Biblical scholars remind us that
when we study Paul, we are reading someone else’s mail. Paul never intended for
people in some place called the United States to read his letters in the 21st
century. Our job when we read them is to see how we are in some way
Corinthians, or Galatians or Thessalonians. We aren’t exactly like them, but
what’s the connection?
We find special difficulties with
all of that in the letter to Philemon. We find identifying with the recipient
of this letter, Philemon, hard and strange. More importantly, we can only surmise
what went on behind the scenes of this letter. We have here a personal letter
from Paul to one man, about one matter. Yet, the folks who compiled the New
Testament thought this letter should be considered sacred scripture. What did
they see in it?
The story behind the letter
Let’s try as best we can to
reconstruct the events behind the letter. Paul languishes in prison, perhaps in
Philippi or Caesarea, but we cannot say for certain. As we know, Paul spent
much time in prison and used his time there to write. At least we benefit from
his suffering, because, without Paul’s time in prison, we might not have such
epistles as Philippians, with its inspiring words about Jesus taking on the
form of a slave. Imprisonment seems to have deepened Paul’s commitment to and
identification with Christ. In prison, Paul shed everything else to depend on
God. <
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