Articles
Philemon 8-14 (Part 3)
Throughout the first 7 verses of the Letter of Paul to Philemon, we have seen that Phile-mon is a good, godly man. As we begin to move in verses 8-14, we’ll see that Philemon is going to be appealed to by Paul, asked by Paul to do something that had the potential to be a very difficult task.
Picking up in verse 8, we see a very im-portant word starting off the verse being therefore (other versions may say: accord-ingly, for this reason, or wherefore). Anytime we see words such as these, we need to make sure that we don’t forget what was just said in the text. There are chapters that sometimes start with these kinds of words (2nd Timothy 2 for example). Just because there is a new chapter doesn’t mean that the writer has moved on to a different thought, but the writer is likely building on or off the point they were making. Here in context, Paul has been acknowledging the good, godly character of Philemon. There-fore, Paul appeals to Philemon. Paul notes that he has more than enough confidence in Christ to order Philemon to do what he is about to say, but he appeals to Philemon out of love, due to the character of Philemon and the situation that Paul finds himself in, which we will touch on later in this article.
Why did Paul have more than enough confidence in Christ to order Philemon to do what is proper? Paul was an apostle of Christ Jesus, and this is a specific position that only men that saw the restructured Christ could carry. Paul certainly had a great level of authority and that he had more than a right to command this of Philemon. Also, it’s possible based on verse 19, that Paul may have been very instrumen-tal in Philemon’s conversion, and this could also add to his authority to do this. Lastly, based on the fact he is an old man and a prisoner of Christ, as seen in verse 9. Paul had been fighting the good fight for Christ for a long time, to the point he was now and older man and found himself in prison due to his service to Christ. Paul wasn’t a lukewarm Christian, but he was on fire for God, and this gave him the right and authority to command this of Philemon, but as we see in verse 8-9, that’s not what he does.
Paul is appealing to Philemon for love’s sake. Paul also is appealing or asking Philemon to do this since he is such a person as Paul. Paul is an apostle; he is an old man and is now a prisoner of Christ. He has certain credibility to what he says. As was mentioned in the previous paragraph, Paul was on fire for God for years at this point and had ended up in prison. Would Philemon refuse the request of a godly man like Paul? A man who was an apostle, who had grown old in ser-vice to Christ and now found himself as a prisoner?
Verse 10 is where we get to see what Paul asking of Philemon. There is a man by the name of Onesimus. The name Onesimus means use-ful, profitable or beneficial. This is certainly something that Onesi-mus was to Paul. Paul refers to Onesimus as his son, whom he fa-thered in his imprisonment. We don’t know for certain how Paul and Onesimus met, but we do know that they did meet, and Paul was the one who taught Onesimus the gospel, and Paul did so while being in prison. So why would Paul refer to someone as his son, someone he taught the gospel and then refer to the same person as someone who was useless to Philemon? Onesimus was once a slave of Phile-mon and had run away from Philemon. There is nothing to indicate
that Philemon had done anything sinful to make Onesimus run away, and clearly by Paul sending Onesimus back to Philemon as the rest of this letter tells, it certainly seems there was no sin present in this rela-tionship, aside from Onesimus abandonment of Philemon and his job. So Onesimus was useless to Philemon because he wasn’t there, he had run away. But now, Onesimus had become useful to Paul and not just to Paul, but to Philemon as well. Also, now that Onesimus has be-come a Christian, he is about to have a level of use to Philemon that he has not had before.
In verse 12, we see Paul is sending Onesimus back to Philemon and describes Onesimus as his “very heart.” Onesimus was important to Paul and useful to Paul as he just said. Paul wanted to keep Onesimus with him because he was such a great help to Paul. Again, Paul was in prison, which limits where you are able to go no matter what form of prison you may be in. As much as Paul wanted to have Onesimus with him and to help him in his work, what Paul clearly desired more was to not do anything without the consent of Philemon. Notice in verse 13, Paul says he wanted to keep Onesimus with him so that in Philemon’s behalf, Onesimus might be at service in Paul’s imprisonment for the gospel. Paul wanted Onesimus to stay on behalf of Philemon as well, but it was better to give Philemon the ability to consent to this deci-sion. Paul wants Onesimus’ aid in the service to Christ but wants it to be permissible with the one who Onesimus belonged to on this earth: Philemon. If Paul didn’t send Onesimus back to Philemon, Philemon would not be able to show goodness by his own free will. The good-ness would be forced upon him, or in other words, he would have no choice. This is telling of the character of Paul, that although Onesimus was a great help to Paul and other Christians, Paul didn’t want to do wrong by one Christian in order to do right by others. He wanted Onesimus to be with him in service to Christ, but not without Phile-mon’s willing participation in sending Onesimus back to Paul.
