Summary:

When Paul tells Philemon to put Onesimus’ wrong on his “account” and that he would “repay” him (v.18), we know he “wronged” him financially.  Slaves often robbed their masters to finance their escape, figuring they owed them for all their free labor.  That sounds justified, but Paul calls it wrong, just as it is wrong when employees steal from their employer today because they’re not paid enough.  If you’re guilty of that, stop (Eph.4:28).  If you’re not, remember you might be someday (ICor.10:12).

If Onesimus did steal from his master, Paul says he owed him.  When you steal from a man, you owe him, and in Bible days you had to pay it back with interest (Ex.22:1).

Paul was probably offering to pay Onesimus’ debt because he was broke and couldn’t pay it himself.  He no doubt spent all his money on the 1200 mile trip from Colosse to Rome, so had to get a job at the prison where Paul was incarcerated.

If you couldn’t repay what you stole, then they imprisoned you (Mt.5:25) until you paid your debt, as prisoners pay their debt to society today, with the loss of your time and freedom.

Since Philemon is a book of illustrations, we know that this illustrates how when men sin against their master God, He considers it a “debt” that they owe Him (Mt.6:12-14).  And it’s a debt they cannot pay, for sinners are spiritually broke.

They can’t pay their debt to God because they don’t have anything He wants.  So they have to go to prison till they’ve paid “the last farthing” (Mt.5:25).  You know that verse is about hell, because that’s how the Lord introduced it (v.22).

Men in hell must pay for their debt with more than their loss of time and freedom.  They are “delivered to the tormentors” (Mt.18:34) until they’ve paid the last farthing of their debt.  But sin against an eternal God demands an eternal punishment!  Hell has to be eternal because men can never suffer enough to repay God for the enormity of their sin.  Men say that’s not fair, but it’s fair because men don’t have to go to hell.    The Lord took their torment on the cross.    All they have to do to be saved from hell is to believe that.

This shows it is wrong to say, as some are saying, that the sins of unsaved men are forgiven.  People go to hell “because” of their sins (Eph.5:6).  Their only hope is to let Christ pay their debt, something else we see illustrated when Paul tells Philemon to put his slave’s debt on his account.  That’s what the Lord did for us, put our sin on His account.

An “account” is a registry of debits and credits.  Sin debits a man’s account with God, but he has no way to credit it, since God doesn’t accept good works as credit (Isa.64:6).  But God counts faith for righteousness (Rom.4:5), faith in the fact that God made Christ to be sin for us so we might be made righteous (IICor.5:21).

Paul usually dictated his letters (cf.Rom.16:22), but made his offer to pay Onesimus’ debt with his own hand (Phile.1:19).  He did this to give Philemon something he could take into court if need be and insist he pay the debt if he wanted to.  That’s an illustration of how, when it comes to your sin debt, you have it in writing that Christ paid it in the writing of the Word of God. 

Of course, Philemon would never make Paul pay his slave’s debt because he owed Paul his own self (Phile.1:19).  He led him to the Lord and saved his eternal life, and perhaps saved him from a life of sin and degradation in this life.  In bringing this up, Paul was implying he owed him a debt he couldn’t repay.  That illustrates how you should feel about the Lord!

After all Paul had given to Philemon, he would never expect Paul to give him more by paying Onesimus’ debt.  After all the Lord has given you eternally in the next life, do you really expect him to give you more in this life?  By giving you health and wealth, and solving all of your problems?

Paul says you should live for Him who died for you “and rose again” (IICor.5:14,15).  If a man saves your life, you feel like living for him, right?  But if someone dies saving your life, you can’t live for him—but you can live for the Lord who died for you and rose again.

Summary:

Paul wasn’t saying Onesimus wasn’t a slave anymore just because he got saved (v. 16).  Salvation doesn’t deliver you from your problems, it helps you accept them, knowing God can use you more powerfully in your problems than He can if He delivers you from them because His power is made perfect in your weakness (II Cor. 12:7-9).  Paul was saying Philemon shouldn’t receive him as a slave, but as a brother.  Like how Paul’s words were the words of a man, but the Thessalonians didn’t receive them that way (I Th. 2:13).  He was a man, but the Galatians didn’t receive him that way (Gal. 4:14).  This illustrates how God receives us not as sin-ners but as saints, and expects us to receive others that way.

How far “above” a servant should Philemon receive him (v. 16)?  The Lord told the 12 they were no longer servants but friends, after He told them all that the Father had told Him (John 15:15).  A friend is above a servant.  But after He died and rose again He called them brethren because they were one with Him (Heb. 2:11).  So are we, so we should receive one another as a brother, as Paul told Philemon.

When Paul told Philemon to receive Onesimus as a “beloved” brother (v. 16), God said that Christ is His beloved (Mt. 3:16,17), so he should receive him as Christ, since he was now “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6).  God later repeated that Christ was His beloved when they didn’t “hear” Him (Mt. 17:5) say He had to die (16:21,22).  So to receive Onesimus as “beloved” means to hear what Christ says in Colossians 3:11-13, where He says that we are His beloved, and so should forgive others as He forgave us.

Onesimus was “special” to Paul because he led him to the Lord, even though they didn’t have much time together.  Paul probably wasted no time teaching him to obey his master (Col. 3:22) and sent him back to Philemon for further Bible teaching.  But Onesimus was “more” (v. 16) special to Philemon for he had known him a long time.  And he would be special to him “in the flesh” (v. 16) since saved servants were often better servants than unsaved servants.  And since Philemon had probably witnessed to Onesimus, and prayed for him, and taught him the Scriptures in their home church, he was also special to him “in the Lord.”

A “partner” (Philemon 1:17) is someone who’s part owner in a business.  Three of the apostles were partners in a fishing business (Luke 5:6-10).  Philemon considered Paul his partner in the ministry, as Paul considered Titus (I Cor. 8:23). Paul’s not pulling rank by asking as an apostle (cf. 1:10), but as a co-worker in the ministry.

But if Philemon is a book that illustrates Pauline doctrine rather than teaching it, what is being illustrated here?  It is illustrating that you should receive others in a forgiving way because Paul is your partner in the ministry.  What do I mean by that?

Consider that after James and John and Peter left their fishing partnership, they became partners in the ministry.  The problem with most Christians today is that they think they are part of that partnership instead of being partners with Paul in the ministry!  That means they are fishing for men with the wrong net, the net of the kingdom gospel (John 20:31).  Some are even using the net of the Law and partnering with Moses, saying you have to keep the Sabbath and the rest of the Law to be saved.

Now when you tell people you’re partnering with Paul they say you should be partnering with Christ.  But this epistle is all about Paul giving Philemon reasons why he should forgive his runaway slave.  The Lord would say to forgive him to be forgiven by God (Mt. 6:14).We must be Paul’s part-ner in this, not the Lord’s in His earthly ministry, for Paul says we should forgive because we are forgiven (Eph. 4:32).

Even the “return policy” of the 12 was different.  In saying men should forgive others seventy times seven times (Mt. 18:21,22), the Lord was telling them they had to keep forgiving till the end of Israel’s next period of 490 years (cf. Dn. 9:24) which will end in the Tribulation.  After that, they won’t need to forgive others since all their persecutors will die at Armageddon.  Only Paul’s return policy says to allow others to return forever and keep forgiving them!

Summary:

To “retain” something (v. 13) means to keep possession of it (Job 2:9).  Before returning Philemon’s runaway slave, Paul thought about retaining him (v. 13) to “minster” unto him in prison.  In those days, prisoners were literally fed bread and water (I Ki. 22:27), but in some cases they were allowed friends or servants to “minister” to them (cf. Mt. 25:43,44).

The Book of Philemon doesn’t teach Pauline doctrine, it illustrates them.  When Paul says he thought of keeping Onesimus in Philemon’s stead, that illustrates how we are here “in Christ’s stead” (II Cor. 5:20).  That means we should be beseeching sinners to be reconciled to God as He would.

Slaves were a man’s possession, however (cf. Lev. 25:45,46), so Paul wouldn’t keep him without Philemon’s permission (Phile. 1:14).  He told him he would “benefit” for it at the Judgment Seat of Christ if he let him use his possession, as people today will benefit for letting missionaries use their cars, etc.  But he explained he’d benefit more if he gave Paul use of his possession “willingly” and not “of necessity.”  This illustrates how God will someday reward all of the money we possess that we give to the Lord, but we’ll benefit more at the Judgment Seat of we give in a “willing” way (II Cor. 8:12) and not “of necessity” (II Cor. 9:7).

If Philemon had retained Onesimus, he could only have had him as a slave until he died.  But now that Paul was retaining him after leading him to the Lord, Philemon could have him back as a brother for all eternity (Phile. 1:15,16).

When Paul says Onesimus departed “for a season” (v. 15), that should remind you of the Jew who was blinded for a season when he tried to keep Paul from giving a Gentile the gospel (Acts 13:11).

So when Onesimus departed for a season so Philemon could receive him forever as a brother, that illustrates how Israel departed from God for a season so God could receive her forever in the kingdom.  They “departed” in Acts 28:28,29 and their “receiving” will come in their kingdom (Ro. 11:15).

Paul can’t be saying Onesimus ran away so he could return to Philemon for ever.  And he can’t be saying Philemon let him run away so he could return forever.  No, it was God who wanted him to leave so he could get saved (I Tim. 2:4).  But we have to be careful, for God says servants should obey their masters, not run from them (Eph. 6:5), so running away is a sin, and God never makes anyone sin.

But God knows how to use men’s sins to accomplish His will.  God didn’t make Joseph’s brethren sin by selling him into slavery, but when He saw they hated him (Gen. 37:4) He gave him a dream saying he’d rule them, making them hate him enough to sell him (Gen. 37:8).  That’s how Joseph could say God sent him into slavery (Gen. 45:7,8), using His Word in a dream.  They just reacted sinfully to His Word.

And God used His word to get Onesimus to run away, His word through Philemon.  He was a faithful Christian (Phile. 1:4-6), so was no doubt witnessing to Onesimus.  He just resented hearing it from his high and mighty master, so reacted sinfully to it.  But when he heard the gospel from Paul, someone beneath him in prison, he believed it.

So why does Paul say “perhaps” that’s what happened?  Because there was an element of chance involved.  God could make Onesimus want to run by giving him His word, but he couldn’t make him run 1200 miles to Rome and bump into Paul.  The “hap” part of perhaps means something hap-pened to happen (Ruth 2:3) by chance (II Sam. 1:6).  There’s such a thing as chance—luck (Ecc. 9:11).  Moses believed in it (Deut. 22:6), as did the Lord (Lu. 10:31).  God is not orchestrating our every move, He gave us free will.

So Paul is telling Philemon not to look at it as his slave running away, but to look at it all as God using sin and His Word and chance to “work together” for good (Ro. 8:28).

God also works through His people though.  If Philemon didn’t forgive Onesimus, then all those things wouldn’t work together for good.  It all comes down to you.  If you’re not happy with your life, begin to obey God’s Word through Paul.

Summary:

Onesimus’s name was a Greek word that meant profitable, so he was most likely a Gentile.  Jews like Paul (Phil. 3:5) hated Gentiles and called them dogs, but Paul called Onesimus “my son.”  The answer to racial tension is getting people saved and helping them to grow in grace!

It is popular in grace circles to say that members of the Body of Christ are not born again, but Paul says he had “begotten” Onesimus (1:10).  This is significant in that the purpose of the book of Philemon isn’t to teach grace doctrines, it is to illustrate them, and the new birth is illustrated here.

“Time past” and “but now” (1:11) should make you think of Ephesians 2:11-13.  Onesimus was profitable as a servant to Philemon.  Remember, his name means profitable. But when he ran away, he became unprofitable.  This illustrates how the Gentiles were profitable to God when they brought Him pleasure (Rev.4:11) but became “unprofitable” (Rom. 3:12).

Under Roman Law, Philemon could have Onesimus executed for running away.  That illustrates what God could have done with the Gentiles when they became unprofitable servants (Mt.25:30).  Instead He was merciful to them (Tit.3:3-5).  And Paul is asking Philemon to treat Onesimus as God treated him as a Gentile when he was unprofitable and be merciful.  That’s what Christianity is all about!

Ask an unbeliever, or even most Christians, the best way to treat others, and they’ll quote the Golden Rule (Mt.7:12).  The Lord was alluding to the old covenant of the Law (Lev. 19:18) and the law was glorious, but new covenant grace exceeds in glory (II Cor. 3:6-9) because it says to treat others as God has already treated you.

The word “again” (1:12) means back, as in Exodus 15:19 and Hebrews 13:20.  Paul didn’t have to send Onesimus back to his master twice!

But why would Paul send a slave back to his master?  Under the Law you weren’t supposed to do that (Deut. 23:15).  If you’re thinking you wouldn’t send a runaway slave back, would you give him the best spot on your land to live (v.16)?

This was high spiritual ground!  We know the Gentile nations weren’t doing that, for a runaway slave begged David not to send him back to his master (I Sam. 30:15).

So why did Paul send Onesimus back?  He knew we are not under law, but under grace (Rom. 6:15).  The book of Philemon doesn’t teach that, it illustrates it.

When Paul instead returned Onesimus, that illustrated another grace doctrine, for Paul was obeying Roman law, and believers today are supposed to obey the laws of our country as well (Titus 3:1).

If you’re thinking we’re supposed to obey the government unless they tell us to do something wrong, and returning a slave to his master is wrong, it’s because you think slavery is evil.  We know it isn’t because God allowed His people to own them (Lev. 25:44,45).  There were legitimate reasons why people were slaves.  If they ran up too much debt, they had to work as slaves to pay it off (II Ki. 4:1).  But the slavery that we had in the United States was evil (Exodus 21:16).

When Paul says he “sent” Onesimus (1:12) instead of dragging him, that illustrates a tremendous doctrine of grace.  Once Onesimus left Paul behind, he didn’t have to go where Paul sent him.  But salvation had made him not care about being a slave (I Cor. 7:21).  That illustrates the power of grace

Grace can show you how to not care that you’re in the prison that you are in.  What grace? Onesimus learned that there are no slaves in Christ, we are all equal (I Cor. 12:13; Gal. 3:26-28).  He focused on seeing himself as God saw him, and stopped focusing on his difficult circumstances.  Grace can make you care not about your circumstances as well if you do the same.  When Paul tells Philemon to receive Onesimus as his own bowels (1:12), he meant to receive him as Paul’s own biological son (cf. II Sam. 16:11).  That illustrates how God receives us as His own Son (Eph. 1:6), and how we should receive one another the same way (Rom. 15:7).

Summary:

Philemon brought Paul “great joy” (v. 7) by refreshing the bowels of the saints.  The Bible uses “bowels” literally (Job 20:14) and figuratively (Lev. 26:16).  New Bible versions translate “bowels” as “heart,” for we would say that our heart yearns for someone, not our bowels.  The Bible uses “heart” that way too, but it uses “bowels” to express the strongest innermost feelings (Gen. 43:30; I Ki. 3:26; Phil.1:8)

Paul is using it both ways here.  We know Philemon was wealthy, for the word translated “lodging” in v. 22 is translated “hired house” in Acts 28:30.  His use of “a” instead of “the” (v. 22) suggests he had more than one guest house, and he had servants.  I think Philemon refreshed the bowels of the saints physically be feeding them (cf. Ezek. 3:3) after the earthquake in Colosse which probably left many poor.  That “refreshed” their spirits (cf. I Cor. 16:17) which brought Paul great joy as he saw God’s grace work in Philemon’s heart.

It also brought him “consolation,” a word that means comfort in distress (cf. II Cor. 1:6, 7).  Paul was suffering to hear of their suffering (cf. I Cor. 12:26), and it consoled him to hear of Philemon’s relief efforts.  Paul is telling him how his kindness consoled him because he’s about to ask him to be kind to his runaway slave (Phile. 1:8-10).

He begins by telling him he could have “enjoined” him to be kind.  Enjoin means to order or command, but when the new Bible versions translate it that way, they lose something.  It means to command with authority, as it does every time it is used in Scripture (cf. Esther 9:29-31; Job 36:22,23; Heb. 9:19-22).  Paul was saying he could have ordered Philemon to be merciful to Onesimus with apostolic authority.

But doesn’t Paul say the Word of God should be the authority in our lives, not men (II Cor. 1:24)?  That’s true now that the Bible is complete (Tit. 2:15), but before it was complete Paul had apostolic “authority” (II Cor. 18:8,9).

Paul could have enjoined him to do “that which is “convenient,” a word that means fitting or appropriate (Rom. 1:27,28).  Homosexuality is never appropriate, but mercy is, and Paul asked Philemon to be merciful to his slave “for love’s sake.”  “Sake” means reason or cause.  If you can’t think of a reason to be kind to someone, do it “for mercies’ sake” (Ps. 44:26).  The psalmist knew they didn’t deserve redemption, so asked for it for mercy’s sake.  Paul explains how God could be merciful when he revealed Christ died for us.  Then God asks us to be merciful to others (Eph. 4:32).  They don’t deserve it, but neither did we!

Paul told Philemon to forgive his servant “for love’s sake,” because he loved Paul.  That illustrates how we don’t forgive people because we love them but because we love Him.  We give to Him financially to prove our love to Him (II Cor. 8:8, 24), but we can prove it by obeying Him in other ways as well (cf. Eph. 6:24)—like forgiving others.

Paul could have enjoined him, but chose “rather” to “beseech” him.  Beseech means beg—the opposite of enjoining.  “Rather” is a good grace word.  The New Testament is “rather” glorious than the Old (II Cor. 3:6-8) because the Jews obeyed God because they feared Him, we obey because we love Him.  It is also rather glorious because under the Law God commanded, under grace He beseeches.

It glorified God when the Lord was here healing people (Mt. 9:8; 15:31; Mark 2:12; Luke 5:25, 26; 7:15; 13:13; 17:15; 18:43 cf. Acts 4:21), but it rather glorifies Him when we’d “rather” be sick than healed if His strength is made perfect in our weakness (II Cor. 12:8,9).  That proves your love for God more than receiving healing.

We know there are other ways to prove your love for God, for there are other things God beseeches us to do (Rom. 12:1; Eph. 4:1).

I’ve been saying Philemon should forgive his servant to prove his love for God, but Paul says he should do it because he is “Paul the aged.”  That sounds like he should do it because of his love for Paul.  But his love for Paul is a picture of his love for God.  This epistle doesn’t teach grace doctrines, it illustrates them.