Sunday School | Philemon

Introduction

Who's sad because it's raining that it's not sunny, and who's sad because it's raining that it's not snowing? Who's on the "I wish it was sunny" crowd? We go Susan, that's what I'm talking about. Yes. Who's on the "I wish it was snowing" crowd? Psychopaths. I'm always going to be on team sunny. But I understand, I understand. Alright. Let's settle down a little.

Alright. You guys, this morning we're going to be looking at Philemon, which is Paul's shortest letter. Bob's got them there. Mark, Bob's gonna get you. Philemon is Paul's shortest letter. Not the last letter in order in your New Testament, but it's not the last letter he wrote—that's second Timothy. We're gonna get there in a little bit.

What do you guys know? Philemon's strange. It's a little bit off the path. So why don't you go ahead and give me your opening bids on Philemon? What do you guys know about this thing? If anything, it's like I said, it's not super well trod ground. Philemon, Philemon—what do you know? Got anything, Shima? About a slave. It is. It's about a slave. What's the slave's name? No. Yep. Philemon is a slave owner. Onesimus or Onesimus. Nobody knows how to say it. But yeah. Onesimus is—it's about a guy named Onesimus who is a slave, but he's a runaway slave. We'll kinda, we'll figure that out as we go.

Anything else we know other than it's about a slave owner about a runaway slave? Robin, what you got? Philemon to go easy on him. Yes, absolutely. So Robin is saying that in Philemon, Paul is writing to Philemon to ask him to go easy on Onesimus. That's exactly right. And we'll see that. We'll see how he does that in a minute when we read it out. Yep. Dan? It was used in the nineteenth century to justify slavery. Okay. This is gonna be—we're gonna have to talk about this. We're gonna need to discuss this.

What Dan said is it was used to justify slavery. And we're gonna have to talk about what is the New Testament's view of slavery. It's a little bit of a complicated story. We're gonna—we'll talk about that as we go through this today. Anything else you wanna throw out there? Okay. Alright. So, Philemon, as I said, it's a short book. It's an unusual book.

One of the things that's strange about it is that it's the only letter that Paul wrote to an individual about a personal matter. Right? So you can think about Paul's letters like this. He's got one letter that is written to a group of churches—that's Galatia. The letter to Galatia. Galatia's not a city, it's a region. And that letter is written to the churches, plural, in Galatia.

He's got a whole bunch of church—bunch of letters written to individual cities. Letter to the church in Rome, letter to the church in Ephesus, letter to the church in Philippi. Right? Those are written to churches. Then he's got a couple letters written to individuals who are leading churches. That's Timothy and Titus. And then he's got Philemon.

And Philemon is written to a private citizen, an individual, not the pastor of a church, not the church, not the region of churches, just to some dude. Although, he does specifically invite his church to listen in on the letter. He kinda includes them, but it's chiefly written to this guy, Philemon. Which makes it really funny because it's not—it's not a theological work. It's not written to a church, a gathering of believers. It's written to this one individual about a very particular situation and it's not even written, though it's written to a particular man, to Philemon, it is about somebody else.

It's about Onesimus. There's one—it’s stunning. There's a book in the New Testament that is written for the benefit of a single human being—that he might be treated with grace and kindness despite the fact that he's in enormous legal jeopardy. And his book, this very personal thing was included in the canon. It's kind of a crazy circumstance.

What we're gonna do because it's so short, we have time to read the whole thing. I'm gonna read it to you and you've got it here. When we do these little short books, I only did this for Jude and Philemon because they're so short. Instead of just commenting on it, I just gave you the text itself and then we'll kinda create an annotated version. And I'd encourage you, as we're dealing with all these things, if there's any of these insights that's kinda grip you, you could just translate or transfer them into your actual Bible.

Here's the things I want—well, I'll just read it to you and then we'll just make make a bunch of notes here. It says, Paul, a prisoner, which is interesting, of Christ Jesus and Timothy our brother, to Philemon our dear friend and fellow worker, to Aphia our sister, to Arkippus our fellow soldier, and to the church that meets in your home. Alright. So there's more people included in it, but it's chiefly to Philemon. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember that? That's how Paul starts all his letters. He says, I will always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers because I hear about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints.

And now we're going to get into it. Verse eight, therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appealed to you on the basis of love. I then, as Paul, an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus, I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. Formerly, he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and me.

I am sending him, who is my very heart, back to you. I would have liked to keep him with me, so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. But I did not want to do anything without your consent so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced.

Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good, no longer as a slave but better than a slave as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you both as a man and as a brother in the Lord. So, if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.

If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back. Not to mention that you owe me your very self. I do wish, brothers, that I may have some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.

Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I ask. And one thing more, prepare a guest room for me because I hope to be restored to you and answer to your prayers. Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you greetings, as does Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, fellow workers. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

The Context of the Passage

Okay. Now there's a couple of things we can observe here, but first let's just kind of reverse engineer it. So what's, what seems like what's going on here? What happened in the last year or two prior to the writing of this letter? Is it? Yeah, Fetz? Onesimus met the Lord. Lord. What happened prior to Onesimus meeting the Lord? He ran away. He ran away. And what happened prior to that? What's that? We don't know. He may or may not have been—the name useless, it's interesting. We'll talk about his uselessness. But how about even, there's a more fundamental thing that has to happen to set this whole thing up. What did Philemon do prior to this whole thing ever happening? He purchased a human being is what he did.

Okay. So what we have, so the setup here is we have Philemon who is a Christian, a believer, who owns at least one and maybe several human beings. He's a—I mean, you cannot duck this. Onesimus owns slaves. One of them—I'm sorry, Philemon owns slaves. One of them is this guy Onesimus. At some point, Onesimus grows weary of it, runs away, flees, escapes from slavery. And after he escapes, he comes to faith. He meets Paul and Paul leads him to Christ. And what you need to understand, so Paul meets this guy, this runaway slave somewhere in the Roman Empire. He leads him to faith in Christ. And in the process, in the course of this relationship with Paul and Onesimus, Onesimus tells his story of where he used to be, who he worked for, what land he was a slave in. And he's like, yeah, my master's name was Philemon. And Paul's like, Philemon in Colossae? Philemon? Yeah yeah yeah, that's where I was. Fascinating. I know that guy.

And by the way, and hear this, you're not allowed to run away. You have to go back. Imagine Onesimus. Okay, think about this. When we read this letter, there's this dynamic tension. Usually when you read the letter of Philemon, I highlighted in dark blue everything that feels heavy handed, right? So Paul uses language like this, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, I am sending him, who is my very heart, not to lay it on thick? Verse 14, I don't want you to do anything without your consent so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced. He says, not to mention that you owe me your very self. He says, confident of your obedience I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I am.

Does this not feel heavy handed to you? Bordering on manipulative? Right? Okay. So usually when we read this we'll have this sense of like, wow Paul, you're really laying it on thick. But what is the balance of that? What's the other side of that seesaw? Is it obvious? Paul is sending Onesimus back to his former master. Right? If this letter was for you, if this was your name on here, if it's like, I'm sending Judy back to you, would you not want this letter to be a little bit heavy handed? Would you? Paul is sending a runaway slave. He's saying, you can't do that. You're not allowed to be a runaway slave. Your life is forfeit. One, it was wrong for you to run away. Number two, you're in legal jeopardy. The rest of your life you're a fugitive. You need to go back and you need to ask him to release you. But you need to go back. I can imagine Onesimus being like, yeah, I'm not going back. That's why I left. And then Paul says, no no no, I'm gonna write you a letter. To which Onesimus must have thought, this better be some letter. Okay? If you're asking me to go back here and put my life in his hands, you better write a really good letter. So and he does. That's what we're doing. So if you're struck by the heavy handedness of it, don't miss the precariousness of Onesimus' situation. Right? And so Paul sends him back with this letter. You with me? Okay.

Now when you when he writes this letter, notice a few things here that are gonna, I think are just striking. Paul refers several times. He is a prisoner. He's a prisoner. He is in chains. He is in chains. Paul is a man himself. He's literally in jail. He's literally enslaved in a prison while he's advocating for the freedom of somebody else, which I just think is so significant. Now Paul may get out of jail. He does get out of this, he's he's in and out of prison all the time. But he's doing this as a slave himself advocating for the freedom of another, which I think has gospel implications. He's also doing this—why do you think he writes the letter to the church? Not just to Philemon but he includes other people. What do think is going on with that, in particular the church? Yeah, Robin? It's found to be more people like the layman than other slaves. Okay, this is great. So there's a couple of things here. This is the New Testament's—I'll look at this more broadly. This is the New Testament's strongest entree into overturning an institution that nobody can overturn. This is foundational to the very being of Rome, right? Meaning the Roman Empire, the whole thing. And so this is not, this is a very private matter. This is a very personal matter, but he wants to be seen, right? Because this work, this domino that Paul is pushing over right here, it needs to knock over more dominoes than needs to spread. It needs to absolutely overthrow the fundamental institution that makes Rome possible. It's a big deal. So it needs to be observed. It needs to be seen. That's right. There's another reason too. Kelly? Believe in this church, were they part of the churches in Ephesus? I think it's Colossi actually. Yes. This is absolutely right. And when we get to the back page, we're gonna talk through what are the theolog—there's not a lot of expressed theology in this, but the latent theology in this is exactly what you said. And it's really important. We're gonna pull on that thread in a little bit. So we'll get there. Yeah. More. Yes. That's right. Now hold on to that. We're gonna chase that down in a minute. But first, I want to just finish this question. Why does he invite the church? One is we, there are implications. They're gonna be broad for everybody. It's for one man. Onesimus needs to be set free. Philemon is the guy that can do it. Right? We're gonna deal with the theological implications of how this undercuts the entire system of slavery, but not yet.

Why else does he want the church to see it? Jesse? Accountability. Because he basically—and I mean this in the gentlest way—it would be really embarrassing if Philemon doesn't respond to this. Right? And this is just one more way that he's putting pressure on him. I'm telling you, you read this letter and you're like, wow, are you doing? Literally Onesimus' life hangs in the balance. And so he's gonna write to Philemon, gonna lay it on pretty thick and he's gonna make sure that others are watching. So that when Onesimus reads this letter, he's like, this is your sole shield. This is your only protection, this piece of paper. Now go. It's actually a pretty good piece of paper. It's a pretty good protection and it needs to be because this guy is being asked to do something incredibly difficult.

Do you remember when you were like six years old and you did something stupid and your mom and dad made you walk next door and apologize to the neighbor? You know that phenomenon how much you hated that? This is that like times a hundred. Like you gotta go home and say, I'm so sorry I ran away from you and bought me. Like, like that's what's going on. It's a big, big deal. And so Paul is gonna do everything he can to make it likely for him to succeed. And by the way, the reason we think it's the church—and well, it's funny, we're not sure if it is the church in Colossae. He doesn't address the church in Colossae, but we think it's there. If you look at these names, take a look at this. In this letter, he is going to talk about Onesimus. Onesimus shows up in Colossians four. He's gonna talk about Aristarchus, who shows up in Colossians four. He's gonna talk about Archippus, who shows up in Colossians four. It's the same cast of characters in Colossians, and then there is a church that meets in their home. So we don't know from Philemon verse 2 if the church is the church in Colossae or if it'd be like the church in Salem. Like if it's like the next neighboring church, right? It could be that like we're the church in Roanoke, they're the church in Salem, Colossians, and then Philemon's is the next door, maybe. We're not sure. But it's the same cast of characters. Like several names are the same. So we assume that's where he's coming from, right? So in this whole thing, what he's gonna do is he's gonna tell them, you have to let him back. Oh, you don't have to. I mean, you're totally free to do whatever you want, but you absolutely have to let him back. And that's the tone of the letter.

And what is the primary, if there's any theological point, what is it? What is the case that he is making that you need to free Onesimus? And this, by the way, is the most subversive part of this letter. He is one of the saints just like all these other guys. Keep going. Yes. Okay. Well, Gary said he's one of the saints just like you. Take a look—take a look at the pink thing in verse 16. I'll start in verse 15. Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good, no longer as a slave but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you both as a man and as a brother in the Lord.

You guys, this is, this is the subversive claim. When we say that something that these two are brothers, what are we invoking there? What is brotherhood meant to convey? Equality. Equality. Right? That is radical. He is not equal. He is your slave. He is your property. You can do with him as you wish. And Paul says, but actually none of that's true. He is your equal. And the reason we know that he's your equal is that he's in Christ, you're in Christ, and in Christ we're all equal. Do you see how radical this is? Do you see how subversive this is? This is the, this is the place where Paul is gonna shove—this is the place where he inserts the crowbar to begin to completely dismantle the entire system. He's not talking about the evils of slavery. He's not going after like how dare you? How present? It's not a rebuke. It is this very gentle, mild but PS, you recognize of course that you and Onesimus are on equal footing. You recognize that you're brothers in Christ. And if you embrace that, that is, it's the Trojan horse, right? You know the idea of the Trojan horse. You let the Trojan horse in because hey, who doesn't want a giant wooden horse? But once you've let it in and the army spills out of it, it's like that's what he's doing. He's like this simple concept— you cannot argue with—in Christ, you two are the same. And once, once we grant that, the implications spill out and there's nothing you can do about it because you've already, you've already granted the single idea that you didn't understand had all these implications, but it does and now it's game over. You have to set him free because in Christ we're all equal.

Do you see what he's doing? See how brilliant that is? Like I don't know that I would have been smart enough to put this thing in the canon, right? To include this for the rest of the church to think about for two thousand years. But that's why it's here. So that we can be thoughtful. Does the gospel matter? Are we to think how—how does it, how does it play out in this broken world where slavery is a thing? How are we to live in that? And that's exactly what he's modeling for us in what is it? 25 verses—with incredible economy—it gives us this super practical lesson. Make sense? Okay.

Application

Okay. Catherine. This is what we need today is the gospel. Sometimes it's, there's so much negativity toward from the world just the word gospel. And it needs this kind of examples to work it out. There's so many aspects, like like when a man owned a lumber field and people, the robbers were stealing his lumber. So he came out and loaded up, and he said, wait a minute. You're not getting the best. Here's my best. So they went over and loaded the truck with the best. And then after a while, you can imagine them, well, who are you? And the gospel—that's the gospel. So they came to Christ. That's like a modern day version of Les Mis right there. Of like what right? And it is, it's what Jesus says. If somebody slaps you on the right cheek, turn them to the left cheek also. Right? If someone forces you to do this, go beyond. That's radical lavish, non-retaliatory love being played out in a way that just completely fries everybody's categories. That's right. And that we're invited. That's why Paul said, why not, why not be ripped off? Like, why not be wronged? Like, could we live our lives in a way that we don't really mind if we're being ripped off for the privilege of manifesting this, the lavish grace of Christ? Right? That's what he's going after.

Okay. Now flip over here. I wanna—I want you to see a couple of things. DFP mentioned this, this book has been used to justify slavery. See, Onesimus is a slave owner, so it's all good. You can go do that. That reading doesn't make any sense of what this letter is actually saying. Right? That reading is very selective in picking out, oh, Onesimus was a slave owner, or I'm sorry, Philemon was a slave owner, and so that everything's fine. Paul is undercutting the very roots of slavery here. Okay?

But with that, I want to zoom out and give you a little bit of a survey of the New Testament's view on slavery because it is nuanced. This is by no means comprehensive. I just went through and I picked a handful of passages I thought were emblematic of different facets of the New Testament view of slavery. So I'll read you a few of these and then we'll try to come up with a coherent picture in the next ten minutes.

So first thing, it treats the slave trade. This is important. It treats the slave trade as an evil thing. Just look at the company that slave trading keeps. In 1 Timothy 1, we also know that the law is made not for the righteous, but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly, the sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers, for perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers and for whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine.

Alright. So, can we agree that's a, that's an unsavory list of things? Right? Slave, the slave trade is treated as a wretched thing. It is incorporated with all these other things that are indisputably evil.

But the New Testament also recognizes that sometimes masters were kind. There's actually several people that are depicted in this way. So in Luke 7, there was a centurion's servant whom his master valued highly. He was sick and about to die, and the centurion heard Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him asking him to come and heal him, and I'm sorry, to come and heal his servant. So, of course, there are—there's going to be a range of people. Many people carry out their—you know this, right? There are good and kind bosses in a normal employment situation. Some of you work for them, some of you are them. And there are terrible bosses that are abusive and unkind to their employees. Some of you work for them, some of you might be them. Who knows, right? We want to be. There's a whole range of things. There are sometimes the situation is kind, but of course, anybody who is a slave is in an unbelievably vulnerable position. Right? And that vulnerability, people have been abused, know, in a million times. Right?

Now interestingly, the New Testament frequently uses slavery as a metaphor for the Christian life. Paul, every letter Paul writes, he talks about himself as a servant, right? Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ. So there's lots of places where there's language. This is all the same word in Greek, by the way. You can if you wanted to distinguish between servants and slaves, that's fine. But the New Testament is just indiscriminate in its language.

So you could have a good master. Jesus is a good master. And Paul's like, and we owe him absolute obedience. In fact, let's do this. In what sense are Christians slaves of Jesus? What what is being invoked by that imagery? I should've just given you the heart of it, but what else? What, why can Paul call himself a servant? We've been bought with a price. We've been bought with a price. We are purchased human beings. Very good.

I live with some of that old stuff that was there before the Holy Spirit took over. Okay. So now, that's not a slave of Jesus—that's a slave of sin. Right? Okay. That's true. Okay. So that's important. So we are sometimes described as slaves of Jesus, which is an exalted estate. And we are sometimes described as slaves of sin, which is also true and not so great. And so we can talk about both of those.

Let's just stay on Jesus for another minute. What does it mean that we're slaves of Christ? Judy? Your will is not your own. Yes. That's right. Your will is not your own. Right? And this is—we are, in that, are imitators of Jesus himself, who is also a servant. One of his titles from the Old Testament, from Isaiah 42 to 53, we've talked about this a few times, is that he is the servant and we are like him. Jesus says, I've not come to do my will, but the will of him who sent me. And our will has also been subordinated to another. Yep, Tommy? You can't serve two masters. Excellent. Right. So that's Paul's language. Can't serve two masters. Generally, it's God or money, is the pairing that's being set up there. But somebody has domination in your life. What other sense are we like slaves? Gil? Oh, oh, look at this. He says we should want to go above and beyond. And that's actually a great segue to the next passage we'll look at. Hold that thought for a moment. Right? So all of this stuff is invoked in our slavery. Yep. I was gonna say Paul says that he denied himself and becomes all things to all men. Okay. That's right. Become all things to all men. It's again, it's the idea that my will is not my own. My life is not my own. My pleasure is not the primary thing I seek. I seek my happiness is bound up in his happiness, and I'm going to do everything that he wants me to do.

Now this is infinitely easier, as difficult as it is, it's infinitely easier to be the slave of one who is crucified on your behalf. Right? We can't lose sight of the nature of this master whom we serve. Fred? All we have was provided for it. Oh, okay. That's another thing, right? So if you're the slave, you're not gonna go, you know, have some side gig where you're getting your housing and your food. You're just being provided by your master. Now it might be a little bit offensive to say like it's being given to you because you're earning it with constant labor, but it is being provided for you. That's right. And Jesus is our provider.

All those things are all invoked. Okay. So we got all, if we have all of that, he is—he is our master. Was also another sense in which we're slaves to sin. Romans 6 is the central page if you wanna chase that theme. But look, Gil, look at what it says in Ephesians 6. Listen, this is also one of those things Dan has probably been used against us, would guess. In Ephesians 6 it says, slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. And then in Titus it says, teach slaves to be obedient to their masters and everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them, not to steal from them, but to show that they can be fully trusted so that in every way they will make teaching about God our Savior attractive.

Here's the thing, you could read this language here in Titus. You can read this language in Ephesians and think, he is Paul affirming the goodness and the rightness of owning other human beings. And I would understand why you would think that, but you would be mistaken. That is not what he is saying. He's addressing, here's the fundamental reality. This is the situation in which we find ourselves. What are we to do? And just like Jesus says, if they slap you on one cheek, offer them the other. Go the extra mile. Exactly what Catherine is describing. If they steal your silver, give them your candlesticks. That's what he's advocating for. He's advocating for a radical, radical love because the shape of the gospel is the letter V. The way up is down. It is Jesus, he's in heaven, he's exalted in all places and he humbles himself. Right? You Philippians 2, in your brain, he humbles himself, what happens? How does that Philippians 2 thing play out? He empties himself, that's the great kenosis of Philippians 2. Humble himself, what does he become? Obedient. He's obedient, right? He loves it, becomes a slave, he comes to the absolute lowest place, humbles himself, he's obedient, takes on the very nature of a slave, then he's crucified. And because he seeks the lowest place, he's exalted to the highest place. Therefore, God exalted him in the highest place and gave him the name that's above every name. That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow. This is the V-shape of the gospel. And Paul is telling these slaves, you're here, crush it. Be the best here that you can be. Go to the lowest place because it is in being taken to the lowest place that we will be exalted to the highest place. And in that, there is no loss of dignity to do the things that people find undignified. This is who Jesus was himself. He did not come to be served, but to serve and he gave his life as a ransom for many. He washed the feet of his disciples. Paul embraces the absolute upside-downness of Jesus' life—that we take the lowest place. And if you have ever been called into a low place, embraced it. Because the way up is down and we will be wherever he has put us.

Was there a hand over here? Did I miss something? Yep. Dan? Say being a slave is external. Being a slave to Christ is internal. Yes. Okay. Being a slave is external. They can actually compel your labor, tell you where to sleep and what to eat and where to do. And being a slave to Christ is an internal feature. And Paul is telling both, embrace it all.

And look, this is what Kelly was referring to earlier and is really the heart of the message in Philemon. Here, there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. That this slave who has no rights, who has no power, has no authority—is of equal dignity to his owner. That is what undercuts the whole system. He says this, he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's free man. So you may be owned by a human being, but you are free to Jesus. And then similarly, he was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. He is creating this foundational equality between slaves and non-slaves, between slaves and owners. And that is the seed that, given time, is gonna blow up the whole thing.

And then of course, he says in 1 Corinthians 7, "Were you a slave when you're called? Don't let it trouble you. Although, if you can gain your freedom, do so." He's not blind to the fact that it's a drag to be a slave, that it can be incredibly vulnerable, incredibly injurious, incredibly unjust. And he's advocating, yeah, you can get free. Right? But we wanna do it right. And that's what he's helping Onesimus to do. By the end of this story, Onesimus will be free and not a fugitive, which is better. And he's doing it on—he's appealing to it on the basis of these deep gospel principles.

Make sense? How much time do I have? Not much. Okay. The last thing I included for you if you wanna read it is N. T. Wright. N. T. Wright did. He's written a commentary on Philemon and he's written relatively extensively about this whole thing. And I want you to—You can read the whole thing. He, N. T. Wright, he's an Anglican theologian and he basically says like, why doesn't he just, why doesn't Paul go harder against this? Why isn't he more forceful in it? And he explains kind of some of the cultural context and he concludes his argument this way, at the bottom of that page. Why then did Paul not protest against the whole dehumanizing system? Offer some thoughts on that. Here's his conclusion—his last paragraph on the right. That last paragraph on the right. That last paragraph on the right. "Paul's method is subtler. He of course knows—" First Corinthians 7—that it, in principle, it is better to be free than to be a slave. That's what I just alluded to up top. And he says, but like Jesus, his way of changing the world is to plant a grain of mustard seed, which inconspicuous at first grows into a spreading tree. And in the meantime, he teaches slaves and masters to treat themselves and each other as human beings.

Like the artist or poet, he does some of his finest work not by obscure clarity or direct statement, but by veiled illusion and teasing suggestion. And I would suggest to you guys, well, I mentioned this from that book I read, I've recently finished Dominion, that the world is infused with Christian assumptions. You would not have ever ended slavery throughout the Roman Empire were it not for the spread of the gospel. This built into our consciousness the concept of the equal dignity of human beings. And so it is a slow work. And I am sometimes frustrated by God's slow work. The Hebrews were slaves in Egypt for how long? Four hundred years. That must have felt like a long time. Right? And God is patient, including with things that I am very impatient about. Right? But this is the work that he's doing.

So if you read—if you go through Philemon and read it, don't—this is an easy little avenue to ignore. But if you read through Philemon, man, there is so much in here. I hope this might give you some of the keys to unpack it more. We will not be having class next week because it's Christmas Eve, and then the week after that is New Year's Eve. So no class the next two weeks. Whatever the first Sunday in January is, we'll pick it up and I think we'll probably be in Titus, probably. So you can read that ahead and we'll look forward to talking together. See you soon.