Five Things I learned from Philemon

For the past several weeks we have been working through the short letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to his friend and benefactor, Philemon. For those unfamiliar with the letter, the basic setup is that a (presumably young) slave named Onesimus (think, indentured servant) has cheated Philemon his master, likely robbing him of some money and then running away. The young useless slave meets Paul in prison (likely in Rome) and Paul leads him to the Lord, becomes his spiritual father, and disciples the young man so that he is now “useful.” The letter is an example of forgiveness and reconciliation working out in real time, for true repentance means making amends, and Onesimus now needs to go back to the master he has defrauded to continue his service to him. But in the process, Paul writes a personal letter to Philemon and persuades him to forgive this man – for as the Old Christmas hymn says, “the slave is our brother.”

So here are my five reflections on what this letter has been teaching me:

1. This letter teaches us that Christian fellowship is far more than coffee and donuts after the service. (And as Doug Wilson once said, it is also not less than coffee and donuts after the service.) Paul and Philemon have a partnership in the gospel – koinonia. That is the Greek word we generally translate as “fellowship”; and as N.T. Wright somewhere once said, it’s the keyword and the central idea in this letter. Paul appeals to the fellowship or partnership he has with his friend Philemon as he makes his appeal for reconciliation (verse 17). But if you look closely, koinonia is more than what we generally think of when we think of fellowship. Paul is talking here about both a shared life and a shared mission, both gospel-rich participation together and gospel-advancing partnership together. We use the language of “business partnership” today and that is close to what Paul means in this letter. Christians are, at least in some sense, business partners in the ministry of the gospel. We want to be diligent workers together in the venture of grace. I was struck by the business language in this book and we need to remember that mission is embedded in the very idea of fellowship as we advance the gospel in our community life.

And on the topic of business…

2. This letter teaches us all over about business ethics. Should you treat a Christian employee the same way as a non-Christian employee? The letter of Philemon is a resounding YES – the grace of Christ sends the slave back to work. Christianity is not a free ride. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. Wow. And yet, if you look a little closer, the answer is also NO! For now, the slave is our brother. The Christian employee is your brother. This is the profound paradox of Philemon. We need to treat one another very well in the family of God, and that means doing the right thing in the difficult, dirty details. It also means extending the grace of Christ, treating people as you would like to be treated, and prizing Christian relationships – like you would with your own physical brother or sister. The shared family relationships we have together are not to be treated lightly, and they cannot be used as a rationale to take advantage.

For a practical example today, the Christian man who hires a Christian drywaller should not expect to get a discount any more than the drywaller should expect to get a large tip. Things need to be kept straight and cut clean – the terms and conditions matter. But if one of these brothers chooses to give either a discount or a tip then that is their free choice to express free grace- after all, they are brothers. But grace is never to be presumed upon, whether from God or from man (c.f. Romans 6:1).

And that leads to the next point on Christian family life together…

3. This letter gives a compelling picture of spiritual fatherhood. I was gobsmacked that I hadn’t seen how prominent this idea is in the New Testament. Paul all over the place demonstrates spiritual fatherhood – to Onesimus (verse 10), to Timothy (2 Tim. 1:2), to the whole church of Corinth (1 Corinthians 4:15). Where are the spiritual fathers in Jesus’ Church today? We have many teachers but not many fathers (1 Cor. 4:15).  In fact, most people I talk lately about this have gotten a little squinty-eyed when I tell them that spiritual fatherhood is true fatherhood just like biological fatherhood. It is. And that is because it derives from the same God the Father from who all the families in heaven get their name (Ephesians 3:15). Wrestle with that. Don’t farm out the care of young souls to the youth pastor (solely), we need many fathers and many tough-and-tender men of compassion and grit. (And the same is true of spiritual mothers like too, like Rufus’ dear mother whom Paul says “a mother to me” in Romans 16:13.)

4. This letter is an incredible case study in forgiveness and reconciliation. Be the mediator. Write letters to the people who can’t seem to get along in your life and call out the best in others. Follow Paul’s example of persuasion, and his encouraging tone – he is confident in Philemon’s obedience (verse 21).. Have the hard conversations. Offer sincere apologies. Truly forgive. Seek unity in Christian life together.

5. This letter demonstrates the right kind of gospel-negotiation. Paul is a wheeler and dealer of grace. He is a slick negotiator of mercy. He knows just what to say and just how to say it, and there is a lot for us here to learn in this thing of influence, persuasion, leverage, dare I say “manipulation,” all with the goal of growth, love, and transformed relationship. These are dangers tools to employ and when we use them we run the risk of either a self-inflicted injury or a real mess in the garage, yet some of the best tools in your garage are the dangerous ones. When it comes to Christians and speech our temptation is to use only one kind of tool for every job. A guy on Facebook named Michael Foster recently wrote that God has given us many tools: ‪”soft answers‬, ‪sharp rebukes, ‪encouragement, ‪fearful warnings, ‪sarcastic mocking, ‪disturbing metaphors, ‪rhetorical questions, ‪calls to action.” To that list, I would add persuasive appeals of rhetoric. We have a lot of tools in the tool belt and we need to learn to use them with skill.

As others have said, this letter stands out by how small it is, and also how non-doctrinal it is. Yet when you see some of what is going on here it is striking that this little, personal letter is packed full of gospel truth – but it’s gospel truth applied to life, business, and community. And that’s the best way to do theology. That’s the goal of grace – grace that goes all the way to your fingertips and grace that is felt around the dinner table when that repentant brother, formerly a useless putz, is now embraced back again at our table fellowship.