Lectionary Commentaries for September 7, 2025
Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Gospel of Luke reveals Jesus’ commitment to welcoming all people to experience intimate relationship with the living God (Luke 14:1–24; 15:1–32). And yet, even as Jesus welcomes all, he also offers a profound challenge to all. This week’s lectionary reading provides a vivid depiction of the cost of discipleship to anyone who says yes to Jesus’ invitation.

A difficult verse

While surrounded by “large crowds” on his journey toward Jerusalem (14:25; see also 9:51), Jesus says these words: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (14:26). In a church I was previously a part of, it was not uncommon for one of the pastors to say to the congregation after mentioning a challenging teaching of Jesus, “If you can’t say ‘Amen,’ let me hear you say ‘Ouch.’” This is one of those texts that calls for “Ouch.”

However, given that family was the building block of the ancient world and central for survival, these words were likely more challenging for Luke’s first audience to hear than for many of us in the West today. Still, it may be helpful for preachers to explicitly name how harsh these words will likely sound for most audiences. Specifically, how do we respond to these words in a world of profound violence and abuse—often against spouses, children, and the elderly? Is Jesus really saying hate is a mark of discipleship?

Three ways to interpret Luke 14:26

There are at least a few different ways to understand Jesus’ words. Preachers may find it helpful to briefly survey these options.

One option is to interpret these words literally. From this perspective, Jesus is literally saying that part of following him is despising those in our family and our life itself. While almost no one will come to this conclusion, it’s important to say why this interpretation is to be rejected, given how easy it is for many of us to dismiss Jesus’ teachings when they seem harsh according to our standards.

Most simply, Jesus can’t be equating the life of discipleship with a life of hate because this would contradict his previous teaching. Earlier in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus sums up the teaching of God’s law by saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength, and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27; see also Deuteronomy 6:5). In another place in the Gospel, Jesus specifically calls his followers to “love your enemies” and “do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27). And of course, Jesus affirmed the teaching of the law that called for honoring one’s father and mother—not hating them (Exodus 20:12).

A second option for interpreting Jesus’ words is to say they are simply hyperbole. In a sense, this interpretation has some truth to it. However, Jesus is not offering an exaggeration that dismisses the need for an ethical commitment. Throughout the Gospel of Luke, he has spoken of the cost of discipleship (Luke 9:23). Jesus does not sugarcoat discipleship. And this is yet another instance.

This leads us to a third and final option for interpreting Jesus’ words. The word “hate” is sometimes used in the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament to mean “love less.” For example, in the book of Genesis, the phrase “Leah was hated” is often interpreted to mean that Jacob “loved Rachel more than Leah” (Genesis 29:30, Revised Standard Version). This seems to be the case here. Jesus is saying that those who want to follow him must love all others less—to such an extent that it might look like hate. Or as biblical scholar Diane Chen puts it, “To become Jesus’ follower, one’s preference—loyalty, love, and priority—must reside with Jesus over all people and things one holds dear.”¹

The cross, discipleship, and discernment

Luke continues to narrate the costliness of discipleship in verses 27 and 33. In verse 27, Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” The cross—the Roman method of execution—is used, shockingly, to speak about following the way of Jesus. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “The cross is laid on every Christian.”² Said differently, the cross cannot be bypassed on the road to discipleship.

In verse 33, Jesus says, “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” The verb for “give up” (apotassetai) is often understood as “renounce,” but it can also mean to say farewell or goodbye. If the latter is the case here, for Luke, to follow Jesus is to always be ready to say farewell to any person, position, possession, and, we might add, political party that compromises our allegiance to Jesus Christ.

It is striking that Jesus gives two examples of the kind of deep discernment needed for faithful disciples. The first example is of a landowner discerning whether they have adequate funds to complete the building of a tower (Luke 14:28–30). The second example is of a ruler discerning whether they have adequate support to win a war (Luke 14:31–32). Jesus invites any who would begin to follow him to discern whether they are willing to persist on the journey. Of course, discernment is not a one-time event. Faithful discipleship requires ongoing attentiveness to God’s invitations. A sermon could create space for the congregation to consider how Jesus’ teaching might inform matters they are discerning as a community or as individuals.

A word of hope and grace

One final word: Jesus’ teaching in Luke 14:25–33 can easily sound grim and devoid of grace. Preachers may point out two things that challenge this perception. For one, earlier in Luke, while speaking of the demand of discipleship, Jesus states that “those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (9:24). Here, we see that being a disciple of Jesus leads us to a death that opens a door to real life. From this perspective, the cost of discipleship is better than the loss of discipleship.

Second, it may be helpful for preachers to emphasize how Luke 14:25–33 is situated within the broader journey Jesus is taking toward Jerusalem—something that is signaled in 9:51. Jesus is “traveling” with the crowds, which includes the disciples, toward the place of his death (14:25). In other words, for Luke, we do not take the journey of discipleship alone. Our journey is only possible because of Jesus’ journey. As Luke will reveal, even the most determined disciple—Peter—will fail to count the cost (Luke 22:54–62). However, it is Jesus’ faithful journey of accomplishing our redemption on the cross that transforms and sustains our journey. Simply put, it is God’s grace that makes our journey of discipleship possible.

Notes

1. Diane G. Chen, Luke: A New Covenant Commentary (Cascade, 2017), 210.
2. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Touchstone, 1995), 89.

In Deuteronomy 30:15–20, Israel is presented with a stark and decisive call: “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” The covenantal choice between life and death, blessing and curse, is framed as a matter of agency—of choosing rightly in response to God’s command. Traditionally, this passage has been read as affirming the capacity of human will to discern and pursue the good. Yet when read through the lens of Pentecost, the meaning of this appeal deepens. The imperative to choose does not disappear; it is redefined. The gift of the Spirit does not render human agency irrelevant, but reconfigures it—transforming a command into a Spirit-enabled vocation.

The biblical vision of this transformation draws directly from the prophetic promises of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. No longer will God’s law be external to the people—written on tablets of stone, imposed from without. Instead, it will be inscribed upon their hearts, animated by God’s own Spirit (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26–27). The call to covenant fidelity remains, but the means by which it is sustained is no longer human effort alone. In the wake of Pentecost, the will is no longer left to strive unaided. Rather, it is drawn into relationship with the indwelling presence of God. Agency is not erased but renewed. The Spirit enables what the law could only demand: not just obedience, but communion.

This reframing of human freedom is central to Paul’s vision of life in the Spirit. When he exhorts the church to “walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16) and describes the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22–25), he is not pointing to virtues achieved through sheer moral effort. These are signs of a life animated by God’s presence. What the Deuteronomic covenant required is now made possible by divine empowerment. The moral choice—still real, still urgent—is now made within a different framework. The believer is not left to agonize between options from a position of isolation, but is summoned into a living relationship in which the very act of choosing is made possible by grace.

This does not mean that human responsibility is dissolved. On the contrary, the freedom the Spirit grants is a freedom for faithfulness. It is a liberation from fear, sin, and self-enclosure, not a detachment from responsibility. The will is not bypassed but restored to its true purpose: to love, trust, and respond to God. To choose life after Pentecost is not simply to comply with divine instruction but to step into a relationship where divine initiative and human response meet. What appears a human decision is, at a deeper level, a movement prompted and sustained by God’s Spirit.

In this way, Deuteronomy 30:15–20 speaks powerfully into the liturgical season known as Ordinary Time—the period following Pentecost that stretches across the majority of the church year. This season is not marked by dramatic festivals or decisive moments of salvation history but by slow, steady growth. It is the time when the church learns to live what it has received. Within this context, the call to choose life is not a one-time command but a daily orientation. It becomes a repeated act of turning toward God and resisting the habits, systems, and tendencies that diminish life.

Ordinary Time, then, is anything but ordinary. It is the season of the Spirit’s ongoing work—quiet, persistent, often unnoticed. Choosing life becomes a practice rooted in the mundane: forgiving when it is easier to hold a grudge, showing compassion when indifference is more convenient, honoring the dignity of others in a world that too often reduces people to status, productivity, or identity. These are not just acts of private virtue; they are expressions of a life formed by the Spirit. They bear witness to a new kind of freedom—one that is not self-asserted but Spirit-shaped.

The church’s witness in this season is therefore not primarily about achieving moral perfection or following rules. It is about inhabiting a life that is shaped by God’s presence. The people of God are called to be a community through whom the world can see what it means to choose life. And this choosing is never merely personal. As Deuteronomy 30:19 makes clear, the call is for the sake of generations: “so that you and your descendants may live.” After Pentecost, this generational vision becomes deeply missional. The church, filled with the Spirit, is not simply a gathered community but a sent one. Its faithfulness must extend beyond internal devotion to public witness.

To choose life in the age of the Spirit is to participate in God’s renewing work in the world. It is to build communities where justice is practiced, creation is honored, and the vulnerable are protected. It is to bear fruit that fosters the flourishing of others—not just spiritually but socially and ecologically. The church’s fidelity must overflow into structures, relationships, and practices that reflect the life of Christ. This is not an abstract idea; it is a tangible vocation. In a world marked by fragmentation, violence, and despair, the church is called to embody the possibility of life, healing, and hope.

This kind of life cannot be sustained by moral effort alone. It requires a deeper source. The law inscribed on the heart is not a symbolic metaphor—it is the concrete reality of God’s Spirit dwelling within. The church does not follow God at a distance. It lives in communion with God, and from that communion comes the capacity to choose rightly, to live justly, and to love deeply.

Therefore, the exhortation to choose life is not diminished by the coming of the Spirit—it is intensified. The same covenantal summons is extended, but now it is met with an even greater provision. The God who sets life before us also dwells within us, making the path possible. This is the calling of the church in the time after Pentecost: to live not merely by willpower, but by the Spirit; not out of obligation, but in response to grace; not in isolation, but as a covenant people whose life is a witness to the living God.

To choose life, then, is not simply to affirm a set of values or obey a moral code. It is to live a life shaped by divine presence, a life that generates life in others. It is to receive the Spirit’s gift of freedom—not as autonomy but as the capacity to respond, to serve, and to love. It is to become, both individually and communally, a living testimony to the God who continues to choose life for the world.

Many preachers and Christians of a certain age will remember Eddie Espinosa’s praise song “Change My Heart, O God.”¹ You can listen and see lyrics here, among many online options: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtsHWFE6-w&list=RDCEtsHWFE6-w&start_radio=.

This song provides an anthropocentric interpretation of this passage in which God is pictured as the potter molding clay, and it is a possible interpretative move that can be made as you grapple with this text.

In its literary context, this text falls squarely amid Jeremiah’s laments and prophecies of coming punishment for the wickedness of God’s people. The image of the potter provides a throughline that connects this passage to chapter 19, in which the nation is represented as a smashed potter’s jar that can no longer be repaired. (In each instance, God’s people are represented by the clay.) You can see Jeremiah’s discourse evolve here, moving from this passage in which repair to the clay is still possible to a hardened clay pot that cannot be repaired in chapter 19.

While we cannot be exactly certain of the dates at which this portion of Jeremiah was written, we know that Jeremiah lived during a period of intense social and religious upheaval. Amon, an idolatrous king who reigned during a period of unchecked foreign inculturation, was assassinated, and his son Josiah implemented intense religious and cultural reforms, eradicating idolatry, destroying sites of idol worship, restoring the temple in Jerusalem, and removing foreign cultural influences. However, Josiah’s reforms were short-lived, and they ended upon his death.

Josiah was followed as king by his son Jehoahaz, who only briefly reigned and then was dethroned by Egyptian political influence and forcibly removed to Egypt. Jehoiakim was installed as king, and he was beholden to external powers (Egypt and Babylon), switching allegiances, which would eventually result in his execution. Biblical and rabbinical sources document him as being incredibly violent, idolatrous, and unjust. Shortly after his death at the hand of the Babylonians, much of Judah would be led into Babylonian exile. Is this passage decrying the abandonment of Josiah’s reforms? Is this passage foretelling the Babylonian exile? We cannot be certain, but each represents a reasonable interpretative move.

While sociocultural detail helps us frame this passage in historical awareness, the most important work that needs to be done with this passage is theological. While Espinosa’s song runs through my mind, there are aspects of this passage that make me very hesitant to proclaim, “I am the clay.” I am not so sure I want to be the clay, because there are several theological issues that are not neatly resolved.

One of the challenges of this passage is the limit of the imagery of the potter and the clay. In ancient and contemporary pottery, clay plays a role in the throwing process, but it is ultimately inanimate and has no agency. Note that the potter shapes the clay “as it seem[s] best to him” (verse 4). The potter is completely in charge here, and it can be helpful to interpret the image of the potter and the clay as God shaping the future of Israel (the clay) based on the present decisions of Israel (the nation). What the potter determines to do with the clay in the future will be decided based on Israel’s present behavior.

While this passage presents an image of God as completely sovereign, this is held in tension with a God who is open and changeable. There is a dimension of process theology to be glimpsed here: God’s mind is not yet made up, and God is changing and reacting to the self-determination of God’s people. A tension between God’s sovereignty and the self-determination of God’s people runs throughout this passage. God alone makes the decisions, yet the people of God play a role in shaping whether God’s decisions are destructive (in other words, uprooted, torn down) or constructive (in other words, built up, planted).

Contrast the image of Israel as clay in the potter’s hands in this passage with the imagery of the nation of Israel as the hardened clay pot (chapter 19), which when broken cannot be repaired. These two images contrast malleability with brittleness, adaptivity with rigidity, and new possibility with finality.

God is represented here as threatening the destruction of entire nations. God “inflicts,” “prepares,” and “devises” disaster. Similar theological images can be found throughout Jeremiah. As a preacher, how do you engage Jeremiah’s theology? One of the most important and advanced skills my preaching students can develop is the ability to contest and disagree with biblical texts, and Jeremiah requires contesting if you do not wish to endorse a theology of a punitive, violent God who (within that theology) could be considered one of the most violent single forces in human history.

Even as my own theology leads me to strongly critique the potential violence of God glimpsed in this text, I can still gain new perspectives through which to reflect on God. This passage can even lead me to reflect on potential tensions within my own theology, such as the possible tension between a God who will ultimately judge evil and a God who would not commit mass or systemic violence. Disagreeing with and contesting the biblical text must be accompanied by deep humility in which we realize our own contextual, theological, and human particularity and accompanying limitations.

Espinosa’s song is an important frame for this passage because he makes an interesting interpretative move that can be illustrative for us. This passage is potter-centered. Espinosa’s song is clay-centered. This passage is focused on God’s perspective. Espinosa’s song is focused on a human perspective. This interpretative move invites questions. What does it mean to “be the clay”? How do we relate to the potter? It even cues for me further interpretative play with this passage. If the people of God can change God’s heart, perhaps after we sing “Change our hearts, oh God,” we could sing, “Change your heart, oh God.”

Notes

1. Eddie Espinosa, “Change My Heart, O God” (Paw Paw, MI: Vineyard Press, 1982).

Psalm 1 promises happiness for those who avoid the path of wicked sinners and scoffers, and instead “delight” in meditating on divine commandments. These righteous people will live well and flourish. They will be 

like trees
    planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
    and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper. (verse 3) 

The wicked, by contrast—those we can assume do not follow or take pleasure in the law of the Lord—will not endure.

[They] are like chaff that the wind drives away. (verse 4)

And

The way of the wicked will perish. (verse 6)

But we know better, don’t we? We know that all too often, good and just people suffer, and those who pursue only their own self-interest—and do so ruthlessly—seem always to thrive and to enjoy all success. 

In the book of Job, the title character, whom the book presents as “blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1), knew this too, when he asked, 

Why do the wicked live on,
     reach old age, and grow mighty in power? (Job 21:7)

Job yearns to know why the wrongdoers enjoy wealth and family and seem immune to misfortune, even as they blatantly reject God and God’s ways (Job 21:7–26).

Job challenges the platitudes expressed by his friends who strive to make clear that the wicked somehow always get what’s coming to them, that somehow they will be punished for their wrongdoing—and if not them, then their children (Job 21:19). Job asks rhetorically:

How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
    How often does calamity come upon them? (Job 21:17)

The answer: Not often. 

Job’s own experience of suffering enables him to “see” the world for what it is. For Job, anyone who shows just a little bit of curiosity about how the world works will know the truth. As he says to his friends,

Have you not asked those who travel the roads,
    and do you not accept their testimony,
that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity
    and are rescued in the day of wrath? (Job 21:29–30)

Despite Job’s protestations, we should remember that Psalm 1, like similar texts in the Bible, does point us to important truths. It reminds us of the worth in human lives of the virtues of the just and upright—those qualities of character that make a genuinely good person. These qualities—generosity, kindness, justice, faithfulness, and so forth—can be learned from the wisdom of Israel’s sages in books like Proverbs and, as the psalmist says directly, by deep appreciation of—“delight in” (verse 2)—God’s commandments. Such virtues in Israel’s long religious-moral tradition are articulated in early Christianity in texts like Galatians 5:22–23 as well. 

Psalm 1 makes clear that humans always have moral choices to make. We can reject the way of the wicked and choose the path of the righteous—even if we don’t always do so. Indeed, implicit in the psalm is an idea expressed so well by the book of Proverbs: namely, that all our moral choices, even the smallest of decisions, construct a life path for us. In fact, for much of the Bible, people—whether good or wicked—are not born one way or the other. They are made one way or another through moral training and choices. Our everyday decisions, big or small—to be kind to one in need or not, to show generosity or not, to come to the aid of a stranger or not, to seek our own advantage or that of our neighbor—form our moral character. And eventually, via all of these small decisions, our character will become settled. 

If we are honest, we all can examine our lives and find that through our decisions, we have chosen a way of life and become particular kinds of people.

This ancient wisdom has been rearticulated by the character Mike Ehrmentraut in the popular TV series Better Call Saul, the prequel to the equally acclaimed Breaking Bad. In one powerful scene, Mike, the ex-cop who has started to work for drug traffickers to support his son’s widow, speaks to Saul, a lawyer who, in trying to get ahead in life, is now mixed up in the same drug business. Mike says:

We all make our choices. And those choices, they put us on a road. Sometimes those choices seem small, but they put you on the road. You think about getting off. But eventually, you’re back on it.

For Psalm 1, following the divine commandments and the examples of the righteous, and rejecting the way of life of the wicked, puts people on the right “road.” It produces virtue and makes possible a genuine flourishing for humans—like the thriving tree on a river’s bank. The way of the wicked and scoffers, simply put, is a life path that holds little value; it will perish. 

In light of Psalm 1, preachers may wish to explore the general and far-reaching truth of this ancient wisdom, but also pair it with the promise of new life to those who find themselves on a bad road—a promise available to those who, in trust, turn to the God of Jesus Christ.

Still, perhaps we should not leave Job too soon. Job names an inconvenient truth to those who may take up an overly literal, and so unduly optimistic, understanding of the sorts of claims that a text like Psalm 1 makes about our world. The truth Job points to is one that many—perhaps especially those who, like Job’s friends, enjoy economic prosperity and have avoided significant suffering—would just as soon not see or deal with.  

But Job forces the issue. In our world, the wicked often prosper, and too many suffer too much. Through his own experience of suffering, Job demands a response from his friends and from God on these matters. 

Although later in the book the Divine will respond to Job in some fashion—commentators debate the meanings of the divine speeches in Job 38–41—preachers might explore how we should respond today to the reality Job points to. Do we simply prefer not to see injustice in the world? Do we too easily believe that God alone will set things right in God’s own time and way? Preachers might ask further what is the responsibility of the community of faith to stand as a witness to the divine way of justice in a world where many suffer (explicably and inexplicably), and where, too often, the powerful and wealthy pursue their own advantage at the cost of the flourishing of others. 

The Letter to Philemon exemplifies one of the challenges of contemporary biblical preaching. A long and well-established tradition reads this letter—really more of a note than a letter—as Paul’s oblique but firm request that Philemon release Onesimus, a slave (verse 16), to Paul’s oversight. This reading takes the characterization of Onesimus as a slave as literal and takes references to him as Philemon’s “brother” (also in verse 16) as metaphorical. Here, according to church tradition dating back more than a millennium, Onesimus (with the slave name “Useful” or perhaps “Handy”) has fled his enslaver, Philemon, and found refuge with Paul, who is in prison.

Paul, in turn, persuades Onesimus to return to Philemon, trusting that Philemon will not flout Paul’s oblique demand that he liberate Onesimus and send him back to Paul as a free coworker. The rhetoric of “family” here serves to cast the relationships in their ideal light, where the literal language of servitude (which Paul touches on much more lightly, as would befit a situation in which the relation of enslavement were being called into question) expresses the brutal reality of economic, legal, and sexual exploitation Philemon may exert over Onesimus.

If Onesimus is indeed a slave, we can perceive his role as letter-carrier and perhaps, even more strikingly, as the scribe of Paul’s letter. Of course, a scribe and trustworthy letter-carrier would be very handy to Paul! Who indeed could be more handy? And if Philemon does send Onesimus back to Paul, he returns no longer as someone enslaved but as a beloved (metaphorical, spiritual) brother, “especially to me but how much more to [Philemon].”¹

Another reading takes the use of “brother” literally and the use of “slave” images as metaphorical. Paul often uses familial metaphors to describe followers of Jesus: For instance, in this very letter he identifies Timothy as his brother (verse 1), Apphia as his sister (verse 2), Onesimus as his child (verse 10), and Philemon as his brother (verse 20); he does such many times in his other letters as well.

On this account, Philemon and Onesimus are literal brothers, who have fallen out for an unstated reason (the malfeasance or perhaps debt implied in verse 18). Paul urges the alienated siblings to reconcile with one another, especially now that each has been drawn by Paul into adherence to Jesus (Onesimus in having become Paul’s metaphorical son [verse 10] and heart [verse 12], Philemon as Paul’s partner [verse 17] and in owing his very self to Paul [verse 19].

This entails reading the rhetoric of slavery as part of Paul’s standard repertoire of literary figures that highlight the greatness of Christ the Lord (kurios, “Master”) and the exclusive allegiance to Christ expected of his followers (remembering Christ’s warning that “no slave can serve two masters,” Luke 16:13—not implying that Paul knows Luke’s Gospel, just the common-sense mechanics of the metaphor).

The clues in Philemon’s few verses don’t suffice to make either of these scenarios, or any alternative one, securely more probable than the others. If the preacher has been convinced that one argument should prevail, they should, of course, go forward on that basis, though they would do well to make space for responsible disagreement.

Nor, for that matter, should preaching foreground the uncertainty of exegetical conclusions in this case; Paul’s word to Philemon is not “yes and no” (2 Corinthians 1:18)! Rather, preachers can emphasise aspects of Paul’s teaching and rhetoric that depend not on hypothetical contexts but on trajectories we see at work in Philemon, that also cohere with the broader span of Pauline theology.

For instance, the language of kinship in and through Christ plays a prominent role in Philemon and in Paul’s other epistles. Whatever else may be going on between Philemon and Onesimus, they have been made brothers, beloved brothers, “both in the flesh and in the Lord” (verse 16). They may have been estranged by conflict in their family of origin—we have heard that such circumstances occur not only in Paul’s day, but even now—but Paul reminds them that the power of Christ to bring unity out of alienation far exceeds the disruptive power of family feuds.

All the more does Christ’s unifying love overcome the division between slave and enslaver (and obliges the enslaver to take concrete action to eradicate that division). The household of God admits no class of “un-handy,” “useless” servility, but only “very handy” sisters and brothers sharing the joy, encouragement, and refreshment of seeing the power of God at work in drawing us closer to one another in freedom and quality of life.

Alternatively, one might call attention to the way Paul negotiates his authority relative to Philemon. On one hand, it’s easy to see Paul pulling out all the stops in his fervent wish that Philemon and Onesimus be reconciled and that Onesimus return to help him. Many preachers may bandy the term “passive-aggressive” around; his aside “I say nothing about your owing me even your own self” certainly strikes many contemporary readers as over the top. On the other hand, Paul states his principle forthrightly: He repudiates all coercion (especially apt, if the topic of the letter involves enslavement).

So if he refuses “to command [Philemon] to do [his] duty,” and yet thinks that this duty is clear and of the utmost importance, he dares not risk less intense rhetoric. When it seems as though every week I hear fresh reports of church leaders using force to satisfy their ambitions, Paul’s commitment to “do nothing without [Philemon’s] consent” may sound easier to understand.

Finally, the preacher may want to call attention to the prominence of words that refer to, or evoke, feelings. Rob Seesengood has called attention to the concentration of rhetorical affect (feelings) in this very short epistle:²

• Philemon is beloved (verse 1)
• he loves the holy ones (verse 5)
• Paul feels joy in response to Philemon’s love, and the holy ones with Paul feel refreshed through Philemon’s actions (verse 7; the New Revised Standard Version gives “refreshed the hearts” for the Greek splangchna, “guts” or [archaic] “bowels,” which Greek anthropology treated as the center of human emotions)³
• Paul is bold (verse 8)
• he invites Philemon to act out of love (verse 9)
• Onesimus is the very center of Paul’s feelings (verse 12; splangchna again)
• Onesimus might be Philemon’s beloved brother (verse 18)
• Paul exhorts Philemon to refresh his feelings (verse 20; splangchna yet again)

Even more than individual words, Paul’s rhetoric plays with Philemon’s feelings, and with the feelings of others who would have heard the letter read aloud. Paul characterises himself as an old man, languishing in chains without the companion who was the focus of all his feelings; one can hardly imagine a more pitiable spectacle! But this same lonely old man emphasises his edgy candor (boldness, parrhesia) and commanding power, his benevolent wish for Philemon’s cooperation to be voluntary, and so on. As Seesengood observes, love and duty (or “obligation”) fuse in Philemon.⁴

And while Paul and Philemon set one man’s will against another’s, the servitude of Onesimus lurks in the background—as would be appropriate for a slave, viewed as a less-than-fully-human, useful implement for Paul’s needs (one may note with interest that Paul’s feelings and Philemon’s feelings figure in the letter, but Onesimus’s feelings aren’t mentioned). Even where Paul seems to be aiming toward a network of mutual love and reciprocal care, some people matter more than others. Rather than making excuses for Paul (excuses that may well be fair and reasonable), we should marshal our energies to try to do better ourselves.

Again, whatever the historical occasion of Paul’s letter to Philemon, the apostle demonstrates in writing his dedication to a vision of articulated unity in a network of siblings, sharing a way of life defined by non-coercion. He works within the bounds of that vision to bring Philemon and Onesimus together, and to make a case for Philemon releasing whatever claims he might have on Onesimus in order that Paul might benefit from Onesimus’s cooperative help.

Florid rhetoric, intense feelings of love, power, and pity, and provocative metaphors aren’t the gospel themselves—they’re vehicles for an urgent expression of the gospel of freedom and reconciliation, of concord in the face of conflict, and of mutual respect—a goal toward which preachers and congregations, as Paul and Philemon and Onesimus, must keep laboring.

Notes

1. In these observations I refer particularly to Candida Moss’s important God’s Ghostwriters (Little, Brown, 2024) and to my colleague Peter Head’s work on letter-carriers.
2. Philemon: Imagination, Labor, and Love, T&T Clark Study Guides to the New Testament (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2017), 85–95.
3. Paul uses splangchna three times in Philemon, and four or five times in all the rest of his letters combined.
4. Philemon, 89.