As well as writing letters to churches, Paul wrote to a few individuals. We have three examples in Scripture, though I’m sure he wrote more. He writes to his co-workers Timothy and Titus giving them instructions about how to pastor the churches within their care. The third example, to Philemon is even more personal.
Paul has had a visitor, Onesimus, who was one of Philemon’s slaves. It seems that for some reason or other Onesimus has ended up with Paul. The most likely and assumed reason is that he has run away but it is possible that somehow they have got accidentally separated or that Philemon had intentionally sent the slave to Paul.
What we do know is the following. First, that Onesimus hadn’t been much use. He was useless rather than useful. This suggests that he was either incompetent, lazy or defiant. Second, that something has changed whilst Onesimus has been with Paul; so that he has become not only useful but dear to Paul. What has been the change? The answer is that it is nothing less than the work of the Gospel in the slave’s heart. Thirdly, Paul is now sending Onesimus back to Philemon.
However, something has changed. Paul asks Philemon to receive Onesimus back, not as a slave but as a family member, as a “dear brother” in Christ. It is worth observing that Paul demonstrates here that he believed in the abolition of slavery and that his strategy for achieving this was that Christians should grant manumission to their slaves. We also see in Ephesians 6 that slaves were to be rewarded and their masters were to relate to them equally, treating them how they themselves expected to be treated. In other words, slaves in the household become family and slaves in the workplace become employees.
The basis for this was that in the Old Testament, God’s people were not permitted to hold their own fellow Israelites as slaves, though someone could be taken into temporary bonded service to pay off a debt. So, a Christian too, could not hold someone as a slave that they regarded as kin, as family, as part of God’s people. This was also a crucial argument for those who campaigned for abolition with William Wilberforce. They saw that the desire to keep slaves was in conflict with the desire to see others won for Christ.
What Paul and the abolitionists recognised was that when someone came to faith in Christ, their status and relationship with God changed and so too their relationship with others. They were no longer slaves to sin, fear, Satan, death but instead were sons and daughters of the King of Kings. This meant that other Christians should no longer see them as slaves but welcome them as brothers and sisters into the family.
How we regard and treat each other matters. Do I see my fellow believers as brothers and sisters? Do I recognise that they are no longer under obligation to sin and no longer under condemnation? If I do, then this means that I too must not see others as under obligation to me, they are not indebted to me, I’m not to judge or condemn and I’m certainly not to discriminate.
Faithroots 