Philemon – From Slave to Brother in Christ

This short letter is different than Paul’s other letters, not just because it’s the shortest, but because it’s personal, written to one person, and doesn’t include any doctrine or teaching. This is the only letter of its kind from Paul that has survived, but as prolific as Paul was, not likely the only one he wrote. This is a request by Paul to Philemon regarding his slave, Onesimus, who ran away to Rome where he met and was converted by Paul. At the time they met, and Paul wrote this, he was in his first prison stay that we read about at the end of Acts, so around 60 or 61 AD. The letter is not just to Philemon, but to “Apphia our sister,” and “Archippus our fellow soldier and to the church that meets in your home.” Some think that might be Philemon’s wife and son. We note that Paul considers the people of God the church, not a building. It would take a long time before churches would be meeting in buildings outside of the members’ homes, given Christianity was not a legal religion in the Roman Empire until Constantine.

Philemon is obviously an upstanding man of God, and an influential man in the church and the community. Paul probably led him to Christ on one of his missionary journeys through modern day Turkey. Someone who owned slaves was likely a Roman citizen which conferred many benefits, and was also a sign of wealth, the more the wealthier. Slavery was, as I’ve previously discussed, not at all like African chattel slavery in the Antebellum South. Race had nothing to do with it. Slaves were part of the spoils of war, and Rome had a lot of spoils. Some estimate that as much as three quarters of the population were slaves. They were free labor, and the great and expansive Roman Empire was built on their backs. Slaves, unlike in the American context, could actually buy their freedom back over time, and there was a large class of ex-slaves known as Freedmen.

Paul begins with thanksgiving in prayer for Philemon’s faith, and his reputation of “love for all the saints.” Then he exhorts him to do something that is an interesting insight into the nature of our faith:

⁶ I pray that your partnership with us in the faith may be effective in deepening your understanding of every good thing we share in Christ.

It’s odd that most versions have “I pray” here when there is no I pray in the Greek. It says, so that the fellowship of the faith. . . My old NIV translates this as, “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith . . .” The word for fellowship might be familiar, koinónia-κοινωνία,  properly, what is shared in common as the basis of fellowship (partnership, community). The point is that faith can only be truly understood when it is shared, when it is actively lived out among others. There is no such thing as lone-ranger faith in intellectual assent to certain propositions, but trust in a Savior that loved us so much that we are compelled to love others when we trust in him. It’s in the sharing that we come to understand how incredibly good it all is.

Philemon seems to do a good job of that, but Paul is encouraging him to do it more, maybe so he’ll be willing to grant Paul’s request. He wants Philemon to set his slave, Onesimus, free, even though he as a run-away. I imagine the punishment would have been harsh for run-away slaves in the Roman Empire, and here is Paul asking not only that he not be punished, but set free to serve with Paul. Maybe this little letter is in the Canon to give us yet another picture of what it is that God has done for us in Christ, slaves to sin, deserving of punishment and death, yet set free by mercy and grace to love and serve others.

When Paul met Onesimus, he must have converted him because he calls him his son, like he did Timothy and Titus, and says he became his son while Paul was “in chains.” So this changed the master/slave dynamic for Philemon in a big way. Now Paul says he can order Philemon to set him free, but he’d rather appeal to Philemon’s sense of duty, or to “do what he ought to do.” Then he says something that appears strange on the surface:

¹¹ Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

The name Onesimus means useful, and I guess it was a common slave name, but why would Paul say this slave was useless to Philemon? Clearly he would have been useless because he wasn’t a brother in Christ, but now as such he’s ultimately useful. And he became a valued partner of Paul while he was in prison, especially because Paul is, as he says, now an old man and “prisoner of Christ Jesus.” Notice he does not consider himself a prisoner of Rome. For Paul, God is sovereign over all things, as he should be for us. As Scripture is clear, no one has power unless God grants it, yet how often do we look at our lives, and life in general, as if it’s a spinning top going where it will of its own will. We ought not do that.

Paul wanted to keep Onesimus with him in Rome while he was in prison, but sent him back because he wanted to get Philemon’s consent. He doesn’t want to force him, and he implies he has the authority to command him, but he doesn’t. Paul sees God’s sovereign working in the situation. If Philemon hadn’t run away, he would never have met Paul and become a Christian, so as a “dear brother” he is better than a slave. Paul is willing to compensate Philemon if he is owed anything, but says to him, “not to mention that you owe me your very self.” Paul is not above playing hardball, and tells him he is confident of his obedience. We can take from this that Paul is not doing this for his own personal benefit, but for the gospel. That is the only way he would use his authority, and the only rationale for it. Onesimus was obviously very useful in helping Paul do what we read about in the last two verses in Acts:

³⁰ For two whole years Paul stayed there in his own rented house and welcomed all who came to see him. ³¹ He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance!

Paul asked Philemon to prepare a guest room for him, and he may have visited after he got out of prison. Think of what a reunion that would have been, Paul with his former slave now a partner of the great Apostle in the spread of the gospel among the Gentiles.