Philemon 23–25
Final Greetings
Introductory Matters
Believing he has said enough to influence the situation profitably, Paul brings the letter to a quick close. The closing is comprised simply of greetings from five other men (besides Timothy) who were with Paul during the time of his imprisonment, and a final benediction that completes the inclusio of “grace” that stands like bookends at the start and finish of the letter (vv. 3, 25).
The five men mentioned in verses 23–24 are all known to us from other texts of the early Jesus movement. If all of the passages about them are taken at face value (see sidebar “Paul’s Associates”), then it would seem that each of these five men had an interesting story to tell of their own lives in relation to Paul.
Aristarchus was a longtime travel companion of Paul (perhaps this was true of Luke as well), who had experienced some persecution with him (according to Acts 19 and Colossians).
Mark was a companion to Paul in his early mission with Barnabas (in the early to mid-40s). Although Paul may have lost confidence in him in the late 40s (if Acts 15 is anything to go by), Mark seems later to have enjoyed Paul’s confidence, having also a link to Peter (according to 1 Pet. 5).
Epaphras was a trusted, prominent, and effective leader with Paul among certain Jesus-groups, while Demas had enough stature to be mentioned in the greetings, although he would eventually go on to forsake Paul (if 2 Tim. 4:10 is anything to go by).
Mark and Luke may well have gone on to compose narratives that have nourished the church for millennia (the Gospel of Mark; the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, although the ascriptions in those Gospels derive from tradition).
Perhaps it would not take much of an inquiring mind to construct an intriguing imaginative narrative about the intersection of these life stories converging at the point where Paul wrote to Philemon.
In verse 25 Paul closes the letter with an invocation of grace upon the recipients of the letter. This is a fairly standard feature of Paul’s letters (see also Rom. 16:20; 1 Cor. 16:23; 2 Cor. 13:13; Gal. 6:18; Phil. 4:23; 1 Thess. 5:28). Thus the shortest of Paul’s extant letters comes to a close.
Tracing the Train of Thought
Greetings from Those with Paul (23–24)
23–24. Having made his case, Paul closes by sending greetings from others who are with him. The first is Epaphras, who is said to be my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus. There may be subtle military imagery in this descriptor, since the Greek term contains nuances of a prisoner of war (cf. the description of Archippus as “our fellow soldier” in v. 2). We cannot tell whether Epaphras’s imprisonment is metaphorical or literal. (The Greek word Paul uses of his own imprisonment in verses 1, 9, 10, and 13 [desm-] differs from the Greek word used of Epaphras’s imprisonment [synaichmalōtos], which he also uses of Andronicus and Junia in Rom. 16:7.) But either way, Paul’s depiction may imply that Epaphras had been on the battlefield in the cosmic combat that God has won in Christ’s death and resurrection (see the battle imagery of 1 Cor. 15:24–25; 2 Cor. 10:3–4, and beyond, not least throughout much of Colossians and Ephesians).
The others with Paul are identified both by their names (Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke) and by the descriptor my coworkers, which applies also to Epaphras. With this descriptor, Paul is doing more than simply recognizing the importance of these men in his ministry; he also has an eye on Philemon once again. At the very beginning of the letter, Paul referred to Philemon as “our coworker” (v. 1); here he uses the same term to describe people who evidently had a reputation among Jesus-followers as notable leaders. If Philemon chose not to comply with Paul’s vision for Onesimus, the term “coworker” would look less appropriate when applied to him—a case of “one of these things is not like the others.” In this way, even the final greetings play into the rhetorical force of the letter. Not only do the two authors of verse 1 endorse Paul’s request, but so too do the five men of verse 25—resulting in something of a “rhetorical squeeze” between those two verses (see fig. 14).
A Closing Grace (25)
25. Paul ends the letter offering what for him is a fairly standard invocation, one that highlights what he and his coworkers were ultimately concerned to foster: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a grace that Paul prays would be with your spirit. Once again, the word “your” is plural. Philemon is not singled out here; the corporate community itself is represented as having a single “spirit” or ethos, through which divine grace is to flow.
All that Paul has to say about the relationship between Philemon and Onesimus is contained within the letter’s inclusio of grace (vv. 3, 25). That relationship is simply one moment in an ongoing story of the divine grace that was to animate the life of this Jesus-group and of Jesus-groups beyond it.
With Paul’s final mention of “grace” as a foothold, we can now reflect (although only briefly) on the extent to which Paul’s letter offers theological resources beyond the small Jesus-group to which Philemon belonged in the first century.
We need to frame our discussion with two caveats. First, more things are said about slavery in the Pauline corpus than what we find in Philemon; our comments here pertain only to Philemon.
Second, it is likely that Paul will not satisfy all of our contemporary expectations about how an issue involving slavery should have been handled. It has not been hard for readers sensitized to the issue of the slave trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to find weaknesses or faults in Paul’s discourse. For instance, the following criticisms have been leveled against Paul’s handling of the situation (as in Harrill 2006):
- Paul speaks for Onesimus; the voice of Onesimus is mute in the letter and Paul did not empower him to articulate things for himself.
- Paul did not challenge the stereotypical way of thinking about slaves in terms of their usefulness or non-usefulness.
- Paul failed to address the structural issue of slavery and its injustices.
If we want to spot the ideological weaknesses of Paul’s letter in relation to our own sensitivities about justice, then these might be places to start.
Nonetheless, there are also valid replies to these points as well. For instance, allowing Onesimus his own voice would have introduced unacceptable dynamics into the rhetorical situation, increasing the likelihood of an unfavorable result for Onesimus. Or, it is true that Paul’s theology of the body does not abandon categories of usefulness and non-usefulness, even when applied to slaves, but in the instance of Onesimus he does at least refocus those categories in terms of service, divinely empowered for the benefit of others.
It is true that Paul did not address the structures of power that were deeply ingrained within Greco-Roman culture. Occasionally voices were raised that went some way in that direction, and Paul’s was not one of them, at least on this occasion. But we need also to be fair to Paul. After all, the issue of whether slavery is justified or not is not in the mix in Onesimus’s situation. Of course, that lacuna might itself leave Paul vulnerable to criticism, if that is what we’re after. But it does mean that we first need to analyze Paul’s presentation on its own terms before assessing it for what we would have wanted him to say.
There are, however, theological sparks within the letter that, when gently fanned, can ignite a fire in the tinderbox of slavery—perhaps slaveries of all kinds (Greco-Roman slavery; eighteenth- and nineteenth-century slavery of Africans in Britain and, especially, America; twenty-first-century slavery in the form of human trafficking and exploitation in sex-trade industries; etc.). Changing the metaphor, it has rightly been said that Paul’s letter to Philemon “brings us into an atmosphere in which the institution [of slavery] could only wilt and die” (Bruce 2000, 401).
In fact, Paul has put into play key theological motifs that, when expanded upon, can be easily interwoven into a heavy thicket to smother all permutations of enslavement. These include the following:
- The inclusio of divine “grace” or unconditioned favor (against which Jesus-followers are to reassess their own attitudes of entitlement)
- “Peace,” or relationships based on justice
- “Love,” or beneficial self-giving for the betterment of others
- “Faithfulness,” or constancy in serving God and enhancing the lives of others
These ingredients, especially when taken together, are to be the yeast that raises attributes of Christ-likeness within the character of those whose identity is ultimately “in the Lord” and “in Christ.” It is there, “in the Lord,” that relationships of health are to be awakened—empowered by divine love, resulting in relationships of “just peace,” under a double umbrella of divine grace and effortful faithfulness.
At the center of this lies the transformation of moral character—a transformation that fosters the realignment of relationships. If structures of injustice are founded upon the categories of differentiation (not least, “slave” versus “free”; compare Gal. 3:28; 1 Cor. 12:13; Col. 3:11), those structures of injustice (which permeate cultures of all kinds) are sidelined “in the Lord.” It is “in the Lord” that the righteousness of God has come alive to enhance communities of Jesus-followers and to foster within their members patterns of life that reflect something of the glory of the eschatological age, ultimately overspilling for the betterment of society (cf. 1 Thess. 5:15). Little wonder, then, that relationships among Jesus-followers are reconfigured on the basis of their identity as brothers and sisters “forever.”
Paul believes in the power of God to shape communities into the character of the self-giving Son of God, enhancing their service to the gospel. Being an essay in the divine transformation of moral character, Paul’s letter to Philemon is ultimately a letter of quietly confident hope in the power of God.