Philemon part 3

This is part three of a multi-part post. See part one here and part two here.

Continuing with the commentary, we pick up the text of the letter just after the greeting:

I thank my God always when I remember you in my prayers, because I hear of your love and of the faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and all the saints, and I pray that the sharing of your faith may promote the knowledge of all the good that is ours in Christ. For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.

Paul offers thanks to God for the acts of love and charity that Philemon has performed on behalf of the "saints," i.e. his fellow Christians. What these acts are we don't know, but they must have gone beyond simply lending his house for Sunday services. He must have been a generous man, active in the community, a model for others demonstrating what a Christian should be.

Paul prays that Philemon will continue to be a good role model, that his efforts on behalf of the Christian community will "promote the knowledge of all the good that is ours in Christ." This sets up the appeal Paul is about to make to Philemon. He is about to ask Philemon to make some choices that may be hard for him, but that will be an example of Christian love and charity for all to see.

Accordingly, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you--I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus--I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment.

As we get into Paul's deeply moving appeal on behalf of Onesimus, I'm again reluctant to interrupt the flow of the text with commentary. This letter is best read start to finish, without interruption. But I have to break in somewhere.

OK, bit by bit again:

Accordingly,

This one word shows that what Paul is about to ask follows directly from his desire that Philemon set an example of Christian love. To refuse would be to fail to live up to the high standards Christ demands of us.

though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required,

Paul makes no bones about his authority over his converts. He has led them to eternal life; there's really no limit on what they owe him in return. It's hard to imagine a priest or bishop these days attempting to exercise this kind of authority over a parishioner; these days the Church is more circumspect when it comes to making demands on individual Christians.

Of course, part of the reason for Paul's boldness is that he is no ordinary priest or bishop, and he knows it. The clarity with which the Church fathers conceived their role in salvation history is astounding. They were standing at the apex of history, the great inflection point, to which all previous history had been pointing, and from which the world would be forever changed. All of God's 2000-plus year journey with Israel had had the single purpose of laying the groundwork for the moment at which the fathers now stood. Revelation had reached fullness. No such moment would ever come again.

Paul in particular, referred to himself as none other than the Apostle to the Gentiles. The Twelve's job was to convert Israel, Paul was to handle the rest of the world. He was God's spokesman on Earth, bearer of the final revelation. He was the guy who finally got to see the rest of God's plan, who got to understand what the prophets of old could only catch fleeting glimpses of, and it was his job to explain it all to the world. He knew that there would never be another like himself, because there would never be another moment like this in all time. As he says in Ephesians 3:

To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the inscrutable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages and generations in God who created all things; that through the Church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and authorities in the heavens. This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness of speech and confidence of access through faith in him.

To conceive of this role for yourself you almost have to be insane, a megalomaniac. Yet the fathers never betray any hint of doubt about their mission, and manage to carry it out with a mixture of humility and piety that is, apart from their astonishing success, perhaps the most miraculous aspect of their ministries.

OK that was quite a detour. Back to Philemon:

yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you

A cynical person may see this as a good cop / bad cop act on Paul's part, an "I certainly hope you make the right decision, because I don't want to have to put the hurt on you" sort of thing. There's probably a grain of truth in that; after all the tone of this letter is both solicitous and firm. But I believe it's also true that Paul really does want Philemon to do the right thing for the right reason. He wants this to be an opportunity for Philemon to demonstrate real Christian love; for Philemon and Onesimus to become true brothers in Christ. It isn't enough for Philemon to begrudgingly forgive Onesimus only because he was forced to, and to forever resent him for it.

I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus--I appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment.

I just find this infinitely touching. Paul stands before Philemon as a father pleading for his child. Who could listen to this plea, the plea of a man grown old in the service of the Lord, who had suffered as much as any man ever has in God's service, who was even now imprisoned and facing an uncertain future; who could refuse this man's plea on behalf of his child? Because in reading this letter there really can be no doubt about the authenticity of Paul's feelings for Onesimus.