When was the last time a Watchtower Study centered on the interchange of Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus? Has it ever happened? Not that I can recall. But it did with the study of October 25, 2026.
So here is Philemon doing his best to nurse a grudge toward Onesimus, his runaway slave, and it’s just not going his way: “The lout,” he’s muttering. “Just took off! Left me just like that! After I was so good to him! Pinched my silverware, too!” he fumes to himself at the congregation meeting in his own home. Whereupon, not only is the scripture “If anyone has a cause for complaint, continue to put up with one another and forgive freely” read before all, but he even must suffer a letter from the apostle Paul, specifically about Onesimus, being read aloud! Seems that Onesimus is now a spiritual brother and that he, Philemon, should let bygones to bygones!
What!!? He has already heard through the grapevine that his runaway has come into the faith and become Paul’s right hand man. Probably gave Paul my silverware and he’s eating off it right now! he sputters. And now Paul writes me to just forget about it? He’d better not order me about, and he better not play the “love” card, either, Philemon grumbles, before Paul sidesteps the first and does the second:
“For this very reason, though I have great freeness of speech in connection with Christ to order you to do what is proper,” Paul writes, “I am exhorting you rather on the basis of love . . “ (Philemon 1:8)
“Proper? Proper! Next thing he’ll play the old man or the hardship card!” Philemon grumbles before Paul does just that.
“. . . seeing that I am such as I am, Paul an aged man, yes, now also a prisoner for the sake of Christ Jesus; I am exhorting you concerning my child, to whom I became a father while in my [prison] bonds, Onesimus . . “ (vs 9)
“formerly useless to you but now useful to you and to me.” (vs 11)
Useless!!??? He used to set my table! With MY silverware!!
“This very one I am sending back to you, yes, him, that is, my own tender affections,” continues the letter. “I would like to hold him back for myself that in place of you he might keep on ministering to me in the [prison] bonds I bear for the sake of the good news. But without your consent I do not want to do anything, so that your good act may be, not as under compulsion, but of your own free will,” Paul writes, continuing to twist Philemon’s arm before the whole congregation. (12-14)
“Alright, alright, alright, I’ll do it! Sheesh!” he caves as he pictures eating off plastic from this point on. What else can he do?
“Perhaps really on this account he broke away for an hour, that you may have him back forever, no longer as a slave but as more than a slave, as a brother beloved, especially so to me, yet how much more so to you both in fleshly relationship and in [the] Lord.” (15-16)
“ If, therefore, you consider me a sharer, receive him kindly the way you would me. Moreover, if he did you any wrong or owes you anything, keep this charged to my account.” (17-18)
This is where my little witticism comes from that maybe he pinched the silverware. “Charge it to my account,” the Watchtower noted, was wording “commonly used to agree to repay a debt, as proved by other documents from the first century C.E. On the basis of this verse, some commentators suggest that before fleeing, Onesimus might have stolen from his master, perhaps reasoning that he could not survive long without some means to purchase food or to buy passage on a ship.”
This remark was followed by: “Paul’s desire to reconcile these two Christians was so strong that he was even willing to do so at his own expense.” And that was what the gist of the study was about: how to pursue peace with others and draw out the best response from them—gleaned from examples of all three of these characters, each in in very different circumstances.
What is Philemon to do, with that letter being read aloud and the eyes of all upon him? He did the only thing a guy could be expected to do. He gives in.
Maybe it didn’t happen that way. Probably not, actually. But it is within the range of possibilities, so I thought I’d play with the idea a little. Just envisioning congregations in which there were free persons and slaves takes some getting used to, yet commentators all assure us that it was that way. They qualify it with caveot that a lot would have depended on just who that slave’s owner was.
Slavery was a universal degradation that the Hebrew law managed to turn into a beneficial social institution, easily superior to any “safety net” existing today. Get yourself in a horrible bind, and you could always sell yourself into slavery. That slavery was not permanent, but was a seven-year stint, following which your owner set you free with a gift to start again. It’s not everything, but it beats anything seen today. It ensured there would never become a permanent underclass. It ensured the obscene condition of “the rich get richer as the poor get poorer” could not take root in that society. Sometimes I wonder if some variation of it won’t appear in the new system, at least at its beginning.
All the same, slavery is bad, we are assured today. Why did God just banish it?
It’s probably because if God banished an injustice the moment it came to his attention, there wouldn’t be anything left. Injustice was part of the package that Adam chose in declaring his independence; it’s an inevitable result. God will take care of glitches in his own rule, should any arise, but he should clean up after Adam’s mess? No. He’d never be able to do anything else. He’d be sticking band-aid after never-ending band-aid upon a system of things that is inherently flawed, in which “flawed” is built into the design.
He allowed Adam time to make good on this claim of self-rule. Slavery is part of the rule-book Adam’s offspring devised. What choice does God have if he is to play be the rulebook he has already allowed the wayward rebels to devise? Frankly, I think the same goes for warfare. Warfare is part of the package devised by Adam following departure from God’s sovereignty. It didn’t occur to him that if they all pursue a course of independence, it might result in people who didn’t get along with each other? “Alright, I guess that’s the way it must be done,” Jehovah says, as he clears out the land where bestiality has become a thing in order to ensure his seed can take root.
****** The bookstore
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