Above a Servant

Paul is a prisoner when he writes this short letter. He calls himself "Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." The letter is about a slave named Onesimus, who had left his master's house and has since been with Paul.

It is going to a man named Philemon, and the greeting at the top is doing quiet work. Paul greets Philemon, then Apphia, then Archippus, and then "the church in thy house." So Paul has made sure this will be no private word between two men. It will be read aloud in Philemon's own home, where the church meets, and everyone whose opinion he cares about will hear it.

The KJV calls Onesimus a "servant," but the Greek word is doulos, which means a slave. His name means useful, and Paul cannot resist a play on it: "Which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and to me." While he was with Paul, Onesimus became a Christian. Paul calls him "my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds." And now Paul is sending him back. Everything else in the letter has to be read with that fact in mind.

Now read what Paul asks: "Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh, and in the Lord?" He goes further: "receive him as myself." And he adds, "If he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account."

Then be honest about what Paul leaves unasked. Anyone who wants this letter to be a call to end slavery has to face the fact that Paul never asks for Onesimus to be set free. He says he could give Philemon an order: "though I might be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee that which is convenient." Then he chooses not to, because he wants the thing done willingly. He leaves the details unnamed, and he closes with a line heavier than any command: "knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say."

What the letter does is make the old arrangement impossible to live with. A man can be owned as property, or he can be welcomed as "a brother beloved," in the flesh and in the Lord, in front of the church that meets in his owner's house. He cannot be both for long. Paul asked for the second in public, and he trusted it to finish off the first. That is how Christ works on the people He saves: He makes them brothers first, and He lets that truth reach into everything else.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 35 is Redemption (Ephesians 1:7).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two