Philemon 8–16
Setting the Scene, Part 2
Introductory Matters
Having set the scene in its basic outline in verses 1–3 and having drawn up a character reference for Philemon in verses 4–7, Paul now adds further complexity to the situation in verses 8–16—in essence setting the scene further.
In this section Paul initially highlights his own relationship to Onesimus, so that Onesimus’s situation is seen in relation to both Philemon’s worthy character and Paul’s own ministry on behalf of the gospel. It would have been common to analyze Onesimus’s situation simply in terms of the master-slave relationship, but Paul complicates the lines of relational consideration by ensuring that the situation is seen to involve not just Philemon and Onesimus but Paul as well, as outlined in verses 10–14.
Paul complicates things even further in verses 15–16, where he introduces yet another consideration into the mix—that is, God’s working within Onesimus’s life. Although Paul does not articulate it in these terms, there is a sense in which he implies that Philemon should not think that he is the only one who has influence over Onesimus; there is also a higher master to whom even he (Philemon) is responsible. Thus, in this section Paul greatly compounds the relational dynamics surrounding Onesimus.
Tracing the Train of Thought
Paul’s Authority (8–9)
8–9. At this point in the letter Paul begins to pivot toward the request that he will make (in one way or another) in verses 17–22. He does so, however, by making a backward gesture toward the theological foundations of the previous section—a gesture encapsulated in the single Greek word dio, for this reason (v. 8). Although Paul prefers not to articulate his request through complex theological concepts in this letter, the little word dio draws attention to the deep theological resources that undergird the request—resources about the enhancement of Jesus-groups through divine enablement, an enablement that overshoots the glorification of individuals and leads instead to the glorification of Christ himself.
In fact, if it is a request that Paul will be making of Philemon, he notes initially that the request could be articulated as a command instead. Paul speaks of the great confidence that he has in Christ in order to command you (Philemon) to do the appropriate thing (v. 8). This is a discursive route that Paul prefers not to take, but he dangles the command in the air as a possibility open to him (arising from his apostolic identity). To ask someone to act on the basis of honorable principles (as Paul will soon do) is much different than commanding someone to act (which he notes here that he has the right to do).
In this instance, that Paul will make a request instead of registering a command enables respect for Philemon to be a part of the equation. Paul is convinced that Philemon is of the kind of character that he will do the thing that is most appropriate to his identity as a Jesus-follower, even without compulsion. Avoiding a command also ensures that Philemon is not backed into a rhetorical corner where he either loses face by conforming to the command or stirs up the situation further by refusing to comply and dishonoring Paul.
But Paul adds another reason why he is making a request instead of registering a command. Rather than commanding, I make my request to you because of love (v. 9). Paul has referenced “love” on three occasions earlier in the letter (and will again in v. 16). In verse 1 Philemon is said to be “our beloved” in Christ. In verse 5 Paul speaks of Philemon’s “love for all Jesus-followers.” And in verses 6–7 Philemon’s initiatives on behalf of other Jesus-followers are virtually equated to his “love” that encourages Paul. Philemon is beloved and has assisted others in love. Consequently, although Paul does not make it clear whether the “love” mentioned here is Philemon’s love for others or Paul’s love for Philemon (or both), it matters little; Paul has this relationship of giving and receiving love in mind when he speaks baldly of “love.”
The one who makes this request now identifies himself in ways not unlike verse 1—I, Paul, an old man and now also in chains for Christ Jesus (v. 9). Paul has already identified himself at the very start of the letter as a “prisoner of Christ Jesus”—or more preferably, “in chains for Christ Jesus.” He has not always been “in chains,” of course, as the little word “now” points out. But neither is this a new situation for him, as we know from other letters (see esp. 2 Cor. 11:23 within the context of 11:23–28). He presents himself, however, as “an old man”—a characterization that was not uncommonly applied to men even in their 40s and 50s (see Barclay 2007). (Some have proposed that the word is not “old man” but, with the change of one letter in the Greek word, “ambassador.” The suggestion does not carry much weight; see especially Birdsall 1993.) Here again Paul ups the ante, in a sense; he deserves respect both as a man of seniority (say, at least forty years of age) and as someone in chains for Christ Jesus. Will Philemon (who is probably younger than Paul) refuse to act on the request of a man such as this?
Onesimus between Philemon and Paul (10–14)
10–14. The request that Paul alludes to in verse 9 begins to emerge a bit more clearly in verse 10, not in terms of specifics (for that, the reader waits until v. 17) but in terms of knowing whom the request is about: I make my request to you concerning my child—Onesimus, whose father I have become during the time of my imprisonment.
For the first time, Paul mentions the name of the one for whom he is interceding. The name Onesimus is the 145th word of the 335 Greek words in the letter, meaning that 43 percent of Paul’s letter has been spent setting up the situation before even getting to the point of mentioning the name of the person he is supporting.
Having laid strong theological and rhetorical foundations before proceeding to his request, Paul now emphasizes the strong bond that exists between himself and Onesimus. In terms of their being in Christ, Paul and Onesimus are as father and son. Paul was the main instrument in the birthing of Onesimus’s faith, with that engendering of faith having occurred even while Paul was in chains. Paul is not primarily giving his audience historical information about the occasion of Onesimus’s coming to faith; instead, he is establishing a bond of “spiritual kinship” that increases the rhetorical pressure on Philemon. If Philemon has “a claim” on Onesimus, so too does Paul. Judged by first-century canons of honor, if Philemon chooses to disregard Paul’s request concerning Onesimus, he will be dishonoring Onesimus’s spiritual father, drawing him into a potentially antagonistic relationship. Does he really want to do that?
If, furthermore, Philemon and his slave Onesimus shared a biological paternity (a speculative but possible scenario, as noted in the introduction to this commentary), then Paul’s remark concerning his own “spiritual paternity” of Onesimus would carry additional weight in his attempt to diminish the importance of natural relationships while prioritizing relationships in the Lord. (Much the same would apply to Paul’s description of Philemon as Paul’s own brother in v. 7.)
He was useless to you previously, Paul then writes (v. 11). In so doing, he begins a pun that he will complete momentarily. The pun revolves around the name Onesimus, which means “useful.” The useful one was previously useless to Philemon. We cannot know the specifics of how Onesimus failed to live up to his name within Philemon’s household; perhaps Onesimus had simply been a rather ineffectual slave. Paul, however, offers a different assessment: but now he is useful to you and to me. Paul is not implying that Onesimus, having become a Jesus-follower, is fit to be welcomed back into Philemon’s household where he will now be a useful slave. The phrase “useful to you and to me” precludes that meaning, drawing attention to something that both Philemon and Paul have in common. What they have in common is their identity as “coworkers” (v. 1) in the service of the gospel. The phrase “useful to you and to me” intimates that Paul has a vision for how Onesimus can be useful in an arena beyond Philemon’s household—a vision that Philemon is to share through the influence of Paul’s letter.
There may be yet another dimension at play in Paul’s discourse, since the Greek words “useless” (achrēston) and “useful” (euchrēston) share a lexeme (chrēstos) that first-century speakers of Greek probably pronounced in much the same manner as the word “Christ” (Christos). If Onesimus was formerly achrēstos when he was apart from Christ (a-Christos, “without Christ”), he is now euchrēstos in Christ (eu-Christos, which might suggest that Christ has made him “good”). If Paul had this in mind, he has added a double layer of puns onto his depiction of Onesimus, with the words “useful” and “useless” pivoting around the names Onesimus at one level and Christ on another. Perhaps a few Jesus-followers meeting in Philemon’s house would have smiled at this point as the letter was being read out.
If Paul has something in mind for Onesimus, he nonetheless recognizes that Philemon has legal charge of Onesimus. For this reason Paul writes, I have (now) sent him back to you (v. 12). But he immediately qualifies that with another statement of personal affection for Philemon in order to register that Philemon is not the only one who has a stake in the outcome of Onesimus’s case. Paul himself has an interest in the matter of Onesimus’s fate, describing him as my very heart. This is more than a note of fatherly affection, however; with his sights on what is yet to come in this short letter, Paul here constructs a metaphor that will reemerge with rhetorical significance in the space of eight verses (see v. 20, itself drawing on what Paul says in v. 7 about Philemon having refreshed “the hearts” of others). At this point in Paul’s discourse, however, the affective aspect of this metaphor is primarily in play.
Sending Onesimus back to Philemon was not what Paul himself wanted; he makes this point explicitly clear in verse 13, saying I wanted to keep him with me. Paul gives Philemon a reason for wanting to retain Onesimus: so that he, in your stead, could be of service to me while I am in chains for the sake of the gospel. Paul is letting it be known that Onesimus’s assistance was deemed by Paul to be attributable to Philemon himself. It was a popular view that a servant could represent his master, standing in the master’s stead. In accordance with this view, Paul suggests that whatever assistance Onesimus had provided Paul in the service of the gospel was, in a sense, an extension of Philemon himself. Even without knowing it, Philemon had been benefiting from Onesimus’s association with Paul. The implication is that the same would be true if Philemon agreed to return Onesimus (whether freed or otherwise) to Paul once again—a request that Paul does not make explicitly but strongly hints at.
If Paul’s discourse has been revolving around the unstated expectation that Philemon should release Onesimus to Paul’s charge, Paul ensures here that this expectation is couched in terms that do nothing to jeopardize Philemon’s reputation. Paul does not mind usurping cultural codes of honor when necessary, of course, but in this case he deemed it unnecessary to follow that route; evidently, there was a better prospect of success without overturning the applecart. So he works within those cultural confines in this instance, stating I did not want to do anything without your agreement (v. 14).
Philemon’s cooperative consent is desirable, says Paul, precisely so that your good deed might be a voluntary thing rather than something forced upon you (v. 14). Paul does not want to be seen as coercing Philemon to act along particular lines (which Paul did not have the legal power to do anyway). But if Philemon chose to follow a different course than the one Paul expected, it would have been clear to all that he would not be acting in accordance with Paul’s understanding of “the good.” Implicit in this is Paul’s sense that if Philemon wanted to save face in this situation, the easiest route would be for him to acquiesce to the apostle’s expectations and appear to comply voluntarily.
Onesimus and God’s Initiative (15–16)
15–16. Having played the “honor” card in verse 14, Paul pivots to look at the situation from yet another angle in verse 15. If Onesimus’s original departure from Philemon’s household could reflect poorly on Philemon as the householder, Paul suggests a different interpretation of how the situation began in the first place. Instead of interpreting Onesimus’s departure in terms of human cause-and-effect relationships, Paul draws back and proposes that the will of God may itself have been primarily in play. When Paul says to Philemon that it might have been for this reason that he (Onesimus) was separated from you for a very short time (v. 15), the verb “was separated” seems to have God as its implied subject. Paul is proposing that Philemon and others think of Onesimus’s original departure as having been orchestrated by God, thereby subverting blame in relation to Philemon (as a less-than-adequate householder) or Onesimus (as a wayward servant); if Onesimus had left without Philemon’s consent, this is ultimately (suggests Paul) because God had desired that to happened. Why would that have been? The phrase “for this reason” refers back to “the good deed” in verse 14, the deed that Philemon is to do voluntarily. If we amplify Paul’s innuendo, we arrive at a scenario in which God orchestrated Onesimus’s departure from Philemon’s household in order that Onesimus, now a follower of Jesus, could be sent to assist Paul more permanently in his ministry on behalf of the gospel.
The imagery of Onesimus having been separated from Philemon at the start of the verse is set against its contrasting imagery at the end of the verse. One result of the scenario Paul is implicitly proposing is that Philemon would have him (Onesimus) back forever (v. 15). The key to this clause is not the phrase “have him back” but the term “forever,” which does not simply mean “until his usefulness as your slave expires.” Nor is the term likely to draw on Exod. 21:6 and Deut. 15:17 and mean “embedded within your household for the rest of his life” (a prospect argued for by Wright 2013, 13–15). Instead, while incorporating everyday imagery of having a slave “back,” Paul now spins it in a completely different direction through the term “forever.” That word alone shifts the imagery from Philemon’s household to God’s household. In Paul’s view, once the frame of reference is expanded to take into account “eternal realities,” it becomes clear that Onesimus was only separated from Philemon “for a little while” (lit. “for an hour”), with the result that Onesimus (now a Jesus-follower) is yoked to Philemon in an eternal relationship that transcends their relationship as master and slave.
Paul elaborates this point further in verse 16. Paul wants Philemon to imagine himself as joined now to Onesimus in a relationship “impressed” by the “peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (v. 3) and by “love for and faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ and all of Jesus’s followers” (v. 5). Consequently, if Philemon has received Onesimus back forever, it is no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.
On three occasions prior to verse 16, Paul has made use of the root word adelph- (i.e., “brother” or “sister”), using it to refer to Timothy (v. 1), Apphia (v. 2), and Philemon (v. 7; see also verse 20). Moreover, Paul has made use of the root word agapē (“love”) on four occasions prior to this verse, using it to refer to Philemon’s “love” for others (vv. 5, 7), Philemon’s “beloved” character (v. 1), and Paul’s request made in love (v. 9). Now Paul brings both of these important terms together and applies them to Onesimus—Philemon’s “beloved brother” in Christ (a term that also appears in 1 Cor. 15:58; Eph. 6:21; Phil. 4:1; Col. 4:7). Rather than relating to Onesimus merely in terms of a master-slave relationship, Philemon is encouraged to regard their relationship through the filter of brotherly bonds of kinship—a kinship resulting from the transforming restorative peace that comes from God their Father and the Lord (i.e., the true “master” or kyrios) Jesus Christ (v. 3).
This new relational configuration results from nothing other than the fact that they both are in the Lord (en kyriō). But it is a relationship that Paul also characterizes as being in the flesh (en sarki). By this phrase Paul might simply be referring to the sphere of life that lies beyond the gathering of Jesus-followers. That is, Philemon and Onesimus are brothers in the Lord not only when Jesus-followers meet together weekly (in Philemon’s house) but also beyond that, at other times throughout the week when their relationship is marked out primarily as master and slave. This would be a slightly awkward use of the term, however, since Paul does not usually dichotomize spheres of life in that fashion. If Jesus-followers are to be “in the Lord” in all spheres of life, a distinction between “in the flesh” and “in the Lord” looks somewhat uncharacteristic of Paul’s way of thinking.
Perhaps, then, “in the flesh” is a subtle gesture to a biological commonality that Philemon and Onesimus share. As noted in the introduction, Philemon and his slave Onesimus may have been biologically related to a single father through different mothers, with Philemon’s mother being the wife of the father and Onesimus’s mother being a slave of the household. Against the backdrop of this possible scenario, Paul’s depiction of Philemon and Onesimus as brothers in the Lord may be constructed on top of another layer of their identities, one involving a literal kinship (i.e., half-brothers, although that relationship would have held no social import, since one was a slave and the other had been the heir to the householder). Perhaps this goes some way toward explaining Paul’s curt and otherwise curious statement that Onesimus is a beloved brother especially to me but how much more to you (v. 16). Whereas Paul often frames issues of offspring with the phrase “according to the flesh” (kata sarka; e.g., Rom. 1:3; 4:1; 9:3, 5), in this instance he employs the phrase “in the flesh,” evidently in order to pair it more closely with the phrase that immediately follows it, “in the Lord.” (At times in Paul, the phrase kata sarka also suggests ethical depravity [as in Rom. 8:4–5, 12–13], a connotation Paul would have wanted to avoid at this point, thereby prompting him to use the phrase en sarki.)
Theological Issues
Social status was a preciously guarded commodity in the Greco-Roman world (just as it is today). Unsurprisingly, the letter to Philemon itself attests to that. In that letter, Paul attempts a difficult balancing act, negotiating the deeply entrenched codes of social honor and the complex registry of social authority.
But if we think of the letter simply in terms of a contest of honor and authority between Paul and Philemon, we miss the arena where Paul wants his audiences to place themselves when thinking through issues that impact their discipleship. The move Paul makes in verses 8 and 9 illustrates the point clearly. In verse 8 Paul intimates that, if the issue needs to be battled out, his own apostolic authority can trump anything Philemon might bring to the table. In verse 9, however, he features one of the select words that bear the theological weight of the letter: “love,” which for Paul is less an emotional sentiment than it is the active self-giving for the betterment of others to the glory of God. If Paul prods Philemon a bit, that is simply because of his conviction that divinely bestowed love is the best context in which these issues are to be resolved, with all parties benefitting (even Philemon).
Once in play, divine love completely rewrites the script of honor and worth. Just as Paul shows no cognizance of being disgraced by his imprisonment, so too “in the Lord” he prefers to see beyond people’s placement on the ladder of success and to recognize them as beloved members of a family (“my child,” “his father,” “your beloved brother”) who share responsibilities for each other’s well-being in the service of the gospel (see Frilingos 2000; Aasgaard 2004). To belong to a family is to prioritize the bonds of family over almost all other bonds of mutuality in service, responsibility, and affection. The perspective of Jesus-followers is less determined by their immediate honor and more determined by the well-being of those in the family, to whom they are “forever” bound.
Within the context of that family of service, people who were once deemed to be “useless” in other contexts become cherished and “useful” contributors. Perhaps behind Onesimus’s transformation from useless to useful lie the “gifts of the Spirit” that Paul describes in other letters (Rom. 12:4–8; 1 Cor. 12:4–11; and beyond). Those “in the Lord” are tasked by the Spirit to play essential roles within the body of Jesus-followers; regardless of how those roles appear in relation to the status codes pervading society, in the Lord their role is treasured as enhancing “the body” of those in the service of God. If Onesimus’s earthly master had considered him worthless, his divine master does not, and through the empowerment of the Spirit Onesimus is poised for usefulness in the service of the gospel. Paul thinks he has already had a glimpse of what that service might look like and hopes that Philemon will catch the vision too.
Finally, notice that Paul’s suggestion that God had already been involved in Onesimus’s situation compares notably with the OT story of Joseph and his brothers. Joseph’s brothers had maliciously sold him into slavery, but he rose from that situation to become the vizier of all Egypt. Late in the story, when his brothers fear his anger, Joseph recognizes two levels of causation at work when he was handed over to slavery: “You meant to do me harm,” he tells his brothers, “but God intended it for a good purpose, in order that the lives of many people might be saved” (Gen. 50:20). In Philem. 15 Paul, like Joseph, introduces another level of causation into the drama of the story, placing Onesimus’s situation within a much larger narrative of divine intention, insinuating that God himself may have been guiding the situation all along. Sometimes individual stories need to be considered in relation to the much bigger purposes of God.