More thoughts on Paul’s letter to Philemon. 

It’s interesting that the letter is addressed not only to Philemon, but also to the house church that met in Philemon’s home.  That makes the problem of his fugitive slave Onesimus even more striking.  Here we have an individual who grew up around a church, probably even served them at times.  And yet he had to run away from the church in order to find Christ (when he runs into Paul at Rome).  How often does that happen?  How many believers do you know that grew up in church, rebelled against it in their teens, and then find Christ later in life? 

This makes Paul’s prayer in verse 6 stand out to me. “I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ.”   The word translated “sharing” comes from the Greek word for fellowship.  It’s a word that may have lost a lot of its meaning to us today.  This is a word that should characterized everything about the church.  It’s about family, community, genuine relationships, all centered around the death and resurrection of Christ. 

Paul’s prayer was for Philemon’s church to open their arms wide open for Onesimus, embracing him into the fellowship of faith.  That’s what radical grace is all about.  In Christ, we have a God who loves runaway slaves, frees captives, and loves the outcast.  People shouldn’t have to run away from the church in order to find the grace of Christ.  The grace of Christ should be what we are all about.

Daniel

For my one of my classes, we have to write a paper on some aspect of Roman culture in the midst of Bible times. From my reading for the class, the topic of slavery in the NT has really stood out, especially in Paul’s letter to Philemon. What a strange little letter! The apostle Paul is writing in the midst of a Roman prison to his wealthy friend Philemon who lives several thousand miles away in the town of Colosse.

Evidently Paul has met a mutual aquaintance, one of Philemon’s slaves named Onesimus. Onesimus evidently had stolen some of Philemon’s property and ran away from Philemon. While on the run, Onesimus happened to run into Paul and Paul led him to Christ. Interestly enough, Paul encourages Onesimus to return to his master Philemon. The problem here was that this move could cost Onesimus his life. It wasn’t out of the normal for the Romans to crucify runaway slaves. So Paul writes Philemon this letter urging him to forgive Onesimus.

In the letter, Paul makes this radical statement to Philemon, “If Onesimus has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.” This is exactly what Christ has done for us. This shows that when we truly experience the grace of God found in Christ Jesus, we become gracious people. Paul is offering to lay down his life for Onesimus, a man that many in his culture would have thought to be just a worthless slave.

By dying on the cross for us, Jesus has charged our sins to his account. That’s utterly amazing. Having experienced the grace of God, who is God calling us to show grace to?

—Daniel

Recently I came across this quote by Tom Wright on the significance of the Resurrection.

“Without Easter, Calvary was just another political execution of a failed Messiah. Without Easter, the world is trapped between the shoulder shrug of the cynic, the fantasy of the escapist, and the tanks of the tyrant. Without Easter, there is no reason to suppose that good will triumph over evil, that love will win over hatred, that life will win over death. But with Easter we have hope; because hope depends on love; and love has become human and has died, and is now alive for evermore, and holds the keys of Death and Hades.”

—Daniel