Summary: Bible - Book of Philemon

The GIST

Philemon, a book of the Bible, is a private note that became scripture: one chapter, twenty-five verses, written by Paul the Apostle from prison to a friend, about a third man who is carrying the letter. It is the shortest of Paul's surviving letters, only 335 words in the Greek. The friend is Philemon, a well-off Christian in whose house a church meets, generally thought to have lived in Colossae. The third man is Onesimus, who by the most common reading was Philemon's slave, had run away, met Paul, and become a Christian. Paul is sending him home and asking Philemon to take him back as something new: "Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved".

Almost no one doubts that Paul wrote it. It is counted among the seven "undisputed letters", and it is usually dated between about AD 57 and 62, from an imprisonment either at Caesarea or at Rome. Nothing in the New Testament shows more clearly how Paul handled people. He could have given an order. He chose to ask, and the way he asks is the lesson of the book.

What It Says

The greeting (verses 1 to 3). In most of his letters Paul introduces himself with his authority. Here he leaves the title of apostle aside and calls himself "a prisoner of Jesus Christ". Timothy is named with him as "our brother", which scholars take as a courtesy to someone the recipient knew, not as a sign that Timothy helped write the letter. It is addressed to "Philemon our dearly beloved, and fellowlabourer", and then, significantly, to others as well: "to our beloved Apphia, and Archippus our fellowsoldier, and to the church in thy house". Apphia is often presumed to be Philemon's wife, and some have guessed that Archippus was their son. A personal request is being made, but it is made within earshot of a community. The greeting closes with the wish found in his other letters: "Grace to you, and peace, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Thanksgiving (verses 4 to 7). Before he asks for anything, Paul gives thanks, and the thanks are chosen with care. "I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers", he writes, because he keeps hearing of Philemon's "love and faith" toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the believers. He prays that the sharing of Philemon's faith may become effective. Then he names what Philemon is known for: "For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother." In the King James idiom "bowels" means the seat of deep feeling, the heart. Philemon is a man who refreshes hearts. Paul will come back to that phrase, and when he does, the heart in question will be his own.

The appeal (verses 8 to 16). Now the request, approached from a distance. Paul says he could be bold enough to command what is fitting, "Yet for love's sake I rather beseech thee". He presents himself in the least commanding light possible, as "Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." Only then does the name come out: "I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds". Onesimus has become Paul's child in the faith during Paul's captivity.

A pun follows that English only half preserves. The name Onesimus means "useful", and Paul writes that he "in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me". The useless one has finally become what he was called. Paul is sending him back, and he describes what that costs him in the strongest words he has: "thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels". To receive Onesimus is to receive Paul's own heart.

He adds that he would gladly have kept Onesimus with him, to serve in Philemon's place while Paul is in chains for the gospel. But he would not presume: "But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly." A good deed that is forced is not the deed Paul wants. Then he offers Philemon a different way of looking at the whole painful episode. Perhaps there was a purpose in it: "For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever". The loss was short, and what comes back is permanent and better. Onesimus returns as a beloved brother, dear to Paul, "but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?"

The request and the guarantee (verses 17 to 20). At last the plain request, in a handful of words: "receive him as myself." Paul grounds it in friendship, "If thou count me therefore a partner". He knows there may be a practical obstacle, some loss Philemon has suffered, and removes it: "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account". It is often assumed from this verse that Onesimus had taken money when he left, though the letter does not say so. To make the promise binding Paul takes the pen himself: "I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it". And then, with a light touch that still lands, he mentions the debt on the other side of the ledger, "albeit I do not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides." Philemon, it seems, owed his own faith to Paul. The appeal ends by returning to the phrase from the thanksgiving. Philemon refreshes the hearts of the saints; now, "refresh my bowels in the Lord."

Confidence and farewell (verses 21 to 25). Paul closes sure of the outcome, and hinting at more: "Having confidence in thy obedience I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say." What the "more" might be he leaves unsaid. Some scholars think he hoped Philemon would send Onesimus back to work alongside him, perhaps as a free man. One more sentence gently adds to the pressure: "But withal prepare me also a lodging", for Paul hopes to be released and to visit, and he will see for himself. Greetings follow from five companions: Epaphras, called "my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus", and Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas and Lucas, "my fellowlabourers." The last line is a blessing: "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

What it teaches. The letter is a lesson in persuasion that respects the other person's freedom. Paul praises before he asks, asks instead of ordering, puts himself in the place of the one he pleads for, and offers to bear the cost. It is also a small picture of reconciliation: someone who has done wrong returns, someone who was wronged is asked to forgive, and a third party stands between them saying, in effect, charge it to me.

Why It Matters

The letter never condemns slavery outright, and Paul passes no judgment here on the institution. What it does is change the terms between two people. The article on the letter observes that Roman law gave the owner of a runaway nearly unlimited power to punish, even to kill, and that Paul asks for the opposite: welcome, forgiveness, a bond of family love. On this reading Paul quietly undermines an institution that treats people as less than human, because Onesimus, like Philemon, belongs to Christ. Pope Benedict XVI cited the letter as an example of Christianity changing society from within: people who stood as master and slave in civil life became brothers and sisters in the church, even where outward structures remained.

Not everyone accepts the usual story. One scholar, Allen Dwight Callahan, has argued that nothing in the text beyond verse 16 proves Onesimus was a slave at all, and suggests the two men were estranged brothers by blood; he traces the runaway-slave reading to John Chrysostom in the late fourth century. Others have answered that writers before Chrysostom already assumed it, and that the request to receive him no longer as a servant points that way. Another proposal, from the Scottish pastor John Knox, made Archippus the real owner and had the letter read aloud in the Colossian church to put pressure on him. It has found little support; as one commentator put it, the tact and delicacy of Paul's pleading would be undone at a stroke by a demand for publication.

The letter's authenticity was once questioned too. In the nineteenth century the German scholar Ferdinand Christian Baur, who accepted only four letters as Paul's, called it perhaps a "Christian romance". That view is now regarded as outdated.

How Onesimus came to Paul is unknown. He may have been imprisoned alongside him, or he may have sought out a man his master respected. Outside this letter he appears only once, in Colossians, where he is called a faithful and beloved brother. The fact that the letter was kept at all suggests that Philemon said yes.

Who Should Read It

Anyone who has to ask a hard favour, mend a broken relationship, or speak up for someone with less power. It can be read in a few minutes and repays far longer thought. Those interested in how the first Christians lived with slavery, and how their faith began to strain against it, will find the question here in its earliest and most personal form.