Philemon

Slavery was an integral part of the ancient world. There were 60 million slaves in the Roman empire and the owners worked hard to make sure there wasn't a revolt. A master had absolute power over his slaves. In their eyes a slave was not a person but rather a living tool. Rebellious slaves were promptly eliminated. And runaway slaves were sometimes branded with a big letter F on their forehead which stood for fugitivus runaway.

Onesimus was a slave who had run away and found his way to Rome to hide himself among the crowded streets of the big city. He became a Christian and began working with Paul. Somehow this fact was discovered and Paul could no longer harbour a runaway slave. So he sends Onesimus back to his owner Philemon with this personal letter asking that Philemon take him back without recourse and that he should view him not as a slave but as a Christian brother.

Why did Christianity seem to condone slavery? People of the ancient world commonly held the belief that it was simply the nature of things that certain men would be slaves to serve the needs of higher classes of men. It would have been nearly impossible to imagine their society without it. But more importantly if the young Christian church would have encouraged a slave revolt, Christianity itself would have been branded as revolutionary and subversive. The movement could have been completely crushed.

The New Testament does not directly tell us what happened to Onesimus. But fifty years later a church leader named Ignatius writes about the bishop of Ephesus whose name is Onesimus. Onesimus was a common slave name so we will never know for sure if this is the same man. But another clue might be in the very inclusion of this book in the New Testament. Why would this little slip of a letter survive and become a part of the collection of Paul letters? It doesn't really deal with doctrine or heresy, and surely Paul wrote many many personal letters.

They first began collecting Paul's letters at Ephesus, just when a man named Onesimus was bishop there. Perhaps he insisted that it be included so that everyone would know what the grace of God had done for him. We will never know. But if it is true~ it's a great story of the power of God's grace and the hope we can find in His love.