Commentary on Philemon 1:1-21

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.