Original Meaning

PAUL BEGINS THE body of the letter with a delicate reference to Onesimus’s return as one newly converted to Christ (vv. 8–12). He underscores his great value to him by mentioning that he would have liked nothing better than to keep Onesimus with him (vv. 13–14). He then makes his formal request that Philemon receive Onesimus as a brother (vv. 15–16) and backs up that request with a pledge to pay any damages that Onesimus may have cost his owner (vv. 17–18). He then concludes this brief letter (vv. 19–25) by reminding his good friend again of their close bonds and expressing his confidence that he will do even more than what Paul has specifically asked him to do. Final greetings from Paul’s coworkers and a blessing close the letter.

The Return of Onesimus (8–12)

PAUL PREFACES HIS first reference to Onesimus by bringing up his boldness in Christ to command what ought to be done. Many commentators equate that boldness with his authority as an apostle. Lightfoot paraphrases it: “My office gives me authority to dictate thy duty in plain language, but love bids me plead as a suitor.”1

If this is Paul’s meaning, he subtly asserts his apostolic authority by saying that he refrains exercising it. Such a seemingly innocent statement would contain a veiled threat: “Do what I ask freely, but if you don’t, I will command you.” He cloaks his authoritarian posture with a thin veil of politeness. He then only pretends to be a helpless petitioner and fully intends to lower the boom if he is not obeyed. This interpretation is wrong for three reasons. The word “boldness” is not a synonym for “authority.”2 Paul calls Philemon his partner (v. 17) and treats him as an equal. Third, showing him an iron hand in a velvet glove of humility would undermine all of the politeness strategies that Paul employs to avoid the least hint of compulsion.

Wilson understands Paul’s statement quite differently:

Ordinarily, a request from Paul would have the prima facie force of an apostolic command. If Paul genuinely wants to reduce the force of such a command, and turn it into a friendly request, he needs to formulate a new pragmatic principle, and this he can only do by describing the new “rules.”3

Paul does this by making clear that his request comes from one brother to another. He bends over backwards to avoid any hint of authoritarianism, and we should not read it into the text. He does not pull rank and issues no command but instead humbly “appeals” (vv. 9–10) and offers his personal financial guarantee as an equal partner (v. 18). Paul does not want to coerce Philemon’s decision in any way or box him into a corner so that he will lose face in granting his request.

“Boldness” refers to the right to speak freely, frankly, and fearlessly, which any Christian can do. Paul’s right to speak with candor and to command does not derive from his apostolic office but from being “in Christ.” Any Christian, apostle or not, bishop or not, can tell a brother or sister in Christ to do what they ought to do. Such people may obey out of deference to the authority of the one who commands or out of fear of punishment (loss of face or position) for failing to comply. Paul would rather that Christians do what is good out of faith and love because they know it is the Christian thing to do (vv. 5–7).

Many have noted how reticent Paul is in this letter, only dropping hints here and there about what he wants his friend to do. Verse 9 explains why. He wants his friend to do what is right but will not command, because he wants Philemon to draw his own conclusions and to make his own decision about what is fitting in Christ to do. Paul understands that interfering directly in a master’s relationship with his slave is as impertinent as someone today ordering about another’s children or meddling in how they should be disciplined. Most parents do not appreciate unsolicited advice on how they ought to raise or discipline their children; masters in the ancient world did not want to be told what to do with their slaves.

Philemon’s culture had conditioned him to view slaves as less than full persons who were deservedly consigned to their lot by fate, and Philemon would have been expected to exact revenge on one who stole away. But what was culturally permissible for dealing with a runaway slave was at odds with what is fitting in Christ.4 A captured runaway in the first century could expect to receive anything from a brutal flogging to branding, from being sold to work on a farm to being sold to work in the galleys or mines, from crucifixion to being thrown to the wild beasts in the arena.5 He might also be compelled to wear an iron collar engraved with the name and address of the owner and the command “Catch me for I have fled my master.”

Forgiveness was not the norm in Philemon’s world, but it is a fundamental requirement for Christians (Matt. 6:14–15; 18:21–22). Paul makes that clear in Colossians 3:12–14, where he tells them that God’s chosen people are to be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, and to be as forgiving as the Lord. Paul seeks to activate Philemon’s Christian consciousness to make him aware of what is required for him to do in this situation, and his request puts flesh and bones on the abstract ethical exhortation to have compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. He expects Philemon, as a Christian who has been renewed in the image of his Creator (Col. 3:10), to show love and to forgive his grievance against Onesimus, just as the Lord forgave him his sins.

Love becomes the virtue that wraps the community of saints together into a perfect unity and is the touchstone of Christian conduct. It forms the basis of Paul’s appeal. In his hymn to love in 1 Corinthians, Paul writes that “It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (13:5). “It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (13:7). Because we have redemption and forgiveness of sins in Christ (Col. 1:14), Philemon should forgive his repentant and converted slave the wrongs committed against him and give him his earthly redemption.

What is frequently overlooked is that Paul also expects Onesimus to act from love. Paul sends him home with a ringing endorsement, but he has no guarantee that Philemon will honor it. Onesimus must be willing to accept with grace whatever Philemon might decide in his case, which could include severe punishment or being sold to another master.6 Like the prodigal son returning home, he can only cast himself on the mercy of his master. He has now become his brother in Christ, but he surely knows that brothers do not always act with love toward one another. Paul makes his request with confidence because of Philemon’s previous demonstration of a loving spirit (vv. 5, 7), but Onesimus cannot expect an impartial arbitrator to intervene decisively for him. He returns because of love and hopes that he will be received in love.

Verse 9b begins a new sentence (as in the NIV), which highlights Paul’s wisdom of experience and his suffering and weakness: “an old man and … a prisoner of Christ” (v. 9), though Paul is not trying to augment his authority. “Old man” does not mean that Paul is aged or has one foot in the grave. Philo lists the seven ages of man, according to Hippocrates, and the elderly man (presbytes) is the next to last stage (from age 50 to 56).7 What is important for his argument is the implication that he is older than Philemon. According to Leviticus 19:32, the younger should “show respect for the elderly and revere your God” (see Sir. 8:6), and the customary deference shown to elders in ancient cultures gives Paul more leeway to make his extraordinary request.8

Paul pulls at Philemon’s heartstrings by reminding him of his captivity for preaching the gospel (see v. 13) while appealing to an old man’s privilege. The request for Onesimus may seem obvious and natural to those of us who live in societies that consider slavery to be a heinous sin against human decency. In Paul’s culture, however, thoughts of abolitionist reform were unheard of and a world without slavery was inconceivable. Paul’s plea to welcome Onesimus and his hints that he should be given his freedom were unprecedented. He therefore begs that allowances be made for the quirks of an old man who is now imprisoned.

Before making his actual appeal Paul smoothes the way with four deft touches.9 (1) He lets Philemon know that Onesimus has become a Christian.10

(2) The father/son imagery used to relate this conversion conveys Paul’s close relationship to Onesimus.11 He says he “begot” him (NIV, “who became my son”) in chains.12 Imprisonment did not neutralize the fruitfulness of Paul’s ministry in making converts (see Phil. 1:12–14).

Paul then eases the tense situation further with a play on the name of Onesimus, which means “useful” in Greek.13 Slaves bore the names that either slave dealers gave them to extol their wares or that their masters gave them to express their hopes. “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me” (v. 11) contains a wordplay that can be found in other writers, but it becomes more poignant and memorable in this situation.

Paul takes the wordplay to still another level. The word achrestos (“useless”) and achristos (“Christless”) would have been pronounced exactly the same.14 Onesimus was not useful before because he was without Christ!15 When he became a Christian, however, he became useful, euchrestos. Onesimus was not useful before because he was without Christ. But now that he is in Christ, he has become truly Onesimus, useful. Philemon’s slave returns as the slave of Christ, having found his true identity.

(3) Paul is careful to note that Onesimus had already been useful to him before he sent him back to Philemon (v. 11). As a prisoner, Paul needed others to take care of his needs, fix his food, run errands, and keep him company (see Acts 24:23). Onesimus may have possessed special skills that enabled him to offer Paul even greater service than fulfilling menial chores. Paul’s friendship with Philemon allows him to take for granted that he would have done as much as possible to help him.

Unknown to Philemon, Onesimus had represented him (“take your place”) in serving Paul in the gospel (v. 13). As Scott points out, Paul gives Philemon full “credit for all this faithful labor. Onesimus had been acting for his master, who would only have been too happy, if he had been near at hand, to comfort his old friend who was suffering for the gospel.”16 As Philemon has refreshed the saints on numerous occasions, Onesimus, his slave, has refreshed Paul. Both have served others in the Lord.

(4) Paul intensifies his request by calling Onesimus his “very heart” (v. 12). He uses the term “heart” (splangchna) in all three sections of the letter (vv. 7, 12, 20). Paul has already praised Philemon for “refresh[ing] the hearts of the saints” (v. 7), referring to some benevolence that lifted their spirits, and he cannot imagine that Philemon will be callously indifferent to his own heart. In his conclusion, Paul will make yet another pun with Onesimus’s name: “that I may have some benefit [onaimen] from you in the Lord; refresh my heart in Christ” (v. 20). He indirectly requests that Philemon refresh his heart as he had other Christians and that if it involves financial generosity on his part; he should not penalize Onesimus.

“Refreshing the heart” rarely appears in other ancient literature, and Clarke argues that its use by Paul (perhaps coined by him) highlights an important feature of Christianity. While other Greco-Roman religions did not think refreshing the lives and spirits of other adherents to be vital to piety, Paul’s phrase reflects his Christian conviction that “all of one’s actions should be directed to the benefit of others.”17

Paul’s Unfulfilled Desire to Keep Onesimus with Him (13–14)

PAUL EXPRESSES HIS personal preference, “I would have liked to keep him with me” (v. 13), but he puts aside his own wishes out of consideration for Philemon’s rights and feelings. The use of the imperfect tense (eboulomen) may imply that Paul debated whether to send Onesimus back, but it places the burden of responsibility for Onesimus’s delay in returning on Paul: He had kept the slave because of his usefulness. By sending back his child, his heart—someone who had become very useful to him—Paul exemplifies “the kind of selfless love he wishes to instil in Philemon.”18 He waived his own interests out of a sense of duty to Philemon. The implication is that Philemon should do the same for Paul.

There are two reasons why Paul sends Onesimus home. (1) Paul will do nothing without Philemon’s specific consent (v. 14), nor will he try to make his ethical decisions for him. He refuses to take his friendship with Philemon for granted and assume that he would be delighted to learn that his slave was an indispensable help during Paul’s incarceration and should stay on as long as Paul needed him. Nor did Paul allow Onesimus’s conversion to override his sense of duty and assume that Onesimus’s conversion now meant that Philemon should let bygones be bygones. The reality was that if Philemon rejected his appeal, Paul could do nothing except break relations with Philemon and perhaps encourage others to do so. That he calls his request a “good deed” (v. 14, NRSV) concedes that Paul and Onesimus are entirely subject to Philemon’s goodwill. Goodwill is not something that can be dictated.19 Philemon must decide for himself to do good.

Old Testament law would also have allowed Paul to give Onesimus protection. “If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him” (Deut. 23:15–16). Roman law, however, strongly condemned anyone who corrupted another’s slave or knowingly offered asylum to a fugitive slave. But the law is not a key factor in Paul’s decision to send Onesimus back. Dunn astutely comments: “Paul makes it clear that he is sending Onesimus back not because of such legal obligations, but because of Onesimus’s new status: wrongs done among fellow believers had to be sorted out as among fellow believers (v. 16; cf. 1 Cor. 6:1–8).”20

(2) The other reason for sending Onesimus home is the premium Paul places on a face-to-face reconciliation between two believers, a slave and an owner. The apostle’s personal wishes therefore must yield to this greater end. Essentially he says in these verses, “I would like to keep him, but his reconciliation with you is more important.”21

I find two indications in these verses that Paul would like Philemon to free Onesimus. (1) The first is his reference to Onesimus’s help. He ties that service to the gospel (“helping me while I am in chains for the gospel”).22 Paul uses the verb “help” (“serve,” diakoneo) elsewhere for Christian service (2 Cor. 3:3; 8:19, 20), and he uses the noun form (diakonia) in Colossians for service in the gospel ministry (Col. 1:7, 23, 25; 4:7, 17). From this delicately worded statement, Philemon could infer that Paul would like him to send Onesimus back to work with him or to be allowed to leave with Paul after his visit. Paul’s need for help in the gospel was far greater than any need Philemon had of his slave.

(2) The other indication comes from his use of the word to agathon (the “good”) in verse 14. Translations render it variously: “your good deed” (NRSV), “your kindness” (REB), “act of kindness” (NJB). These are better than the NIV’s “any favor,” because Paul is not simply asking a favor from Philemon but for him to do “a good thing” as a Christian brother. Philo comments on the law of slavery in Deuteronomy 15:12–18 and its requirement that a slave be set free after six years of service and uses the word “good” for giving the slave his freedom. He encourages that it be done without hesitation: “For a slave can have no greater boon [‘good,’ agathon] than freedom.”23 The “good” that Paul wants Philemon to do is to set free his slave.

The Request to Receive Onesimus As a Brother (15–16)

PAUL CONTINUES TO speak with reserve and leads into his actual request with a “perhaps.” The passive voice, “he was separated from you,” is a euphemism for Onesimus’s illegal flight. But the passive voice is also used in the New Testament to denote God’s agency and further mitigates the seriousness of whatever Onesimus may have done by attributing it all to God’s purposes. Gnilka states what many commentators have concluded: “Behind the passive formulation is to be presumed the activity of God, who is involved in the case.”24 Paul would like Philemon to see the hand of God in what has happened by insinuating that Onesimus’s flight may have had some divine purpose.

This move is psychologically astute. The less malicious intent we attribute to the person who violates us in some way, the less anger we feel toward them. Couching Onesimus’s departure in the grammar of God’s purposes can only help Philemon ease his anger at his slave. The basic assumption is that God is the one who transformed Onesimus and that God “separated the slave from Philemon for a time—in order to effect the transformation.”25

If this is so, then Philemon should ponder what God’s will is for Onesimus. Why did the slave experience this transformation? Was it only to make him a good slave, or was he intended for something more as a slave of Christ? We can imagine that slaves who became sincere Christians served their masters more industriously (see Col. 3:22–25). But Paul does not revel in the transformation of a useless slave into a useful one, as if conversion’s only purpose in such cases is to improve the service that slaves render their masters. God’s designs, then, will not be complete until Philemon receives him as a beloved brother and sets him free for service in the gospel—hence Paul’s use of “perhaps.”26

Philemon has lost a slave for a brief time so that he can gain him back forever as a brother. Paul frames this comment as a business deal with spiritual dimensions by using accounting language for receipts (apecho; see Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; Phil. 4:18). The NIV translation “have him back for good” literally reads “have him back forever” and may miss a theological nuance. Paul is not saying that Onesimus’s new faith will mean that his owner need never worry about his slave trying to escape again.27 He alludes to the new relationship between them. Philemon receives Onesimus back as a fellow Christian, and they will be together in eternity. It is as if Paul says: “He will always be yours but on a different level, not as your possession, but as your brother.”28

Paul speaks theologically of the transformed relationship between Onesimus and Philemon based on forgiveness and love. The phrase in verse 16, “both as a man and as a brother in the Lord,” translates an ambiguous Greek phrase that reads literally, “both in the flesh and in the Lord.” Paul may only be asking that Onesimus be treated with love as a fellow Christian. In the flesh, Onesimus remains legally Philemon’s slave; but spiritually, he should be regarded and treated as much more—as a brother. Their spiritual union together “in the Lord” transcends the earthly master/slave relationship.

In other words, Paul affirms that Onesimus, the man, is far more than a piece of property. He is Philemon’s equal before the Lord. Veyne comments on the master/slave relationship:

Personal ties were highly unequal, and it was this inequality that was common to all slaves, however different their condition was in other respects. This common condition—involvement in an unequal personal relation with a master—is what makes “slavery” a meaningful word. Whether powerful or wretched, all slaves were spoken to in the tone and terms used in speaking to children and inferior beings.29

When love, warmth, care, and respect rule our treatment of others who may be socially, legally, and economically at a lower station in this world, all “flesh” categories eventually fade away.

Paul asks Philemon to consider Onesimus differently.30 The question is, how differently? Can he still regard him as his slave and as his brother? Does Paul send Onesimus back as a contrite slave who will now resume his duties with renewed vigor as a Christian? Or does Paul expect the change in their spiritual relationship to have direct effects on their social and legal relationship? Paul adds a new dimension to the equation in verse 16, well paraphrased by Lightfoot: Onesimus is a dear brother “most of all to me—more than most of all to thee.”31 With this statement Paul makes it clear that the issue does not concern only the relationship between Onesimus and Philemon.32 It is a three way relationship: Onesimus-Paul-Philemon. Christ reigns over them all and joins them together. If Paul is to have any benefit in the Lord (v. 20), Philemon needs to go beyond what Paul specifically asks (v. 21) and set his slave free.

Receiving him “no longer as a slave” (v. 16) is therefore a subtle but open invitation to free Onesimus. One can take it literally: “Since he has become a beloved brother, he should no longer be your slave.” Paul, however, cannot bluntly ask this since it presents Philemon with a ticklish, practical dilemma. Almost everyone would have considered it absurd to manumit a runaway slave immediately upon his return with a letter from Paul. Such an action would have two effects: It would seriously diminish Philemon’s reputation among other slave owners in a society where reputation was important;33 furthermore, it would also have a negative impact on any other slaves in his household.34 The carrot-and-stick approach that governed slave relations would be dealt a serious blow. Manumission would no longer be a reward for years of hard work but a prize for running away.

If it were explained that Onesimus was freed because he had become a Christian, other slaves would soon feign conversion. What if some of his other slaves were already Christians? Would they not expect the same treatment?35 Barclay concludes that the social situation was so complex that Paul deliberately left things open-ended, leaving the decision entirely to Philemon because Paul did not know what to advise.36 Barclay helps us see how radical a request for Onesimus’s freedom would be and how costly it would be for Philemon. The decision must be Philemon’s, but Paul does not leave him clueless about what he should do.

The Request Backed by Paul’s Pledge (17–18)

VERSE 17 IS the letter’s climax: “Welcome him as you would welcome me.”37 Paul not only intercedes for Onesimus but identifies with him. Onesimus, the runaway slave, returns home as Paul’s apostolic representative. We would hardly expect Philemon to treat Paul as a slave, but we would also hardly expect him to receive Onesimus as Paul’s ambassador and clad in his honor. But Paul asks Philemon to receive his slave not only as a brother but as he would his partner. As Onesimus’s service to Paul represented Philemon’s service to the jailed apostle (v. 13), so Philemon’s reception of Onesimus will represent his reception of Paul.

Again, Paul does not try to throw his apostolic weight around but makes his request as a partner and laces it with accounting terminology: “if he owes,” “charge it to me,” “I will pay.”38 Paul tries to forestall any possible unwillingness to receiving Onesimus back with open arms by incurring a debt of honor to make restitution for any wrong committed by Onesimus. This sweeping pledge is more than a rhetorical appeal “merely for the sake of argument.”39 Although Paul states the matter hypothetically, “if he has done you any wrong,” it is hypothetical “only in form.”40 Paul knows very well that Onesimus has wronged his master and may perhaps owe him a considerable sum of money.

Paul is deliberately vague about how Onesimus has wronged Philemon to avoid stirring up unpleasant memories and shifting attention away from the dramatic change in Onesimus. Commentators, however, try to guess what the wrong was. They note how runaway slaves frequently made their getaway with their master’s silver and jewelry, perhaps to ensure that they could get as far away as possible. Many, such as Lightfoot, speculate that Onesimus pilfered enough money to make his way to Rome:

He seems to have done just what the representative slave in the Roman comedy threatens to do, when he gets into trouble. He had “packed up some goods and taken to his heels.” Rome was the natural cesspool for these offscourings of humanity. In the thronging crowds of the metropolis was his best hope of secrecy. In the dregs of the city of the rabble he would find the society of congenial spirits.41

Callahan vigorously challenges this kind of speculation as having no foundation in the text and buying “into the stereotype of the thieving, indolent slave which is part of the mythology of all slave-holding societies.”42 Nothing suggests that Onesimus looted Philemon of his goods except that this was commonly done by runaways. Nevertheless, running away from a master was itself regarded as a form of theft; he has stolen himself.43 His truancy, like any absenteeism, cost Philemon something. Not only would he lose the value of each lost day’s work, Philemon may have had to rent another slave to fulfill Onesimus’s duties and may have hired slave catchers to hunt him down. Onesimus may also have brought some loss to his master in a business dealing. Whatever it is, Paul accepts the debt as his own: I’ll cover it from my own pocket.44

This pledge is astounding when one considers the historical context, and it emphasizes how committed Paul is to Onesimus. Few would be willing to take full responsibility for any debts that others may have incurred, let alone those of a slave, since most regarded slaves as morally irresponsible. Paul’s exceptional pledge should not be dismissed as an empty promise that banks on Philemon’s reluctance to accept it.45 The pledge that follows in verse 19 is legally binding. Paul’s rhetorical strategy is to shift “much of the perceived cost from Philemon onto himself.”46 He eases Philemon’s concession by maximizing the cost to himself and minimizing the cost to Philemon. But this pledge also uses typical Greco-Roman friendship language of debt and credit to express the reciprocal obligations of friends.47 In modern idiom, Paul is saying to his friend, “I owe you one.”

Conclusion (19–25)

SINCE THE LETTER is being read aloud to the church (v. 2), it is necessary for Paul to notify the listeners, who cannot see the change in handwriting, that he has taken the stylus to write out his promissory note.48 This IOU is the same kind of bond that Paul refers to in Colossians 2:14. This bond adds a new twist to Paul’s request. Paul never specifically mentions forgiving Onesimus (contrast the Pliny’s letter to Sabinianus), and Koester contends that Paul “is meticulously concerned not to put Onesimus in a situation which would henceforth bind him in thankfulness to his master’s magnanimity.” The “legal and business-like guarantees” lift Onesimus’s personal obligations to his master.49 Paul may also be expressing a willingness to bear the cost of the slave’s freedom.

With the phrase “not to mention that” Paul uses a rhetorical gambit whereby one mentions what he will not mention. The apostle subtly reminds Philemon of the basis of their relationship and how he could even make such an unheard of request. He suddenly converts Philemon from a creditor, whose debt will be paid in full, to a debtor, who cannot possibly repay the price of his life. “You owe me your very self” means that the debt, unlike the one created by Onesimus, is not monetary but spiritual.50 The New Testament assumes that monetary obligations can be repaid in full; spiritual obligations cannot (see Matt. 18:23–35; Mark 8:37). This debt owed Paul, therefore, puts Philemon “under a limitless moral obligation to comply with Paul’s requests.”51 His letter calls in that debt without seeming to do so.52

Verse 20 begins with an emphatic “Yes” (NIV, “I do wish”). Friendship in the ancient world was a reciprocal relationship that continued when friends exchanged gifts, services, and benefits. Philemon’s positive response will be a “benefit” to Paul that will “refresh” his “heart in Christ.” Paul eases the tension created by the unanticipated “non-mention” of Philemon’s indebtedness with another playful pun on Onesimus’s name: “that I may have some benefit.”53 That this phrase was used elsewhere does not mean that the pun on the name was not intentional in this situation.54

As a Hebrew of Hebrews, Paul comes from a pun-loving background, and he continues his wordplay by saying that his heart will be refreshed. He has already commended Philemon for refreshing the hearts of the saints (v. 7) and has identified Onesimus as his heart (v. 12). By granting his request, Philemon will lift Paul’s spirit and alleviate his fears and worries about his child, Onesimus. He describes the benefit, however, as “in the Lord.” Simply readmitting him as a slave would provide no real benefit in the Lord to Paul. The apostle will truly have a “benefit in the Lord” if Onesimus is free to serve the gospel, not just his master.55

Paul’s words in verse 21 exude confidence because he knows his man.56 Philemon is a beloved coworker (v. 1), a brother (v. 7), and a partner (v. 17), who has already shown his love and faith (v. 5) and hospitality (v. 7).57 He is not just a good man but one who is in the Lord. Paul knows he will obey. The obedience is not to Paul but to the Lord, whom he has just referred to in verse 20, and to the command of love that undergirds the entire letter.58

Paul does not exert his apostolic authority in a heavy-handed way. He relies only on the power of moral persuasion by authoritatively presenting the options for Philemon’s decision: “This is clearly what you should do as my partner in Christ guided by the rule of love, but you be the judge.” Paul has delicately framed his entreaty for Onesimus so that Philemon will not be obeying Paul but his Lord.59 He fully expects Philemon to meet Onesimus’s disobedience to him, his master, with his own obedience to a greater Master (Col. 4:1).60 Obedience is a matter of faith, and it recalls Paul’s grateful prayer for Philemon’s “faith in the Lord Jesus” (vv. 5–6).

Paul does not explicitly ask Philemon to do anything more in this letter than to accept Onesimus as his brother in Christ and to welcome him as if he were Paul. To what, then, does the “even more” in verse 21 refer? It could simply be a crowning rhetorical flourish.61 It might allude to Paul’s desire to have “his heart” returned to him so that Onesimus can continue his service to him. It might also imply that Philemon will give Onesimus his freedom. I opt for this last alternative. Paul is hopeful—more than that, confident—that Philemon will set Onesimus free so that he might devote himself fully to serving in the gospel.

Paul makes one last request related to his hoped-for release from prison and his prospective visit. Paul has shrouded his supplication for Onesimus in a guarded indirectness. Now he makes a direct request: “Prepare a guest room for me” (v. 22). In our culture, this may seem a little pushy because many imagine hospitality as a serious imposition. This attitude is reflected in Ben Franklin’s witticism (expressed in different forms through the ages) that fish and visitors smell after three days. We can imagine the reaction a pastor might get after informing a spouse that a famous evangelist had called and said that he might be coming to town and planned to stay with them for a while. The evangelist did not say when he would arrive, but he expects the pastor and his wife to get a room ready for him. In our setting, most would not be overjoyed by the news, and consequently few would be so bold to make such a demand of others’ hospitality.

By contrast, Paul’s self-invitation would not have been a serious imposition in his culture. Osiek reminds us that the house was

not the place to escape from work but the place where much of the work was done; it was not the place to be free of a public role but the place to enhance that role by hospitality. The modern idea of the sacred privacy of the home does not apply.62

Wilson argues that since granting such a request was not costly or threatening to Philemon, Paul did not need to express it with the same politeness strategies that he used in making his request for Onesimus.63 He could bluntly tell him to get a room ready, but he could not make his request for Onesimus so artlessly.

Paul’s arrival in Philemon’s home would be a gracious answer to prayer. Paul again uses the divine passive “to be restored to you” (see v. 15), which reveals that he would regard his release from prison as divine intervention. The plural “your prayers” reminds us that this letter is intended for the entire church. He takes for granted that his prayers for them (v. 4) will be reciprocated with their prayers for him. This verse is, therefore, not an implied threat: “I will be coming, God willing, to see how you responded.”64 If Philemon only complies because Paul threatens to make some inspection tour, then the letter has failed to do its work in motivating him to respond from love.

Paul signs off with greetings from his fellow prisoner, Epaphras, and his fellow workers. The “you” in verse 23 is singular. Presumably, each of these persons would vouch for Onesimus and concur with Paul’s request on his behalf.

Bridging Contexts

AT FIRST GLANCE, Philemon may seem to have little practical value to the reader today since slavery has been abolished in most of the world. Worse, the letter may be an embarrassment, since Paul seems to tolerate an institution that we now consider a monstrous abuse of human rights. Paul wrote that in Christ there is no slave or free (Col. 3:11), and he had an opportunity to denounce slavery as a great evil in this letter.

He does not make a peep of protest, however. Instead, the letter only seems to reinforce the command for slaves to obey their earthly masters in everything (cf. Col. 3:22). He cajoles rather than castigates a member of the propertied slave-holding class and sends a slave back to face the judgment of his master—a judgment he hopes, but cannot guarantee, will be tempered by love and forgiveness. To bridge the cultural divide from the first century, in which slavery was an entrenched institution, to our world, where it is considered loathsome and immoral, we need to explore three topics. We need first to explain how slavery functioned in the ancient world. Next we need to see how it differed significantly from American slavery, with which we are more familiar. Finally, we must analyze why the early Christians did not lead a crusade against this evil.

Slavery in the ancient world. Roman civilization was based on slavery, and the imperial economy depended on slaves for its basic labor. Originally, the slave population was comprised of captured prisoners of war and the kidnap victims of pirates and bandits.65 This source of slaves led Romans to fancy that a slave’s whole existence was a gift from the master, who had saved him from death.66

By the first century, however, the slaves’ offspring provided a steady supply of slaves. Their ranks were supplemented by persons convicted of capital crimes, freeborn children who were sold by parents who could no longer feed them, foundlings (children dropped off at temples or dumped in the open), and persons who, for various reasons (such as to avoid starvation or to become a steward in an important family), sold themselves into slavery. Some estimate that slaves comprised a quarter to a third of the population in central and southern Italy. Seneca (died A.D. 65) remarks that a proposal in the Roman Senate to differentiate slaves from free persons by making them wear distinctive clothing failed when the senators expressed fears that the slaves would quickly see how many they were and decide to revolt.67

Slaves carried out various functions in the working world, depending on their lot. The imperial slaves managed the daily administrative tasks of governing the empire, and many rose to prominence as freedmen and became quite prosperous.68 Other slaves were owned by temples and cities and were charged with assorted roles from treasurer to maintenance work. Some even served as policemen.

Household slaves in urban centers had a variety of tasks. They existed primarily to serve the privileged class, and their owners expected them to make their life more comfortable and to increase their wealth and prestige. Even those with comparatively modest means owned two to three slaves. In an age of conspicuous consumption, the wealthy acquired numerous slaves as a status indicator. Slaves were assigned menial chores as janitors, cooks, dishwashers, gardeners, table servers, musicians, door keepers, litter bearers, couriers, wet-nurses, laundrymen, seamstresses, maids, hairdressers, personal attendants, secretaries, and child minders. Some served as concubines. Those who were better educated received assignments requiring intellect, skill, and culture, working as secretaries, treasurers, clerks, overseers, bailiffs, sea captains, architects, artists, musicians, writers, librarians, doctors, and tutors. Slaves could be found doing every job except serving in politics or in the military.

The greatest drudgery was endured by field workers and labored on farms, many of whom never knew their owners. At the lowest end of the scale were the penal slaves, who worked in mines and slave galleys and died in their slavery.

The legal status of slaves. Everyone took for granted that there were two categories of human beings, free and slaves.69 The free were regarded by the law as persons; slaves were not legally persons but were defined as things and tallied as living pieces of property. Aristotle classified a slave as a living tool.70 Cato advised the frugal farmer: “Sell the worn-out oxen, blemished cattle, blemished sheep, wool, hides, an old wagon, old tools, an old slave, a sickly slave, and whatever else is superfluous.”71 One can see this dehumanizing classification of slaves in the bitter lament of the heartless merchants who weep at the destruction of Babylon because they have lost the market for their cargo (Rev. 18:11–13). Last in the inventory of cargo are “bodies,” a common reference to slaves. John’s Christian convictions, however, led him to modify it, “that is, the souls of men” (pers. trans.).

The slave experienced “civil death” with no legal or human rights. Seneca characterizes a slave as one who “does not have the right to refuse.”72 As a piece of property, a slave’s whole life was completely at the disposal of the owner. The master could even dictate conditions on succeeding owners of a slave by expressly forbidding in his will that a slave ever be sold or manumitted. Slaves did not own their time, labor, or children.73 The slave owner could keep the children as slaves or sell them at a slave auction, as a farmer might sell calves or piglets. Or he might expose them as one might drown unwanted kittens.

Slaves could not enter into a legal marriage and had no legal kin. If a master wanted to marry his slave concubine, he would have to set her free first. Some slaves probably had common law marriages, but one wonders how stable they would have been. Religion was the one area of life open to slaves. In some cults they could even serve as priests. In Aeschylus’s play Agamemnon, Cassandra is brought to Greece as a slave, and when she is about to prophesy, the chorus comments: “The gift divine still abides even in the soul of one enslaved” (1084).

Because slaves were a significant investment and asset, many recognized that they would get better and longer service by treating slaves well. A wise master would take care of his slaves, the way one might care for an expensive automobile today. Concern for a slave’s welfare was usually utilitarian and motivated by self-interest. It is telling that Gaius’s Institutes does not give moral compassion as the grounds for intervening in cases of excessive and unreasonable brutality but the “misuse of rights” by those “who waste their own property.”74 Like car owners who never change the oil in their cars, some masters abused their slaves. Absolute power over others can breed contempt for life.

The treatment of slaves. The violence and ruthlessness in the ancient world spilled over in the violation of slaves, wives, and children. Slaves were frequently victims of physical, psychological, and moral tyranny. Some owners were sadistic monsters given to furious tantrums.75 According to Seneca, the sadistic Vedius Pollio ordered that a slave who had broken a crystal cup be thrown to his lamprey eels.76 The boy escaped and appealed to the emperor Augustus to be executed in a less savage way. Outraged by such injustice, the emperor ordered that he be set free and that all of Pollio’s crystal cups and his fish pond be destroyed. The hero of Apuleius’s novel Metamorphoses describes the scrawny and sallow slaves working in a flour mill, with brands on their foreheads, skin embroidered with purple welts, and backs scarred by beatings—all exposed by their shredded clothing.77 Slaves also could suffer abuse from their fellow slaves or could be rented out to others who would be less concerned about caring for rental property.

All income that accrued to a slave (e.g., through business deals) legally belonged to the master (see Matt. 25:14–30). Because slaves had no legal identity, they could not seek compensation for any injuries or grievances. If a slave was injured, any compensation was assessed at a lesser rate than for a free person and went to the owner, not the slave. Owners could punish misbehavior in any way they chose and were usually not held accountable for any injuries they inflicted. Slaves had no legally recognized way to appeal to anyone in authority with complaints. If they tried to protest, they could be severely punished. Slaves had only limited options if they wished to escape abuse. They could try to remove their masters by murder or magic spells or remove themselves by running away or seeking asylum in a temple.78

Running away was a risk that promised little reward. Having taken flight, a runaway could join one of the robber bands that plagued the countryside, but life expectancy in such a group was short. He could sell himself to a slave dealer in hopes of being resold to a more kindly master. A slave who claimed ill-treatment could also flee to a religious sanctuary and find refuge. It did not lead to freedom but only to the possibility of finding a more benevolent owner.79 If runaways were caught, however, they could be severely whipped, branded on the face, put in chains, forced to wear an iron neck collar to alert others in case they ever tried to flee again, or have their legs broken. They could also be sold to the mines or sentenced to death.80 Later legislation tried to protect slaves from unreasonable abuse, but it was riddled with loopholes, and there was no one to enforce it.

The governance of slaves. The carrot-and-stick philosophy governed the relationship between slaves and masters. To bridle the vast population of slaves, masters made certain that slaves knew swift and harsh punishment would follow for any offenses. They kept their slaves in line with fear tactics.81 Fear, however, works insidiously, and its tentacles have a way of entrapping those who try to wield it against others. Both masters and slaves lived in fear. The slave feared the master’s evil whims and bad temper; the master feared the slave’s conspiracies, violence, flight, or resort to sorcery. Lightfoot notes Seneca’s expression, “as many enemies as slaves,” as showing that the relationship between master and slave was poisoned by “universal distrust.”82

Memories of past slave uprisings quashed any moral misgivings about the treatment of slaves. Many also worried about losing control over such overwhelming numbers of a potentially explosive group. To increase their sense of security, the oppressors sought to undermine any common bond between their slaves and encouraged them to inform on others, lest they be charged with complicity in any slave’s crime. For example, if a master were murdered and the culprit a slave, all of the slaves in the household would be executed.

Tacitus mentions such a case involving a prefect of Rome who was murdered by one of his slaves. All four hundred of his slaves were set for execution. The prospect of executing so many innocent victims sparked a mass protest from the general population and a debate in the senate. In the debate, one senator argued that since household slaves now came from many different nations, with differing customs and religions,

you will never coerce such a medley of humanity except by terror.—“But some lives will be lost!”—Even so; for when every tenth man of the routed army drops beneath the club, the lot falls on the brave as well. All great examples carry with them something of injustice—injustice compensated, as against individual suffering, by the advantage of the community.83

Fear won the day; the slaves received no reprieve.

Epictetus, who was raised in slavery, wrote: “It is the slave’s prayer that he be set free immediately.”84 The carrot held out to the slave was the possibility of manumission as a reward for loyal service. Unlike the false promise on the gates of concentration camps, Arbeit macht frei (“Work leads to freedom”), freedom was a real, if fragile, hope for slaves who worked faithfully for their masters. “Home-born slaves” had an obvious advantage over slaves who toiled on faraway farms and did not live in their owner’s household. They led rougher lives and most died in their slavery. Domestic slaves who lived with the family had a good chance of being set free. Some masters would transfer property, livestock, or even other slaves to their slaves and also give them small gifts of money and clothing. This peculium might accumulate eventually enough to buy the slave’s freedom, although it legally belonged to the master and could be taken back at any time.

Such provisions were a matter of enlightened self-interest. They gave slaves something to hope for so that they might serve more faithfully. Manumission, therefore, was regarded as a reward for faithful work, and regular manumissions kept the wheels of slavery well oiled. It encouraged slaves to behave nicely, work hard, and increase their productivity. We should note that the admonitions to slaves in the New Testament never mention the prospect of manumission as a motivation for their obedience. Obeying masters “only when their eye is on you and to win their favor” is condemned (Col. 3:22). Christian slaves do not obey in order to win early release but to please the Lord.

Masters frequently were generous with their slaves to attract the esteem of their peers and a large crowd of mourners at their funerals.85 Some would give freedom to slaves nearing death so that they might have “the consolation of dying in freedom and being buried as freedmen.”86 Trimalchio, the fantastically rich but exceedingly crude freedman in Petronius’s satire, boastfully announces at his dinner party that in his will he plans to set all his slaves free with sizeable gifts as his master had done for him. He says: “The reason I’m telling all this now so my household will love me now as much as if I was dead.”87

Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes: “I know of some who have allowed all their slaves to be freed after their death in order that they might be called good men when they are dead and that many people might follow their biers wearing their liberty-caps.”88 Sometimes owners would give slaves their freedom for selfish financial reasons. The slave’s peculium that was used to buy his freedom might be greater than the cost of buying a new slave to replace him, or the master could save money by using the slave’s services as a freedman client without having to house, clothe, and feed him.

Manumission did not mean that slaves were freed from all obligations to their owners and could go or do as he wished (see Pliny’s letter to Sabinianus concerning his wayward freedman). Freedmen took on the family name of their masters and were obliged to show due gratitude and pay them regular homage (obsequium). The former master could still expect some economic profit from his freedman. The freedman promised to provide a certain number of days of service or work each year (operae libertorium), which was enforceable by civil action.89 Masters might also require gifts (munera) from their freedmen. In return, the master, now the patron, would look after the interests of his freedmen, providing some food, caring for health, and offering legal protection.90

The difference between ancient slavery and slavery in the new world. Most Americans’ knowledge of slavery derives from some awareness of New World slavery, even if it only comes from novels made into movies, such as Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind or Alex Haley’s Roots. Slavery may call to mind a picture of beautiful Southern plantations combined with ugly racism and toil in a cotton field. That image should not be projected onto the slavery of the New Testament world. Slavery in any form corrodes the spirits of all parties involved, but ancient slavery was less beastly than New World slavery and its slave trade.

We should be cautious, however, not to portray ancient slavery as a benevolent, humane institution.91 It was not. Gordon writes: “The growth of the empire had a background of human suffering which is unimaginable in its degree and extent.”92 We do not know what the average slave experienced or felt about his or her condition since they did not write literature. We see only things from the perspective of their owners; and, if human nature holds true, they probably saw themselves as far more magnanimous than they were in actuality. The number of papyri dealing with runaway slaves suggests that it was not a benign institution. For any who argue that ancient slavery was not all that bad, Abraham Lincoln’s remarks are appropriate: “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”93 Nevertheless, crossing the bridge into the first-century world makes us aware of the major differences between New World slavery and the slavery that Paul encountered.

(1) We should not assume that all first-century slaves were poorly treated and desperately wanted to escape their slavery. Slave and freedman in the ancient world were not separated by a vast economic and racial chasm as they were in the New World. Some hapless individuals even sold themselves into slavery to improve their lot. Dio Chrysostom remarked that “great numbers of men, we may suppose, who are free born sell themselves, so that they are slaves by contract, sometimes on no easy terms but the most severe imaginable.”94

New World slaves, on the other hand, longed desperately for freedom. Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) wrote of the slaves’ singing, “Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.”95 This cry for freedom drew heavily from the Exodus for its images and rang throughout the spirituals:

Before I’d be a slave,

I’d be buried in my grave

And go home to my Lord and be free.

(2) Ancient slavery did not have any racial overtones. Ethnic origin played no role in whether one was a slave or not, and slaves came from every nationality. If we walked along the crowded the streets of ancient Rome, we could not tell who was a slave and who was a free person. Slaves belonged to no particular race, wore no distinctive clothing, could be well educated, and worked at the same kinds of jobs as free persons. New World slavery, by contrast, was a racist institution. Slaves were Africans. “American slave holders justified their position of authority and control by labeling the African American essentially subhuman and an infantile adult.”96

In antiquity, slave owners did not invent theories of racial inferiority to justify slavery. They saw no need to justify slavery at all except to say that Fortune inexplicably brought such degradation on unlucky individuals. They assumed that such misfortune could befall anyone since even the noblest warrior might be captured in battle and reduced to slavery.

(3) Since education enhanced a slave’s value to an ancient slaveowner, it was encouraged and prized. Seneca laughs at the wealthy but addle-pated Calvisius Sabinus, who wanted to appear learned and “paid fabulous prices for slaves—one to know Homer by heart and another to know Hesiod; he also delegated a special slave to each of the nine lyric poets.”97 They would feed him lines to recite at banquets, which he usually botched in mid-sentence. Seneca sneeringly says that Sabinus “held to the opinion that what any member of his household knew, he himself knew also” (27.7). Skilled slaves in Roman times could have significant power over other slaves and even freedmen. Not all slaves in antiquity were haggard field hands or household drudges. Many were placed in sensitive positions and performed crucial work. To be sure, many more were assigned onerous tasks, but a free person might also be doing the same kind of work.

In modern slavery, by contrast, slave owners did not want their slaves learning too much or developing technical skills because they feared that it might undermine their control over them. “Slave illiteracy was often required by law.”98 Everything was done to keep slaves submissive by making it difficult for them to survive on their own or to be easily integrated into society if they were freed.

(4) Since race did not destine one for slavery, most ancient slaves did not think of their slavery as a permanent condition. Slaves were also permitted to keep tips and allowances, which they could save to buy their freedom. Manumission, in Rome at least, was normal; and most domestic slaves were set free at the age of thirty. Slavery and manumission were viewed as a means to integrate outsiders into Roman society and provide soldiers to serve in the army.99 If their masters were Roman citizens and followed the proper ceremonies, a freedman over thirty years of age could also become a citizen.100 The poet Horace was the son of a freedman.101 His status shows that the offspring of a freed slave could become fully integrated into Roman society within the next generation and even be accepted in the wealthy class.

By contrast, manumission was rare in American slavery; and when Negro slaves were freed, they did not receive rights as full citizens. Many whites believed that they still had no rights at all. Consequently, the freed Negro lived in a kind of “legal limbo” between slavery and freedom. The poison of that racism still ravages American society. Over a century after emancipation, African Americans still feel slavery’s invisible shackles. Even those who have become famous as celebrities, business people, scientists, and educators can face situations where they are spoken down to as though they were lowly servants. The dream of Martin Luther King Jr. “that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood” remains only a dream for many.

(5) In contrast with the average inhabitant of Paul’s world, the average Southerner had little personal contact with slaves. The “typical Southerner was not only a small farmer but also a nonslaveholder.” In the ancient world slaveholding was not the “exclusive domain of the very wealthy, but extended far down the social scale.”102 Even persons of modest means owned slaves, and some slaves could be given authority over other slaves who, in effect, became their own slaves (a vicarius).103

These five contrasts clearly show that the slavery Paul confronted was significantly different from what we may be familiar with from our recent past. We should not fault Paul for not speaking out in moral outrage at the injustice of slavery.

Slavery and Christianity. We find the condemnation of slave traders in 1 Timothy 1:10 along with other godless sins, but we might wish that Paul had been more forceful in challenging slavery. Several mitigating factors in his world may help us understand why he did not.

(1) Slavery was a time-honored and accepted part of the fabric of life. Wiedemann observes: “The treatment of slaves may have been more or less harsh in different periods of antiquity, manumission more or less frequent, and the tasks assigned to slaves various in nature; but it did not occur to anyone, pagan or Christian, that the institution as such should be dispensed with.”104 People living in this age could not even envision “a society where all were in theory free, much less of appreciating the worth of such a system.”105

From the perspective of the ancients, a world without slaves was an enchanted never-never land in which tools fetch themselves and work on their own, bread bakes itself, fish catch, baste, and cook themselves, and dishes wash themselves.106 Hardly anyone in antiquity could conceive of a world operating without slaves, in the same way that most people today cannot conceive of living without an automobile, electricity, or television, in spite of the pollution they spew into the environment or into our minds.107 Slavery was accepted as a natural part of life. The slaves involved in the slave revolts of the past had no intention of abolishing slavery; they only wanted to set themselves up as the new masters.

Paul, like most of his contemporaries may have looked upon slavery as an unchangeable feature of this fallen world. Centuries later, Augustine accepted slavery as a punishment justly imposed for human sin.108 The Therapeutae (Egypt) and the Essenes (Palestine) were the only two groups in antiquity who openly renounced the use of slaves.109 Both groups were Jewish and both lived in self-contained, desert communities where they could put into practice their private idealism without being disturbed. Barclay argues, “To ask why [Paul] did not advocate the abolition of slavery in its entirety is perhaps to pose an anachronistic and inappropriate question.”110 The early Christians did not retreat to some desert utopia but decided to live in the real world and cope with its evils as best they could.

People in the ancient world did not debate whether slavery should exist, but how owners should treat their slaves. On this issue, Paul definitely took a humane view in his instructions about the relationship between slaves and masters. As Dodd puts it, Paul “accepts the situation in which the law and custom of the time had placed Philemon and Onesimus and asks what, in that situation, is the Christian duty of Philemon. His answer is in effect that the relation between them is to be wholly ruled by the Christian principle of love or charity.”111 Such a viewpoint apparently appealed to slaves, who joined this new religious movement in droves.

(2) Had Paul assailed the institution of slavery, such an attack would have been utterly futile, a quixotic tilting at windmills. It would have been as effective as a modern preacher railing against the evils of “the internal combustion engine.”112

(a) Slaves had no sense of class consciousness since race, occupation, and dress did not reveal that one was a slave. Slaves did not comprise a homogeneous lower class but were “embedded in the class of their owners.”113 Their honor and economic situation depended entirely on the honor and economic situation of their masters. Consequently, a significant discrepancy could exist between a slave’s social and economic status and his legal status. The urban slaves who served the members of the upper Roman orders would have felt no sense of class solidarity with the field hands toiling in agriculture or the miners digging in pits. Slaves who belonged to wealthy, influential families were more powerful and enjoyed greater privileges than many free persons, and certainly more than the landless laborers or smallholders. This incongruity explains why some individuals sold themselves into slavery for the privilege of serving the wealthy or for job security. Bartchy correctly contends that “any such call, ‘Slaves of the world unite!’ would have fallen on completely deaf ears.”114

(b) Freedom did not always lead to a better life. Many in America take upward social mobility for granted and would naturally assume that freedom would be preferable since former slaves could take control of their own destiny. Slaves in the ancient world who gained their freedom did acquire a legal identity, and any children they might have in the future would be born free and could inherit the family goods. But manumission did not always bring benefits or eliminate human misery; sometimes it increased it. Although wealthy freedmen became legendary figures, the reality was quite different. Life for freed persons was not easy. Most of those in Rome, for example, were on the dole. Epictetus imagines that a slave who gained his freedom might regret it. After the initial euphoria wore off, he realized that he had no place to eat.

He looks for someone to flatter, for someone at whose house to dine. Next he either earns a living by prostitution, and so endures the most dreadful things, and if he gets a manger at which to eat he has fallen into a slavery much more severe than the first, or even if he grows rich, being a vulgarian he has fallen in love with a chit of a girl, and is miserable, and laments, and yearns for his slavery again. “Why, what was wrong with me? Someone else kept me in clothes, and shoes, and supplied me with food, and nursed me when I was sick; I served him in only a few matters. But now, miserable man that I am, what suffering is mine, who am a slave to several instead of one!”115

Slaves in good situations, on the other hand, knew a measure of security. They belonged to a household, the basic unit of production in the ancient world, and had their physical needs met. Unlike capitalist employers today, who generally take no responsibility for the welfare of their employees outside the workplace, slave owners did feed and look after their slaves who were too sick or too old to work. Some slaves, therefore, might have preferred remaining as slaves because it offered greater economic security than the impoverishment of being freedmen who, even when freed, still had to be subservient to their former masters.

(c) Since slavery fueled the basic economy, it would have created monumental social upheaval if large numbers of persons suddenly changed their status from slave to free. One might compare the mass emancipation of the slaves to millions of people being laid off today. The prospect of such economic dislocation made any call for the abolition of slavery seem foolhardy.

(3) Not only would it have been useless for Christians to press for the emancipation of slaves in the first century, it would have been politically suicidal. Such a stance would have given more reason for opponents to brand the Christian movement as a subversive group intent on destroying the underpinnings of society and fomenting revolt.116 Unlike modern liberal democracies where minority interest groups can bring pressure to bear on governments without fear of serious reprisal no matter how shrill their protest, no such possibility existed in the ancient world. The social realities and political power structures made it impossible for Christians to redress any social wrongs through rebellious protests.117

Christians did not want to catch the unfriendly eye of civil authorities as loudmouthed troublemakers or do anything to make it harder for others to come to faith.118 Paul’s advice to the Colossians to act wisely toward outsiders (Col. 4:5) was typical of his strategy. Consequently, slaves are encouraged to be subject to masters in everything “so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive” (Titus 2:9–10). They are told to show masters respect “so that God’s name and our teaching may not be slandered” (1 Tim. 6:1).119

Bousset’s contention is certainly correct: “Christianity would have sunk beyond hope of recovery along with such revolutionary attempts; it might have brought on a new slave-rising and been crushed along with it. The time was not ripe for the solution of such difficult questions.”120 Lightfoot was also correct: “While the Church was still kept in subjection, moral influence and private enterprise were her only weapons.”121 The shame is that when the church was no longer politically threatened or in subjection, she did not act on the principles we find in this letter.

The quietism of the early Christians does not give us license to ignore injustice. Nor does it justify an easy alliance with an evil social and political order. In bridging the contexts, we should not ignore the question: When is the time ripe for protest? Since Christians did protest the idolatry and immorality that engulfed their culture at great cost to themselves, we should also ask: What requires our protest most and what does not? What criteria do we use to decide? What means may we use to bring about the desired social change?

(4) Paul considered Christianity to be far more than a social crusade. Many revolutionary crusades have hoisted the flag of the universal brotherhood of humankind and have left only a bloody trail of bitter divisions in their wake. History should make us aware that the reformation of one social evil does not solve the deep-seated problem of human sin. Social tinkering here and there will not redeem humankind from the web of sin that besets us all—victim and victimizer. When the slaves were emancipated in the American South, for example, slavery was replaced by legalized segregation, convict chain gangs, share cropping, and Jim Crow justice. That sad history reveals that human beings and human society need total transformation.

While Paul did not overtly challenge the prevailing social structure, he also did not sanctify it as part of God’s design. Instead, he fastened on how conversion fundamentally transforms personal relationships with others and with God. He laid down universal principles that, when taken seriously, ultimately topple the foundations of slavery. Johnson describes Philemon as “carefully crafted witness to an emerging Christ ethos, showing at once its power to transform symbols and attitudes, as well as its struggle to transcend social forms.”122 Preiss writes: “The Gospel penetrates systems and civilizations but is never identified with them. In particular it is more realistic than all idealism and all so-called political realism: for it attacks the heart of problems, the personal centre and personal relations.”123 It laid the groundwork for future transformation.

Another factor may have influenced Paul’s approach to the slavery issue. Richardson contends that “what has been construed as indifference to social problems on Paul’s part may be the reflection of the priority of mission in his thinking and the distinction he made between the spheres of action defined by the twofold nature of that mission, namely evangelism and edification.”124 Paul showed little concern with social questions beyond the boundaries of the church. For him, the church’s primary mission was to confront the pagan world with the proclamation of Christ crucified and Christ regnant. All other issues were subjugated to it.

It was a different matter, however, when dealing with issues within the church. The mission there was to help Christians see the implications of the gospel for their personal lives and relationships. In his letter to Philemon, Paul did meddle in something that Christians had control over—the Christian household, which was the locus of Christian mission in the world.

In the Original Meaning section, we demonstrated that it was unheard of for Paul to ask a master to accept his runaway slave back as a brother in Christ and his equal before God and to suggest that instead of punishing him, he should grant him his freedom. The whole fabric of slavery was based on fear and coercion, and Paul’s insistence on love and brotherhood in Philemon begins its unravelling. Paul affirms that the legal, racial, and biological categories that divide the human race belong to the old order and have no importance to God (1 Cor. 7:17–24; 12:13; Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11).125 In Christ there is no distinction between slave and free. All are brothers and sisters in the Lord. Both slave and master owe allegiance to a heavenly Master, and the earthly master will be accountable for how he treats his slaves. When a master is expected to treat a slave as a brother in Christ, as the representative of the apostle Paul, as an equal partner, and as a morally responsible human being who has rights, not just duties (Col. 4:1), the institution of slavery is being subverted.

In other words, while we do not find a frontal attack on slavery in the New Testament, we do find the seeds for its final eradication. Slaves can join their owners as equals at the Lord’s table. How difficult it was to surmount deeply ingrained social conventions is evident from Paul’s discussion about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34. But when fellow Christians do accept one another as equal members of Christ’s body, the social structures that segregate us from one another begin to crack.

A Christian slave in America recognized the incongruity of being a brother and a slave:

Am I not a man and brother?

Ought I not then to be free?

Sell me not one to another.

Take not thus my liberty.

Christ, our Savior

died for me as well as thee.126

Spiritual regeneration in individuals will set in motion social reform. If God’s purpose is to produce a humanity that is the image of Jesus Christ, then those who think they are made in that new image must think twice before taking ownership of another human being. God wills us free; fallen humanity wills that others become slaves. God’s purposes will prevail.

(5) Today, some consider Paul’s inattention to the social inequities of slavery to be a deplorable blind spot, but it may instead be based on his unclouded vision that such things are ultimately meaningless. He was fully aware that the existing social order was deeply flawed (see Rom. 1:18–32), but he expected the present scheme of things to pass away soon (1 Cor. 7:29–31). It was, at best, only makeshift, still awaiting the transformation of God’s reign. In the meantime, Christians lived their lives in Christ, who sits at the right hand of God. That assurance meant they lived in unbending devotion to their Lord, unintimidated by fearsome foes, unbeaten by their conditions in life, and unshaken in their everlasting hope.

The meaning of slavery was therefore transformed. Christians could serve the Lord in whatever situation or station they found themselves in life. This Lord accepted slave status himself in dying on the cross (see Mark 10:45; John 13:1; Phil. 2:7). Unlike today, when many believe that freedom simply means you can do as you want, Christians in Bible times understood that true freedom came when the transforming power of the Spirit enabled them to do what they ought. The New Testament also recognizes that people can be shackled by an inner bondage far worse than any external enslavement. True freedom can only be known when one is in Christ, whether that person is legally free or not.

The epitaph on the gravestone of John Jack captures this truth: “A Native of Africa, who died March 1773, aged about 60 years. Tho’ born in a land of slavery he was born free.” Paul proclaims that “he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave” (1 Cor. 7:22). The freedom given in Christ is therefore far more valuable than even earthly freedom, although Paul encourages slaves to take advantage of any opportunity to receive it.127 Since slavery was regarded simply as a temporary condition of the flesh that could not compare to the eternal glories with God that awaited Christians, some were motivated to sell themselves into slavery to liberate others.128

Theological nuggets. The slavery issue is the most prominent feature of Philemon, but we should not ignore the theological nuggets that can be mined from this brief letter. Paul’s extraordinary tact in making his request to Philemon gives us a model for using authority and leading others to make the right moral decisions. His implicit request that the master should forgive the one who wronged him also helps us examine the issues involved in forgiveness with a real life case study. Finally, Paul’s delicate phrasing of Onesimus’s departure from Philemon’s household—“Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good” (v. 15)—allows us to examine God’s providence in human affairs.

Contemporary Significance

THROUGH THE CENTURIES interpreters have drawn on Philemon primarily to convey moral lessons on Christian living. It reveals Paul’s sublime spirit of humility and care for others, which we can emulate.129 Calvin thought it was important “to note the depths of his condescension in calling one who is a slave, runaway and thief his own son.”130 We will look instead at how this brief letter applies to the facing of moral dilemmas and how Paul serves as a model for exercising leadership in the church. We will then turn to its theological implications for understanding the miracle of grace, forgiveness, and the mysterious providence of God.

Facing moral dilemmas. Philemon was in an awkward position. He must “placate Paul, keep his other slaves submissive, maintain his family estate, offer the most magnanimous example to his comrades in faith, and retain the trust of his fellow slaveowners in the neighborhood—all at once.”131 It cannot be done. Something must be sacrificed. Individual Christians and Christian groups frequently make the wrong decision because they are directed by the desires of the flesh rather than the Spirit. Injustice flourishes and becomes so deeply rooted that it seems impossible to eradicate.

Buttrick perhaps goes too far when he says that “this letter is a seed that finally split the rock of slavery.”132 Slavery continued for centuries. The moral dilemma of how a master reconciled owning slaves while regarding them as dear brothers or sisters apparently did not cause many Christians to lose much sleep.133 Extant slave collars designed to impede a runaway slave from escaping again have Christian symbols on them. Since Christians objected to branding slaves on the face, Constantine decreed it should be done on the hands and legs134—not much of a humanitarian advance. Veyne cites the council of Elvira, which condemned Christian mistresses who “out of jealousy rage beat their servingwomen so severely that they died, provided that said death occurs within four days.”135

Some have argued that factors other than the spiritual force of Christian principles were at work in the abolition of slavery. Slavery began to decline in the second century because it was a cost intensive means of production and inefficient. Fear and coercion were not as productive as providing incentives for achieving maximal profit updating technology.136 When slavery disappeared from Europe after the fourteenth century, a more virulent and evil slavery, based on race, was allowed to take hold in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries as slaves were imported from Africa. This happened when Christianity was the state religion. Philemon may contain the seed to split the rock of slavery, but Christians have not always allowed that seed to germinate and mature. Radford comments, “Christian teaching was not always true to its own principles.”137 What can we learn from this checkered history?

(1) Christians court danger when they spend so much time theologizing about moral issues that they never get around to doing justice and mercy. Radford explains that “Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia in the East and Ambrosiaster and Augustine in the West regarded slavery as a consequence of sin, a providential discipline for the control and correction of sinful men, though not an original part of the divine ideal for human life.”138 This view may have contributed to moral indifference and inertia. When a more sinister form of racially grounded slavery crept in, Radford also suggests that Christians were too caught up in the theological battles of the Reformation to notice or challenge it.139

(2) The triumph of basic Christian principles is painfully snail-like in our personal lives, let alone in whole societies. Moral progress occurs by fits and starts with one step forward and what seems like two steps backward. God allows each individual to make moral decisions in his or her social context, just as Paul allowed Philemon to make his. Most of us, however, do not have an apostle writing to us individually to show us the right thing to do and to encourage us to do it. Vested interests discourage us from accepting the high cost of obedience to the truth of gospel. The pressure to do the most expedient thing is immense, and our minds work overtime in finding ways to rationalize our disobedience and salve our consciences.

Even those with genuinely held Christian principles have to struggle between what is culturally accepted and what their Christian conscience tells them is wrong. We see such a personal struggle, for example, in John Woolman (1720–1772), who wrote about his involvement with slavery with pain. He recorded in his journal, “They who know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, and are thus acquainted with the merciful, benevolent Gospel Spirit, will therein perceive that the indignation of God is kindled against oppression and cruelty, and in beholding the great distress of so numerous a people will find cause for mourning.”140 His complicity in writing a bill of sale for a slave caused his anguish:

Though the thoughts of writing an instrument of slavery for one of my fellow creatures felt uneasy, yet I remembered that I was hired by the year, that it was my master who directed me to do it, and that it was an elderly man, a member of our Society, who bought her; so through weakness I gave way and wrote it; but at the executing of it I was so afflicted in my mind, that I said before my master and the Friend that I believed slave-keeping to be a practice inconsistent with the Christian religion. This, in some degree, abated my uneasiness; yet as often as I reflected seriously upon it I thought I should have been clearer if I had desired to be excused from it, as a thing against my conscience, for such it was.141

Others have no moral struggle at all. A candidate for a national office declared: “People who are bitter and hateful about slavery are obviously bitter and hateful against God and his Word, because they reject what God says and embrace what mere humans say concerning slavery. This humanistic thinking is what the abolitionists embraced.” Such a statement recalls the bitter eighteenth-century debate between Christians who were pro-slavery and those who were abolitionist.

Christians gave slavery a biblical footing that enabled it to survive in the United States for so long. Mark Twain confessed in his autobiography:

In my schoolboy days, I had no aversion to slavery. I was not aware that there was anything wrong with it. No one arraigned it in my hearing; the local papers said nothing against it; the local pulpit taught us that God approved it … if the slave themselves had an aversion to slavery, they were wise and said nothing.142

The pro-slavery forces argued from Scripture that God sanctioned slavery. They appealed to the example of the patriarchs, the Mosaic laws on slavery (e.g., Lev. 25:44–46), and the absence of any specific protest against it by Jesus or Paul. Paul did not challenge the slavery he met in his world the way he did its idolatry and immorality. His admonition that slaves should obey their masters in all things and be content with their state unless they were lawfully set free confirmed slavery’s legitimacy in their eyes.143

Most devout Christians today would find it morally reprehensible to own another human being and find such use of Scripture to defend the monstrous New World slavery more than a little embarrassing. They agree with Knox’s contention that to assume that Paul “would have been equally tolerant of slavery in our world, so different from his that he could not even have imagined it, is to be ignorant almost beyond belief.”144 The Scriptures were used to buttress the slaveholders’ positions, but they also fed the abolitionist movements in both North America and England, which assailed the evils of the slave trade.

The past conflict raises interesting questions. Sincere Christians drew contradictory conclusions from Scripture about slavery. Similar things happen today when different sides in a debate find scriptural warrants for their positions on current issues. Examining the sad history of slavery in the New World cautions us that we cannot resolve serious moral dilemmas by breezy appeals to individual passages from Scripture. The Pharisees also had their scriptural warrants. Swartley comments, “They took care to observe every specific command but directly opposed God’s will, intention, and revelation in Jesus Christ.”145

We always face the danger of straining out gnats and swallowing camels, majoring in minors while ignoring what is most crucial—justice, mercy, and faith (Matt. 23:23–24). When approaching current issues, we need to look for overarching principles drawn from the whole tenor of Scripture and must always be alert to cultural blinders that keep us from recognizing evil for what it is. We can become prisoners of our times and culture and slaves to our own self-interest, unable to recognize the blatant injustice surrounding us.146

The moral problem of reading the Bible selectively is captured in the correspondence between a slave owner, Sarah Loguen, and her runaway slave, Jarmain Wesley Loguen. Mrs. Loguen wrote to complain of the loss his running away caused the family.

Maury Co., State of Tennessee

February 20th, 1860

To Jarm:

… I write you these lines to let you know the situation we are in—partly in consequence of you running away and stealing Old Rock, our fine mare…. I am cripple, but I am still able to get about. The rest of the family are all well….

Though we got the mare back, she was never worth much after you took her, and, as I now stand in need of some funds, I have determined to sell you. If you will send me one thousand dollars and pay for the old mare I will give up all claim I have to you….

In consequence of your running away, we had to sell Abe and Ann and twelve acres of land; and I want you to send me the money that I may be able to redeem the land that you was the cause of our selling, and on receipt of the above named sum of money, I will send you your bill of sale. If you do not comply with my request, I will sell you to some one else….

I understand that you are a preacher…. I would like to know if you read your Bible? If so, can you tell me what will become of the thief if he does not repent? and, if the blind lead the blind, what will the consequence be? … You know that we reared you as we reared our own children; that you was never abused, and shortly before you ran away, when your master asked you if you would like to be sold, you said you would not leave him to go with anybody.

—Sarah Loguen

Syracuse, N.Y., March 28th, 1860

Mrs. Sarah Loguen:

… You sold my brother and sister, Abe and Ann, and twelve acres of land, you say, because I run away. Now you have the unutterable meanness to ask me to return and be your miserable chattel, or in lieu thereof send you one thousand dollars to enable you to redeem the land, but not to redeem my poor brother and sister! If I were to send you money it would be to get my brother and sister, and not that you should get land. You say you are cripple, and doubtless you say it to stir my pity, for you know I was susceptible in that direction. I do pity you…. Wretched woman! Be it known to you that I value my freedom, to say nothing of my mother, brothers, and sisters, more than your whole body; more indeed, than my own life; more than all the lives of all the slaveholders and tyrants under heaven….

You say, “You know we raised you as we did our own children?” Woman, did you raise your own children for the market? Did you raise them for the whipping post? Did you raise them to be drove off in a coffle in chains? Where are my poor bleeding brothers and sisters? Can you tell? Who was it that sent them off into sugar and cotton fields, to be kicked, and cuffed, and whipped, and to groan and die; and where no kin can hear their groans, or attend and sympathize at their dying bed, or follow in their funeral?

… You say that I am a thief, because I took the old mare along with me. Have you got to learn that I had a better right to the old mare, as you call her, than Manasseth Loguen had to me? Is it a greater sin for me to steal his horse, than it was for him to rob my mother’s cradle and steal me? If he and you infer that I forfeit all my rights to you, shall not I infer that you forfeit all your rights to me? Have you got to learn that human rights are mutual and reciprocal, and if you take my liberty and life, you forfeit me your own liberty and life? Before God and High Heaven, is there a law for one man which is not law for every other man?

If you or any other speculator on my body and rights, wish to know how I regard my rights, they need but come here and lay their hands on me to enslave me…. I stand among a free people, who, I thank, God, sympathize with my rights, and the rights of mankind; and if your emissaries and vendors come here, to re-inslave me, and escape the unshrinking vigor of my own right arm, I trust my strong and brave friends, in this City and State, will be my rescuers and avengers.

Yours,

—J. W. Loguen147

Sarah Loguen’s letter reveals a whining selfishness that can only see herself as sinned against. She cannot recognize the sinfulness of slavery and therefore cannot recognize any complicity in this world’s sinfulness for which she needs forgiveness.

In his study of three theologians under Hitler, Gerhard Kittel, Paul Althaus, and Emmanuel Hirsch, Ericksen shows how they found themselves in the orbit of Nazism supporting its ideology and even providing a theological foundation for the oppression of the Jews. They were not eccentric extremists or cranks but conscientious Christians who thought they were acting on authentic Christian principles. They saw themselves fighting off the evils that the crisis of modernity and individual freedom and pluralism wrought. Ericksen concludes:

The world has always contained injustice: rich and poor, rich nations and poor nations. Minorities and the poor have always been put down. And the methods of the rich have often been those of the Nazis, though not usually so blatant. Nineteenth-century Britain abused India to get ahead; nineteenth-century America abused Indians to get ahead. Racism and notions of white, middle class superiority have only just begun to recede in America to give some political meaning to the phrase, “all men are created equal,” with the additional change that women are sometimes acknowledged as well. But the social adjustments and the pain produced when the “haves” really give political freedom to the “have-nots” are intense.148

Sometimes social evils can overwhelm us. We may hear descriptions of an urgent need, the deplorable conditions, and a desperate plight and become immobilized because we suffer from compassion overload. We may also think to ourselves: How could we possibly do anything to alleviate so much suffering in so many places? Craddock writes: “Overwhelmed by the totality, the church can easily disregard as puny and ineffective the cup of water, the loaf of bread, the small chapel, the family altar, the covey of children listening to a Bible story on Sunday evening.” He then gives a parable:

It came to pass that there was a certain minister who preached to his little flock of “the world today,” “the twentieth century,” and “the human race.” A layman complained of not being addressed by the sermons, but his complaints were turned aside with admonitions against small-mindedness and provincialism. In the course of time, the minister and the layman attended together a church conference in a distant city. When the minister expressed anxiety about losing their way in the large and busy metropolis, the layman assured him there was no reason to fear. With that word, he produced from the rear seat of the car a globe of the world.149

Tackling the big-picture issues of the day as one small group or as one lonely individual may seem absolutely unmanageable. Paul’s letter to Philemon guides us to look at the person on our very doorstep. Craddock points out that while Jesus was hanging on the cross, taking away the sins of the world, he made the effort to say, “Take my mother home.”150 Brian Dodd is surely correct in his comment about what Paul did in this letter to Philemon: “Paul did not stand against the might of Rome by opposing all slavery everywhere, but he did stand with the slave Onesimus in his hour of need.”151

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 victims who need a friend and a loving hand. God’s spirit will transform the world as individuals open themselves up to its power. Willimon tells of a baptismal font at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina, which shows just how God’s Spirit can recast something evil into something good. The font had been hollowed out from a huge stone used to auction black slaves off to the highest bidder. The inscription on the font reads: “On this stone men were sold into slavery. From this stone men are now baptized into freedom.”152

Authority and leadership. Lohse remarks that obedience “is the only appropriate response that the addressee can give to the word of the Apostle. Therefore, it is not left to his discretion whether he is willing to act out of love or not. Rather, he is obligated to obey the apostolic word.”153 I could not disagree more. I have shown in the Original Meaning section that Paul did not dictate to Philemon what he thinks needs to be done. Paul advised the Corinthians on sexuality and marriage and makes it clear that he does not try to throw a noose around people’s necks by speaking ex cathedra (1 Cor. 7:6, 25, 35, 40). He gave them authoritative advice but is not authoritarian. The Corinthians had to decide for themselves. He had no desire to lord over others (2 Cor. 1:24) but wanted to develop his readers’ own sense of moral responsibility. The same is true for Philemon. Paul wisely recognized that most people do not respond well when ordered to do something by someone who seems condescending and paternalistic.

Paul does not choose to throw his apostolic weight around in this letter or win obedience by compulsion. Luther commented on Paul’s statement in verses 8–9, “Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love,” by asking, “When has the Pope ever acted so?”154 Anne Lamott has said so well: “You don’t always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it, too.”155 Paul does not leave Philemon to agonize over what to do alone; he points the way for him. Nordling observes that “Paul’s requests are really invitations—‘encouragements’—for his original readers to offer him service out of hearts which have been freed by the gospel (cf. Rom. 6:20–23; Eph. 6:6; 1 Tim. 1:5).”156 He takes their freedom seriously.

Again, Wall’s comments are insightful: “When we continue to position ourselves to gain power over others rather than to empower them as agents of God’s grace, our congregations and families will simply fail to bear witness to God in our world.”157 Paul does not dictate or employ any heavy-handed coercion or intimidation to get Philemon’s grudging consent. Jewett shares how a theological student from Zimbabwe helped him he see the ethical implications of Paul’s diplomacy in this letter. Had Paul ordered Onesimus’s release on his authority as an apostle, he would have validated the domination system that perpetuated slavery. He writes:

Slavery is a system of bossing people around. If Paul had bossed Philemon, the slavemaster might submit and grudgingly free Onesimus, but the principle of domination would still be intact. And slavery would spring up again inside the church, in more ways than one. Instead, Paul subverts the entire system of domination by appealing to Philemon’s free decision, to act in a manner consistent with the equality and love between brothers and sisters in Christ.158

Paul does not employ the language of fear and guilt because that would reduce Philemon to the level of a slave.

Paul chooses the more excellent way in this letter. He expects Philemon to respond to Onesimus with love, and consequently he responds to Philemon with love. His gentle coaxing of Philemon embodies Jesus’ reproof of his feuding disciples in Luke’s account of the Last Supper (Luke 22:25–27):

Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.”

Paul’s manner of dealing with Philemon on such a delicate topic is a model for Christian leadership on how to form Christians and how to influence others’ behavior in the church and in the home.159 He wants to win obedience, not force compliance that is only a superficial conformity to expectations (“eye-service,” Col. 3:22). Paul trusts Philemon’s Christian faith and believes that it will guide his decisions. He refuses to bulldoze his moral responsibility by dictating to him what he must do. Developing morally wise Christians is like helping a child learn to ride a bicycle. The child needs encouragement, steadying, and pointing in the right direction; but the parent must finally let go if the child will ever learn to pedal, steer, and balance alone. If Christians are ever to grow in Christ, leaders need to point them in the right directions, but they must let go and let them decide for themselves the obedience Christ requires of them.

Many churches suffer from leaders who will not let go and instead want to control everything and dominate others. They operate by force and intimidation to get others to conform to their vision and wishes. This pattern of leadership reduces open conflict but destroys fellowship. Such leaders may fool themselves into thinking they are getting others to obey God’s will. In truth, this leadership style only breathes new life into the principles of domination and exploitation that govern the old aeon and worse, turn brothers and sisters in Christ into vassals and slaves. This leadership style therefore only opens the door to Satan and produces unformed and immature Christians. Their charges may do the right thing but for the wrong reasons because they are only capitulating to external pressure.160

(1) Wise Christian leaders will motivate their charges by creating a sense of unity: We are in this together. They will explain their vision persuasively, using symbols from our shared faith. Paul allows Philemon to work out what is demanded by love, a love he knows from what God has done for him in Jesus Christ and his fellowship in the community of faith. That means he also allows him to make the wrong choice. This possibility has been captured by Barton’s imaginary recreation of Philemon’s response to Paul. The slave owner could write back to Paul:

… Am I to understand that your wish is for Onesimus to be granted his liberty? … Brother Paul, I do not think you realize what you are asking. Forgive me for doubting your wisdom. But your expectation goes against all my natural inclinations.

… Then there is the problem of the other slaves. They would want their freedom too! What would become of us then? And I would be a laughing-stock. Who ever heard of a master without slaves? No one at the agora would deal with me any more. They would think I’d thrown it all in and become a mad Cynic!

Beloved Paul, is it not important to maintain order? Is it not possible for Onesimus to be both my slave and my brother? Is it not possible for us to be one in the Spirit but master and slave in the world?161

But Paul trusts that love is resourceful enough to find the right way in accomplishing the good. He trusts that Philemon’s maturity in Christian love will be creative enough to lead him to do the right thing.

(2) Wise Christian leaders will live out themselves what they ask others to do. Paul makes his request as one whose own devotion to Christ is manifest in his bonds. He does not ask Philemon to make a greater sacrifice than he has made himself.

(3) Wise Christian leaders will keep potentially divisive issues from becoming an “I win, you lose” situation, but instead will try to turn them into a “you win, we all win” decision. Paul does not threaten to renounce or punish Philemon if he fails to do what he wants. He frames his request so that Philemon can see how his generosity contributes to God’s work and his own welfare.

The miracle of grace. The belief that the poorest and weakest sinner can become a beloved brother in the Lord forms the theological core of Paul’s appeal. In many ways the letter to Philemon with its appeal, “This is your brother,” is a real life counterpart to the parable of the Prodigal Son. “ ‘But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’ ” (Luke 15:32). Lloyd A. Lewis cites the eloquent words of Samuel D. Proctor from his sermon “Finding Our Margin of Freedom”:

It does not matter where we were born, what kind of rearing we had, who our friends were, what kind of trouble we once got into, how low we sank, or how far behind we fell. When we add it all up, we still have some options left, we still have some choices we can make.162

A derelict slave can become a herald for the kingdom. A shyster like Zacchaeus can be redeemed as a son of Abraham (Luke 19:9). A menacing Saul, “breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples” (Acts 9:1), can become a “chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel” (Acts 9:15). A privileged slaveholder can learn that Christian charity extends to all persons, including slaves.

The stories of redemption in the Bible confirm the truth of Buttrick’s statement, “Every man is a bundle of infinity.”163 This applies equally to those who are classified as nonpersons or who are dismissed as the dregs of society. God’s grace can transform them into something holy and profitable. From the mulch pile come beautiful flowers. We can see the grandest visions of God’s love and purposes being worked out in those who are downtrodden and oppressed.

Many people in our world need to have someone convey this grace to their lives. Stephen O’Connor shares his experiences of trying to teach inner-city children how to express themselves through writing and shares a poem by Clara Ritos:

I am a tree

that’s being picked on.

I am a tree,

my heart is being split in half.

I am a tree

that’s being cut into pieces.

People use me for firewood

to keep them warm,

and use me to make

tables and chairs.

I am a wooden floor

that’s being stepped on

and scraped so hard

that I can feel it

in my heart.164

God’s grace picks up the trampled soul and hydrates desiccated spirits with a new hope. Anne Lamott comments on a famous work of Samuel Beckett, “The redemption in Beckett is so small: in the second act of Waiting for Godot, the barren dying twig of a tree has put out a leaf. Just one leaf.”165 Brother Lawrence, a medieval monk, saw things quite differently and said that God saw all of us as trees in winter with little to give, stripped of leaves, color, and growth, whom God loves unconditionally anyway. He turns useless, profitless, barren trees into flowering trees planted by streams of water, whose leaves do not wither and yield its fruit in season.

A lesson in forgiveness. Paul does not specifically ask Philemon to forgive Onesimus, but he must assume that if Philemon can bring himself to accept Onesimus as a dear brother, he will have forgiven him.166 In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus teaches us to request forgiveness of our debts as we have forgiven others (Matt. 6:12).

Forgiveness is not dependent on our having forgiven others first. But persons should not expect to receive from God what they are not prepared to bestow on others…. A forgiving spirit is the outstretched hand by which we grasp God’s forgiveness (5:7). When we close that hand tightly into a fist, we give nothing but also can receive nothing.167

C. S. Lewis has said, “We all agree that forgiveness is a beautiful idea until we have to practice it.” Forgiving real-life sinners who have seriously damaged us is difficult. It takes work and prayer. Lewis perceptively recognized that “we need to forgive our brother seventy times seven not only for 490 offences but for one offence.”168 Forgiveness may therefore take time. Lewis wrote to a friend:

Do you know only a few weeks ago I realised suddenly that I at last had forgiven the cruel schoolmaster who so darkened my childhood. I’d been trying to do it for years … this time I feel it is the real thing … one is safe as long as one keeps on trying.169

Our natural inclination leads us to disregard the obligation to forgive whenever it brings a high price. In Philemon’s case, receiving Onesimus back as a brother and desisting from punishing him severely may very well have brought him public ridicule. He would have appeared weak—soft on slavery—and a threat to a whole system that depended on the oils of fear and swift and certain punishment to run smoothly. Such forgiveness went against the grain of everything society accepted as normal.

The growing number of slaves in the Roman empire made the ruling classes uneasy, always fearing that slaves would murder them, revolt, or run away. The typical Roman solution was the threat of serious reprisals as a deterrent. The slaveholders would regard treating a miscreant slave indulgently with a jaundiced eye. Any leniency, they feared, could only lead to a catastrophe down the road. But forgiveness is the only way to break the cycle of evil. By forgiving Onesimus, Philemon can join in God’s recreating work and the reclamation of a sinner.

Some modern readers of Philemon take umbrage over any suggestion that Onesimus needed forgiveness for trying to escape oppression. Philemon was an oppressor by virtue of his owning slaves. Onesimus was the victim, not Philemon. This attitude fails to take seriously how we are all—victim and victimizer—caught in the web of sin. An evil system makes it hard for anyone to be pure, to do good, and to avoid harming others. We tend to regard ourselves as the wronged innocent one and fail to see how we have contributed to a problem. We would like to dump all the blame on one party in a dispute and consider the other party innocent.

In the context of Christian theology, both Philemon and Onesimus are sinners; and we may safely assume that Onesimus has forgiven Philemon any wrong done against him because he has decided to return to his household. The issue that Paul deals with is not who is or is not most guilty, but how to restore broken relationships. Before there can be any restoration, both must repent and forgive the other for real and perceived wrongs.

The problem is that forgiveness in our age has become too sentimental and trivialized. True forgiveness does not excuse the sin. It also does not forget that anything ever happened. The demons of remembrance may be kept at bay during our waking hours, but they often run riot just before we fall asleep or in our dreams. The sin keeps being replayed in our memory, and the anger burrows ever more deeply into our psyche. We may think we have buried the hatchet, but we have left the handle sticking far enough out of the ground that we can reach for it when the next offense occurs. How can we as Christians absorb evil without passing it on to others or allowing it to fester in our own souls? If forgiveness is to happen, we must face the sin and the anger it caused.

Paul does not tell Philemon to let bygones be bygones or parrot a meaningless cliché, “All’s well that ends well.” His delicacy in broaching the subject of Onesimus’s restoration recognizes that the offense, whether justified or not, caused anger in Philemon and probably others.170 Philemon understands himself to have been wronged, and Paul does not ignore that fact or sweep things under the carpet. God may have forgiven Onesimus, but Onesimus also sinned against Philemon. Paul’s diplomatic letter encourages Philemon to allow his goodness to have mastery over his anger so that the relationship with Onesimus is not irrevocably destroyed.

The less malicious intent that we attribute to the person whom we think has violated us in some way, the less anger we feel toward him or her. Paul wisely seeks to relieve Onesimus of any malicious intent by attributing the whole thing to God’s purposes (v. 15) and thereby defuses Philemon’s anger, which may hide beneath the surface. Forgiveness, then, is “not some pious hope, but something gritty, rough-edged, an act of will, a recognition of pain, a genuine gift.”171 It “does not mean letting the other person off the hook of responsibility, but taking the hook of pain out of your mouth.”172

Forgiveness also recognizes that any wrongdoing requires some just and commensurate punishment. Paul makes it clear in addressing slaves in Colossians that “anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong” (Col. 3:25). In this letter he acknowledges that Philemon deserves some restitution (vv. 18–19). In a family, however, justice must be restorative rather than retributive. Suchocki defines forgiveness as “willing the well-being of victim(s) and violator(s) in the context of the fullest possible knowledge of the nature of the violation.”173 It frees both victim and violator from the web of sin.

Forgiveness brings healing in the relationship and healing for the victim and the victimizer. Paul frames his request so that forgiving Onesimus will comfort his heart and fill Philemon’s heart even more with God’s love. Jesus’ parables about the servant who owed ten thousand talents (Matt. 18:21–35) and the two debtors who both are bankrupt and both are forgiven (Luke 7:36–50) would have been appropriate for the situation. The first parable about an unmerciful servant reveals that forgiveness can become far more problematic for people when it involves money. When money is involved, we may be less willing to forgive. The gospel, however, puts financial issues in proper perspective. Paul could ask Philemon, What does it profit a master to gain back a slave and forfeit his compassion in Christ and ultimately his life? In the second parable we can compare Onesimus to the large debtor who has been forgiven much by God. Can Philemon remember that he also is a bankrupt debtor who has been forgiven by God? Can he then accept God’s forgiveness of Onesimus and accept him back as a brother?

The situation also has parallels with another of Jesus’ parables. Philemon is like the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Paul is like the father, who braves the chill of the night air to beg him to forgive his brother and to join the party that celebrates his restoration. “This brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32). If Philemon does not yield to this request, he will show that he is not a brother, not a partner, but one who begrudges forgiving the debts of others. When wrestling with the demanding task of forgiving others, we may find that our resentment erases our memory of how much God has forgiven us.

It is so easy for us to preach how important forgiveness is for others and not apply it to ourselves. But Paul models the life and teaching of his Lord Jesus. We learn from the Corinthian correspondence that someone has hurt Paul (2 Cor. 7:12). The apostle does not seek vengeance. When his antagonist is down (2:5–11), he does not gloat over the fact that this one has finally got his comeuppance but asks everyone to join in helping him. He says, “Forgive and comfort him … reaffirm your love for this one … forgive him.” Forgiveness does not mean we ignore what has happened. It means that we still relate to that person in spite of what has happened, and also in light of what has happened.

The mysterious ways of God’s providence. Onesimus’s unlawful flight was regarded by the propertied class in his culture as flagrant disobedience. Other dutiful slaves, perhaps fearing reprisals and annoyed by the extra work that now fell to them, would have frowned on his escape as well. Even a compassionate Christian master would have been worried and more than a little perturbed. If sin is something that brings harm to another, we may look at Onesimus as one who was sinned against but also one who sinned.

Patzia helps us to see Onesimus’s disobedience from a different angle. “Onesimus’ action was deliberate; but his departure did not remove him from the sovereignty of God.” Patzia observes that “human failures often become God’s opportunities! Here is a case in which a temporary loss was turned into an eternal gain.”174 Chrysostom long ago noted the parallels with the story of Joseph in Genesis 45:4–8; 50:15–21. Joseph understands that God’s redemptive purposes were being worked out when his brothers betrayed him and their father by selling him into slavery. He tells them, “But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance” (45:7). “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (50:20).

In the story of Onesimus we can see the mysterious providence of God at work. We will never know how Onesimus eventually met Paul after making good his escape. We can only know from the use of the passive voice, “he was separated from you” (v. 16), that Paul believed that God’s hand was in what had happened. The escapade turned out differently than any might have expected, in that Onesimus ultimately escaped into the arms of God’s grace. He could not escape God’s eye on him. We cannot straighten the lines of our crooked paths in life, but God can. God can take our worst intentions and turn them around for good, healing broken lives and broken relationships. In Onesimus’s culture, others could only see a slave, a useless slave, and worse a runaway slave. God saw more and purposed greater things for him.

Everything turns out differently from what was foreseen by either master or slave. God was using this escape to bring Onesimus to Paul.175 Paul sends him back to his master as a brother who, he trusts, will send him forth as a coworker in the gospel. We usually can only see the traces of God’s hand in our lives in retrospect. The story behind the letter can help us see that even our darkest moments, deepest despair, and most dreadful disobedience can have some meaning in God’s purposes. We are all part of some great tapestry, but usually we can only make out the individual threads.