Philemon and the message of grace

We are saved by grace – but that is not the end of the story. We are supposed to live by grace as well. Today I would like to look at one example of grace in action.

This is a story in the Bible, a story about two brothers. One of them took the money and went away, but he eventually came to his senses. He returned to the Father, and the Father welcomed him.

That was grace.

But the problem was the older brother. Would he accept his brother? Would he be gracious toward his brother?

Perhaps you know the story – or perhaps not. Many of you may be thinking about the parable of the prodigal son, but that was a fictitious story, a made-up story that Jesus told, and I am thinking of a real-life story, a story of real people, and it is told by the apostle Paul.

It’s found in the shortest letter of Paul, a letter that has only one chapter – the letter to Philemon, that letter that gets hidden in your Bibles just before the letter to the Hebrews.

Philemon is written to people who are already saved. It does not tell us how to be saved – but it does help us see how grace should make a difference in the way we live, specifically in the way we live with other people.

          Here’s the basic outline of the story: Philemon is a Christian who owns slaves, and Onesimus is one of his slaves. Onesimus takes some money, runs away, finds Paul, and is converted to faith in Christ. That makes him a child of God, just as much as his owner is. They have the same Father – that’s God. God has accepted Onesimus as one of his children, but the question is, How is Philemon going to react to this news? Is it going to make any difference in the way that he treats his runaway slave?

Paul writes this letter to encourage Philemon to accept Onesimus back as a brother in the faith, not as a slave.

          Some scholars have read this short letter as sowing the seeds of abolition, as suggesting that all Christian slavemasters ought to view slaves as members of the family, and should therefore free them all. Other scholars have read this same letter and concluded that Christians who find runaway slaves ought to return them to their owners.

Some people today are horrified that Paul told slaves to obey their masters, and he did not tell slave-owners to free all their slaves. They think that Paul was far too soft on slavery – but slaves in the first century apparently were not too troubled by this. They accepted Christianity quite readily, even if it did not mean their freedom. If somebody offers you a free ticket to heaven, take it – even if it doesn’t get you out of slavery in this life. It would be nice to have both, but it would be silly to refuse one just because it didn’t include the other.

Well, what does the letter say? Let’s go through it verse by verse, in the New International Version.

Verse 1 says: “Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker …” This is the way first-century letters normally began. This is the way that modern letters begin, too, if we count the information on the envelope: the return address tells us who is writing, and names the person it is being sent to.

In this case, the letter is from both Paul and Timothy. Greek letters normally had only one author, so Paul isn’t just following custom here – he is including Timothy for a reason. I suspect that Timothy had a lot to do with the way the letter is written. Paul could be quite forceful, and this letter is quite tactful and subtle, perhaps well-suited to Timothy, who seems to have been of a more gentle nature. Or maybe Paul wrote it all – at least he approved it all.

Paul introduces himself as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. In some letters, he calls himself a slave of Jesus Christ, but in this letter, where he is dealing with a slave, that may have been a little too ironic. Anyway, Paul is a prisoner, apparently in jail. Scholars debate whether that was in Rome, Caesarea, or Ephesus, but for our purposes, it doesn’t matter much.

Verse 2 continues the address of the letter – the letter is not only to Philemon, but it is also “to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home:” Apphia and Archippus are probably in Philemon’s family, perhaps a wife and son, though we don’t really know. It doesn’t really matter, since they don’t play any further role in the story.

However, it is significant that a church meets in Philemon’s house – this means that he is wealthy enough not only to have a slave, but also to have a house large enough for a small church to meet in. He was in the upper class.

It is also noteworthy that this letter is written to the whole church; the letter would be read to all the members. This is going to put Philemon on the hot seat: not only is Paul asking him to accept this slave as a brother, everyone knows that Paul is asking him to do this, and everyone will be able to see whether he does. (The ancients did not have much concept of “privacy.”)

But this is not a heavy-handed maneuver on Paul’s part – it is simply an acknowledgement that Philemon’s actions also affect the whole church. The relationship of one member to another [that’s you…] can affect the entire church. “Paul turns what appears to be a private matter into a household matter in the broader sense of the Christian family. The local community of faith will become a witness to Paul’s request and thus also to Philemon’s response. Philemon cannot act privately in the matter of Onesimus, who now is part of the larger household of God and not merely Philemon’s household” (deSilva, 669).

          “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 3). The normal Greek greeting in a letter was charein, greetings. Paul always changes this to a similar Greek word, charis, meaning grace, and he adds the typical Jewish greeting, shalom in Hebrew, eirene in Greek, meaning peace – and he notes that both grace and peace come to us from God – and he usually mentions Jesus Christ as an equal source of that grace and peace. In our letters, we say, Dear so and so…

Now, a typical Greek letter usually began with some sort of prayer. Paul follows this custom, too, and his introductory prayers are not a formality – they are tailored to the content of the letter. Here he writes, “I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers, ⁵ because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints” (vv. 4-5).

So Paul is giving him a compliment. He will also be asking Philemon to exercise that love for one saint in particular, and he will need some faith to do so.

“I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ” (v. 6). This translation makes it sound like Paul is talking about evangelism, but I think that gives us the wrong impression here. That isn’t really the subject of the letter. When Paul says “sharing your faith,” he isn’t using a verb – he is using a noun. He is talking about the faith that we share with one another, the faith that we all have in common, and in this verse, Paul is saying that this faith needs to be active, it needs to be put into action.

Now of course, it’s good for us to share our faith in evangelism – it’s just that this particular verse isn’t a good proof of that. The updated edition of the NIV says this: “I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may       be effective in deepening your understanding.” The fact that Philemon has the same faith as other believers should have results in his life in the way that he treats other believers – and that’s true for us, too. As the parable in Matthew 25 teaches, the way we treat other believers is in some sense the way that we treat Jesus Christ himself. 

Paul says that he has been blessed because of what Philemon has done for other people: “Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, my brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints” (v. 7). Note that phrase there – Paul will refer to “refreshing the heart” later in this letter.

Now Paul gets to the business of his letter: “Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do …” (v. 8).  Paul was normally bold enough to give commands, but in this letter he is content to drop strong hints. He is dealing with a very touchy issue, and he wants Philemon to make his own decision, not just follow orders. Most people don’t really appreciate being ordered about, but they may be willing to listen to a hint.

Also, if Paul issues commands, he is acting like a slaveowner, something he wants Philemon to stop doing. He wants Philemon to give up some of his rights, so Paul is willing to set an example for him by giving up some of his own. Nevertheless, Paul is hinting that Philemon has a duty,  something he ought to do as a result of his faith in Christ.

He could order Philemon around, but verse 9 says he will do something else: “yet I appeal to you on the basis of love. I then, as Paul — an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus —” (v. 9). The love here is apparently Philemon’s love for Paul. Paul adds a little emotional appeal by mentioning that he is an old man in prison. He is powerless, asking for a little pity.

Here’s his request: “I appeal to you for my son Onesimus,  who became my son while I was in chains” (v. 10). Onesimus was a common name for a slave – it means “useful.” They renamed the slaves when they bought them, and this one was given the hopeful name “Useful.” But now he has become a Christian.

We do not know how it happened that Onesimus came into contact with Paul. Was it just an accident, or did Onesimus seek Paul out on purpose? Would a runaway slave hang around a prison? I don’t think so. It’s possible that it happened by accident, but it seems more likely to me that Onesimus looked for Paul.

That’s because a slave was not legally considered a runaway if he went to a mutual friend, to seek that friend’s intercession with the owner. Onesimus may have started as a runaway (Paul hints at some problem a little later), but he found life on the streets too hard, and he went to Paul to act as a mediator to help restore him to his owner without too severe a penalty.

So Onesimus went to Paul, heard the gospel, came to faith in Christ, and began helping Paul. No matter what the past history, Onesimus is now not a runaway – he is in the category of a slave seeking mediation through a friend of the owner. 

Well, the problem is that Onesimus, despite his name, had not been a very good slave. “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me” (v. 11). Paul is playing a little on words. Onesimus means “useful,” but Onesimus was useless as a slave. And there is a further play on words. “Useless” here is the Greek word achrēstos, which would almost be like saying “without Christ.” Yes, Onesimus had been without Christ. But now that he is in Christ, he has become useful (euchrēstos).

Onesimus is useful to Paul is prison, but Paul is saying that he is also useful to Philemon, even though Philemon didn’t know it. I think that Paul is referring to the help that Onesimus has already given to Paul, and Paul is counting that as if it came from the owner, and the slave has been useful to the owner by giving Paul the help that the owner would have done if he had been there (v. 13). Paul is praising Onesimus as much as he can so that Philemon finds it easier to do what he is suggesting.

“I am sending him — who is my very heart — back to you” (v. 12). Paul calls Onesimus his heart (his internal organs), and this probably has a function later in the letter. Paul is sending him back, because Philemon is the legal owner, and unless this thing is resolved, Paul and Onesimus could get in a lot of legal trouble.

So here we have the politically incorrect thing: Paul is sending this slave back to his owner. And he says nothing about slavery being a terrible evil that Christians shouldn’t have anything to do with. So that’s a problem when we look at the letter today.

But we have to consider the situation at the time. It would have been counterproductive for Paul to say that Christianity required the abolition of slavery. If Paul had said that Christianity was against slavery, it could have hindered the gospel among the upper class, given slaves ideas of rebellion, and caused more government persecution against Christianity.

We also need to remember that first-century slavery was not as oppressive as American slavery was—some slaves had white-collar jobs; others were blue-collar skilled workers. Some people actually sold themselves into slavery because slaves had some economic security, whereas freedmen had to scramble to find jobs day by day.

First-century slavery had nothing to do with race or ethnic origin. It was just part of the economy. It was common for owners to free their slaves whenever they got to age 30 or so.

Slaves were 20 to 25 percent of the population, if Paul had called for universal emancipation, he would have been asking for social and economic chaos, and most of the slaves would not have been much better off for it.

Admittedly, slavery is not a good thing. It is not good for a person to be owned as some sort of property. Some slaves ran away because it was not a good thing. But even so, Paul didn’t call for the elimination of slavery. However, he did hint at it.

In verse 13, Paul reveals what he really wants – or at least it seems to me that this is the clearest statement of what he wants: “I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel” (v. 13). Paul wanted Onesimus to stay with him, helping him in prison (which would include bringing him food, for example, since first-century prisons did not provide food). The owner would have done this himself, if he could have, but he lived too far away, but Paul says that in a way, Onesimus did it for him. He was doing something his master would have wanted him to do.

“But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced” (v. 14). Paul wanted to keep Onesimus, but Onesimus did not belong to him, and he didn’t want keep him without permission (hint, hint). What he really wants, it seems, is Philemon’s permission.

So Paul again says that Philemon has the opportunity to do a good deed (context: letting his slave stay with Paul). This is what Philemon has the opportunity to do voluntarily, rather than being ordered to do it. “Paul hoped that it might be possible for Onesimus to spend some time with him as a missionary colleague…. If that is not a request for Onesimus to join Paul’s circle, I do not know what more would need to be said” (Marshall et al., 146-147).

“Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while…” (v. 15). The reason for the “separation” may have been that Onesimus ran away, but Paul tactfully puts this in the passive. By doing this, he suggests that the “separation” may have been God’s doing—Onesimus was temporarily absent so that he could be restored more permanently—obviously not Onesimus’s original intention, but that’s the way it is working out now.

The purpose: “that you might have him back for good.” Does this mean that Paul wants Onesimus to stay in Colosse with Philemon? Perhaps, but I think the other verses in the letter hint at something different, and I think that Paul means that Onesimus will be restored to Philemon in a more figurative sense – as verse 16 says, “no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother.”

Now, think about what Paul is asking. He is asking Philemon to receive this good-for-nothing slave as a beloved brother, not as a slave. Don’t treat him like a runaway slave—treat him like a long-lost brother! Don’t keep him in slavery – set him free!

This is a rather tall order, a difficult request, and it is no wonder that Paul deals with it so delicately. If Philemon frees the runaway slave, what will his other slaves think? “Ah, let’s get our freedom by pretending to believe in Christ.” And what will the neighboring slaveowners think? “If Christianity means having to free your slaves, I don’t want it.” Paul seems to be putting Philemon in a rather tough spot.

Onesimus is a brother: “He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord” (v. 16b). Onesimus is Paul’s son and Paul’s brother; now Paul is asking Philemon to treat him as a brother – not just spiritually, in the church or in the Lord, but also in the flesh, in real life. When people are equal in the Lord, believers should treat them equal in the flesh, too. Our theology should affect our ethics. The grace that God has shown us should affect the way we treat other people.

          “So if you consider me a partner,” Paul asks, “welcome him as you would welcome me” (v. 17). “Partner” is the Greek koinōnos, someone who shares in something. If you are with me in the faith, Paul is saying, treat him like you’d treat me. Paul is not ordering Philemon around – he is treating like an equal.

          “If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me” (v. 18). Most scholars assume that this is a polite way of admitting that Onesimus has wronged Philemon in some way—perhaps by being a lazy worker, perhaps by stealing something to help him on his unauthorized journey. Or perhaps it was an accidental destruction of property, a catastrophe that caused Onesimus to take off in the first place.

Whatever it is, Paul says, I’ll pay for it, and he signs it in his own handwriting to make it a legal note of debt: “I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back” (v. 19).

But then he reminds Philemon that Philemon already owes Paul a great deal: “— not to mention that you owe me your very self.” Whatever I owe you, Paul says, you owe me even more, because I have fathered you in the faith.

According to first-century social customs, “Paul claims to be Philemon’s patron on the basis of bringing Philemon the message of salvation…. Paul claims authority to command Philemon’s obedience as Paul’s client, a social inferior whose response of service may be commanded on the basis of Paul’s benefaction of salvation” (deSilva, 671, 673).

So, no matter how much I ask for, Paul seems to imply, you ought to do it. Paul here has moved from being a helpless old man in prison and started to act like a person in authority. He is the “father” in the family of faith, and as head of the family he has authority over both Philemon and Onesimus. But in the figure of speech, he says he is not mentioning this.

In the realm of the Christian oikomene [household] (which includes not only Philemon’s immediate household, but all the Christian households in the larger Pauline communities), Paul possesses the authority of a “head.” This means, in effect, that Paul has authority over Philemon’s own household, including Onesimus, thus trumping the Greco-Roman social hierarchy of obligation…. Paul is Philemon’s patron and “head” in the Christian household, so he did not have to return the runaway slave. But while Philemon is now the recipient of Paul’s benefaction, he can again become the great benefactor of Paul’s mission by “giving” Onesimus to Paul. (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New Testament [Fortress, 1999], 388-389)

Similarly, Christians today are asked by Christ to make personal sacrifices—but we are never asked to give more than what we ourselves have been given. David deSilva points toward a modern application of this story:

Paul removes a major obstacle to unbegrudging generosity, namely, the excuse that we may have been injured in some way by the person in need. Paul tells Philemon not to withhold kindness from Onesimus because of any loss he may have sufferered on Onesiumus’s account, but rather to symbolically charge that to Paul’s own account. Similarly, we are challenged to measure other people’s ‘debts’ to us against our debt to God, to forgive as freely as we have been forgiven, to share and help as generously as we have been helped and sustained (deSilva, 676).

Whatever obligations people have against us, whatever wrongs they have done against us, charge that to Jesus’ account, and remember that our debt to him is far greater that what he asks of us.

So Paul asks again: “I do wish, brother, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ” (v. 20). He is wanting a benefit, he says, and this is what it is: Refresh my heart, my inner organs. In verse 12, he called Onesimus his heart – is he here asking Philemon to send him back? I think so.

“Confident of your obedience, I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I ask” (v. 21). Earlier, Paul implied that he would not command Philemon (v. 8), but here he implies that there is a command that should be obeyed—the command to refresh Paul’s heart—and to do even more than that, whatever that may be. He is indicating that he has been beating around the bush rather than coming right out and saying what he wants.

David Garland suggests another point of application: “We may not be able to undo all the injustice in the world, but in our local neighborhood we can stand with those individuals who are oppressed” (366). Paul could not eliminate slavery in entirety, but he could eliminate it for one person. He did what he could, rather than fretting about what he could not – and he did it by 1) seeing that the gospel leads to social equality and 2) appealing to principles of the faith, not by issuing blunt commands.

He ends with one last request: “And one thing more: Prepare a guest room for me, because I hope to be restored to you in answer to your prayers” (v. 22). Travel plans were often part of the closing comments in a letter, so Paul’s comment could be seen as a routine note, in this case also expressing confidence that Paul will soon be released from jail. But some scholars see here a somewhat veiled threat, a reminder that Paul will soon be checking up on Philemon to see whether he has complied with what Paul wants.

If the main request is to send Onesimus back to Paul, then Paul doesn’t need to go to Colosse to see if Philemon has complied. But there is also the connotation that Paul is saying that he wants the friendship between them to continue. He does not want to impose on that friendship, but yet he does have an important request to make of it, and not only the church at Colosse, but also Paul, will see how Philemon responds to this difficult situation.

Paul closes with the greetings that typically ended a first-century letter, though Paul has more companions than most letter-writers do. This seems to be the whole ministry team at the time he wrote: “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings. And so do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas and Luke, my fellow workers” (vv. 23-24).

Did Philemon do what Paul wanted? We don’t know for sure, but…

“An ancient inscription discovered at Laodicea, a village very near Colossae, was dedicated by a slave to the master who freed him. The master’s name: Marcus Sestius Philemon. We cannot be certain that this is the same Philemon as the one Paul addressed, but the identical names from the same locale do raise the possibility” (Walter Elwell and Robert Yarbrough, Encountering the New Testament [Baker, 1997], 323).

Another interesting bit of history: Around the year 110, Ignatius of Antioch mentions that the bishop of Ephesus was named Onesimus. Onesimus was a name generally given to slaves, so it is likely that the bishop of Ephesus in a.d. 110 was a former slave. We cannot be certain that this is the same Onesimus, but it is possible. “If Onesimus were twenty years old when Philemon was written, he could have been seventy at this time” (Garland, 306). What Paul did in this short letter may well have had repercussions in church history.

Paul closes with a benediction: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit” (v. 25). May God’s grace be with your spirit in the coming week—and may his grace radiate out from you to bless all your friends in the faith. May the spirit of liberation, emancipation, and equality affect your relationships in Christ.