t mean that God will not judge those who disobey Him. He will. But the picture of God we see throughout the Scripture is that He would prefer to forgive rather than condemn. And if we turn to Him in repentance and faith, He will give us a chance to begin again.
Later on in Scripture Paul makes a statement about Onesimus and a statement about Mark which are very similar. In the letter to Philemon, Paul wrote that Onesimus “...formerly was useless to you, but now is useful both to you and to me...” In the letter of 2 Timothy Paul instructed Timothy to “Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service.” Both Onesimus and Mark moved from being useless to being useful.
For more detailed notes on Colossians go to http://www.larryreynolds.org-a.googlepages.com/home)
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