Philemon

vs 1-2

Another letter from Paul, and with Timothy as an offsider. It takes its name from the frist guy it is addressed to - Philemon.

It's also written to Apphia and Archippus. The titles these three are given could mean something special. Look at Paul's title - he is a prisoner of Christ. So it is possible that Archippus, for example, is a soldier, but also a convert. Apphia is obviously a woman. Philemon might hold a position of responsibility in the church as a fellow worker. He might also be just a worker, although in the greek, "fellow worker" is one word. So he is literally a companion worker, which makes me think he's in a similar business to Paul. I'm not sure if the church meets in the home of Philemon or of Archippus. the grammatical reading would suggest Archippus, but considering the address of the letter to Philemon first, it is possible that it meets in his house - this would give more explaination as to why Philemon is a fellow-worker with Paul too.

vs 3

Typical greeting.

vs 4

Once you start reading lots of Paul's letters in a row, you almost feel like you could write one yourself. There's no reason to start a letter like this though - it's not some holy formula - it's just how people wrote letters back then, and Paul Christianised it. We'd do better to Christianise the way we write letters.

vs 5

At least Paul has heard some good things about the church he's writing to here.

vs 6

There are surprisingly few references to sharing your faith in terms of an encouragement to or a command to that aren't easily attributable to a particular group outside of our experience. The Apostles probably receive the most commands, straight from Jesus, and those are the ones we know. But there is an argument (false to me, but people still use it) that those commands (like Matt 28:18-20 or Acts 1:8) were make only to the Apostles, and they are not relevant to us. Well, if you listen to anything written to churches by Paul, you'll see here that he encourages his churches to share their faith. Makes Philemon an important little book in my opinion.

But that doesn't cancel the fact that there is still far more in the Bible about helping fellow Christians. That's my take on a raw-numbers weigh up of the situation. But you should know my attitude on raw-numbers arguments by now.

Notice why Paul wants the church to be involved in evangelism and discipleship - because sharing your faith gives you a fuller understanding of all the good things we've got in Christ! It is this quality, along with the life of dependence on God, that makes missionaries so mature.

vs 7

Hehehe, Philemon refreshed their bowels. Although the word is used to mean intestines (I'm sure you can guess where), it usually refers to the seat of kinder affections (if used in a Hebrew sense). The more important word here is probably 'refreshed', suggesting more of what Philemon has actually been doing. He has been giving rest to their hearts. A very nice thought, although too vague for my liking. Possibly it means he has been allowing them to collect or regain the strength of their hearts, that is, to strengthen their love for one another. Can't really say.

vs 8

Oooh, Paul is not pulling rank, although he is claytons pulling rank (that is, the rank you're pulling when you're not pulling rank). Which does show us that there is a hierarchy in Christ, but that Paul doesn't use it. At least not here anyway.

vs 9

Instead, love is what motivates Paul and is also his motivating big stick to hit Philemon with. He also throws in that he's an old man, and a prisoner of Christ. Gee Paul, ham it up why don't you?

vs 10

It's lucky that Philemon knew who Onesimus was immediately, because we don't learn what his relationship to Philemon was until verse 16. Imagine having to wait 6 more verses to find out that Onesimus was a slave! Now obviously Paul didn't adopt him, so by "became my son" we've got to assume that he became Christian, and probably has also been of great help and support to Paul.

Paul makes a word-play here - Onesimus means 'useful', but as we see in the next verse, he has become useful even though he was useless.

vs 11

He became useless probably because he ran away. Now in my opinion, slaves don't just run away for no reason. Philemon might have been treating him like a jerk. But it could also be that Onesimus was a war-prisoner slave, or just didn't like being a slave and so ran away. Now remember that Onesimus is a dead-man-walking - the penalty for leaving your master was death. So he must have had a fairly good reason to leave.

How did he end up with Paul? Does he run to Paul because of his involvement in the church, almost to dob on Philemon? Or does he just run, and ends up somehow meeting Paul because of how awesome God is that he can orchestrate such things? Who knows. The interesting thing about this letter is that Paul doesn't slam Philemon for treating his slave like garbage, which either means that Philemon didn't do that, or that he did but Paul accepts it as part of slave-culture and that he is looking at the bigger issue of Onesimus being Christian now.

vs 12

And so we see that Paul is going to send Onesimus back to Philemon. Was this letter with Onesimus when he arrived? Was it going ahead of him so that he wouldn't be beaten or killed on his arrival? Who can say. What this does show is us just how occasional this letter is! It's about a specific guy in a specific church with a specific slave!

Paul obviously sees a need to explain just how much he loves Onesimus, probably because he doesn't want bad things to happen to him when he returns.