Slavery - Philemon

The letter of Paul to Philemon is an interesting one and is something that I don’t feel like we’ve encountered yet. This letter was apparently written while Paul was on house arrest in Rome the first time. The IM comments, “Philemon is perhaps the most personal of all Paul’s letters, and it clearly illustrates the fact that when people join the Church of Jesus Christ, they become brothers and sisters in the gospel. One principle that Paul taught Philemon was that when a person is offended or hurt by another, it is the injured person’s duty to forgive the wrong-doer.” The first time I heard someone say that being offended is a choice, I had a mind-blowing reaction. I fought it of course because there had been so many people in my life who had hurt me intentionally and it seemed to me that this sentiment excused their behavior and put all the blame for my trauma on me. But instead of being oppressive, it ended up that this concept became liberating. Just because something happened doesn’t mean that I am a slave to my reaction. This plays in here because Philemon was going to have to reassess his options in the light of being a disciple of Christ. Paul’s letter to Philemon has to do with Onesimus, who is mentioned in Colossians 4:9. This is where Paul is getting ready to sent those who came to minister to him in prison back to Colossae. In Colossians 4:9 Paul says, “With Onesimus, a faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you. They shall make known unto you all things which are done here.” At first, this statement seems benign, Paul thanking a certain brother for coming to help him out. In the book on Paul that I’m listening to N.T. Wright notes that Roman prisons weren’t meant to house criminals as punishment, they weren’t equipped for that. This means that when a person was in prison for a while awaiting trial, the Romans were under no obligation to feed or clothe them. So if the prisoner wanted to be kept alive and fed, then someone that they knew would have had to come and bring them food, water, and clothing. So we might think, “oh it’s nice that they visited Paul in prison so he wouldn’t be lonely,” when in fact it was “wow, they kept Paul alive with their own resources for an extended period of time.” Now that is devotion. So Onesimus was with Paul in Rome, helping him out, and it is assumed, at least by me, that he went there because he wanted to and it wasn’t a problem for anyone. What we find out is that Onesimus was Philemon’s slave who had run away from him and gone to Rome to see Paul without permission. While in Rome Onesimus had accepted the gospel and presumably been baptized. Now Paul, Onesimus, and Philemon are in kind of a sticky situation. Onesimus is a great help to Paul, but he is also considered “property” of Philemon, and stolen property at that, plus Paul has been teaching people that they are supposed to be “subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates.” But on the other hand, slavery is an abhorrent construct and one to which Jesus surely would have been opposed. But then again, during Christ’s mortal ministry, there would have been slaves around where he lived and preached, and he never called for the institution to be abolished. So was he for slavery or against it? Did Jesus just not care about slaves or how they were treated? We can look at any form or oppression as slavery, wives to their husbands, children to their parents, citizens to any form of government, our spirit to our body, etc. These are all things that inhibit the choices that we can make for whatever reason. If we look at Christ’s teachings, we can see clearly that his solution to any type of oppression wasn’t to get rid of it, but to learn how to keep the commandments in those conditions. So here we are in this situation, the right thing to do would be for Onesimus to return to Philemon because that’s following the law, but it’s hard to tell someone that they need to go back to being a slave for their salvation. It would be a very tough sell and I don’t think they could be faulted at all if they didn’t go back. The other factor in this isn’t just that Onesimus would be a slave again, but that the punishments for runaway slaves were horrific. The IM says, “Under Roman practices of the time, slaves were at the mercy of their owners. Runaway slaves who were recovered were sometimes branded on the forehead, severely beaten, sent away to perform hard menial tasks, thrown into amphitheaters with dangerous beats, and in extreme cases, killed.” If I remember correctly, crucifixion was almost always reserved for slaves as punishment for crimes and also running away. If Onesimus was convinced to go back to Philemon because it would make him “obedient to the law,” the prospect of the torture that awaited him would almost certainly overcome any desire to be faithful, I know it would be for me. Surely seeing this debate going on in the head of Onesimus, Paul decided to write this letter to Philemon that Onesimus could take back with him. 1:1-7 - Paul starts out the letter praising Philemon for his “love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and towards all saints.” Now, this might be genuine or Paul might just be employing some “how to win friends and influence people” tactics here, either way, he reminds Philemon that he is a disciple of Christ first before he is the master of his household. There’s a phrase here “the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother,” which is mentioned a couple of times in this so we’re going to explore it because I can think of several different ways that this could be taken. The IM says, “The original Greek word translated as ‘bowels’ referred to one’s ‘inner parts,’ meaning one’s feelings and affections. Some modern Bible translators have chosen to translate this word as ‘heart’ rather than ‘bowels.’ When Paul spoke of the Saints’ bowels and his own bowels being refreshed, he was referring to their hearts being comforted and their emotions heightened by others.” 1:8-17 - Everything that Paul is going to say to Philemon about Onesimus, he wants to convey not as an apostle of Christ, thus making it church policy, but as an “aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.” This is a personal request, not a church one. Paul recognizes that Onesimus “in time past was to thee unprofitable,” but he’s a changed man and now he is not only profitable to Philemon but has been to Paul as well. Paul says he’d like to keep Onesimus with him, but recognizes that Onesimus is considered property and keeping someone else’s property is wrong. Now that Onesimus is coming back, Philemon has to decide what to do with him, beat him? Sell him to hard labor? Paul has another suggestion, and asks that “thou shouldest receive him for ever; Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me… If thou count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself.” This sends the whole concept of slavery and how it fits into the church into an upheaval, really if we think about it. Does this mean that Philemon should accept Onesimus back into his old position with no hard feelings? Does this mean that Onesimus should be freed and treated as an equal? And if it does mean this last one, what about all Philemon’s other slaves? Should they be freed too? Do they only get freed if the runaway to Paul and get him to write them a letter? It’s complicated because honestly, any scenario other than freeing all his slaves or beating the crap out of Onesimus just leaves Philemon open to problems from all the other slaves. 1:18-25 - Paul recognizes that this is more than just a “right thing to do” issue and understands that Onesimus’ absence might have cost Philemon money through lost labor or if Onesimus stole anything before running away. He’s asking Philemon to do this for him as a friend, so he offers “if he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account.” Paul’s offering to pay for any financial losses that came from Onesimus being gone. He doesn’t say that the church will cover it, he says that he will personally cover the costs and we know that Paul isn’t this rich high rolling guy. Paul finishes it out by saying basically, “I know you’ll do the right thing and save room for me, I’ll come visit soon.” Here’s an interesting interpretation of this letter from the article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com saying, “Paul makes it perfectly clear that the master legally owns only the slave’s service, not his person. This tension between mortal law and God’s higher morality makes this short letter a fascinating challenge to complacency. For it highlights the duty of every believer in God to respect every child of God, of whatever age, sex, race, or social or economic level. The letter to Philemon admits the wrongdoing of the runaway slave but guards against the further sin of the master in how he takes him back.” Overall, the article gives an amazing overview of this chapter which says, “Onesimus has been a great help to me during my imprisonment, so I would love to keep him here (of course, I am obliged to return him to you.) Besides, I would never want to do something without your consent. Nor do I want you to receive Onesimus (or do anything else for that matter) by constraint, but with a willing heart and mind. Perhaps it was the will of the Lord that he ran away in that it led to his conversion to the gospel here in Rome. Although he may have been absent from you for a short time, now he can be received as an eternal brother in the gospel of Christ. No longer a servant, better than a servant, he is a beloved brother. He has been a brother to me, but now he can be a beloved brother to you as well, speaking both temporally and spiritually.”