LIFE LESSONS
FRIENDS OF PAUL: PHILEMON
DR. JIM DIXON
PHILEMON 1:10-15
APRIL 30, 2006
Philemon was a friend of Paul, and he was very rich. He lived in Collosi or perhaps in Laodicea, twin cities in a common valley, sister cities. The Bible tells us that the Christian Church met in the House of Philemon. Such houses were spacious. Such homeowners were wealthy. Philemon had slaves and one of his slaves was a man named “Onicimous” which means, “useful” but for some reason Onicimous had not been useful to Philemon and for some reason Onicimous had run away. Like most runaway slaves, Onicimous made his way to the great city of Rome, that cosmopolitan city, that huge city, hoping that he could just blend in, kind of escape and be unnoticed but there in the city of Rome, Onicimous the slave encountered the Apostle Paul. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Paul led Onicimous to the faith and Onicimous became a Christian and, spiritually speaking, Paul’s child in the faith. Then Paul sent Onicimous back to Philemon, his friend, asking Philemon to receive him no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother.
There are indications in the letter that perhaps Onicimous, before he ran away, stole money or something of worth from Philemon. Paul still sends Onicirnous back and promises that he will repay the debt. That is the story that is behind the little letter of Philemon. There are other versions of the story but that is the version most commonly accepted by scholars. And so this morning we take a look at Philemon, Onicimous and Paul and we really know very little about Philemon and we know little about Onicimous so what we are really looking at this morning is the institution of slavery because that is what their story is all about, the story of slavery.
In the broader context, what we are really taking a look at this morning is the subject of oppression. The Bible tells us that God hates oppression. It is an abomination in the sight of God. In the Old Testament, the Prophets of Israel spoke by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and they renounced the oppressors. In the New Testament, the word for oppression is the word, “katadunastea.” Katadunastea comes from “dunainis,” a Greek word meaning, “power. “You understand oppression is an abuse of power. God hates the abuse of power. God is omnipotent. God has all power and yet God has granted that we have power in varying measure and He’s watching, watching to see what we do with the power that is ours. Whether you are an employer and you have power over employees or simply a mom or a dad who has power over children, or even a person who has power over a dog or a cat, God is watching to see how you use the power that has been trusted to you and to make sure you are not guilty of oppression, the abuse of power.
This morning I want us to examine a variety of oppressions, different types of oppression. I do not know how many of these we have time to get through. It does not matter. I want us to look at the subject. We will come back from time to time and relate it to Philemon and Onicimous and Paul but first of all I want us to take a look at the subject of racial oppression.
The nicest thing that we can say about the institution of slavery in the Roman Empire is that it was at least not based on race. The Romans were indiscriminate, willing to enslave anyone of any race. Of course they did refer to foreigners as barbarians and they did enslave them, but generally speaking, the institution of slavery throughout the Greco-Roman world was not based on race. Philemon was probably a Greek man. His name is a Greek name which means, “beloved.” Onicimous was probably a Greek man. His name, as we have seen, is a Greek name meaning, “useful.” And so you have perhaps a slave who is Greek and a master who is Greek, a Greek enslaving a Greek. Not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. The institution of slavery again was not based on race.
Of course that is not true of our history in this nation. The institution of slavery in the United States of America was indeed based on race as was the institution of slavery in the British Empire. It was all based on the African slave trade, and it was racial oppression. It was Black people who were enslaved. A tragic part of American and British history. God hates slavery but He particularly hates slavery when it combines racism and oppression as it did in America and as it did in Britain. A horrible thing to combine racism and oppression.
Of course Jesus hates racism. He lived in Palestine, 1st Century AD., and in Northern Palestine there was the land of Galilee. In Southern Palestine, the land of Judah or Judea and between them the region of Samaria – and in Samaria there lived the Samaritans. Who were they? The Samaritans claimed to be pureblooded Jews of the Jewish race. They claimed to be descended from the two northern tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim. They claimed to be worshippers of God and devoted to the Torah. Of course the Bible gives us a different picture of the Samaritans. In 2 Kings, chapter 17, we are told about the history of the Samaritans and how the Samaritans are a people of mixed race. Historians confirm this. They know. In the year 722 the Assyrians came into the region of Samaria, and they exported some of the Jews. They left many of the Jews there in Samaria, but they imported people of other races and people of other nations and so pretty soon, over decades and centuries, they intermarried, and you had a people of mixed blood, mixed race, somewhat devoted to Judaism.
The Jews hated the Samaritans, and the Samaritans hated the Jews. They had no dealings with each other. Those Samaritans who were in Galilee or in Judea were oppressed, denied economic viability, and those Jews from Galilee or Judah who went to Samaria were oppressed and denial social and economic viability. So when a Jew traveled from Galilee to Judah or vice-versa, they did not go through Samaria if they traveled north and south or south and north. They went through the Trans Jordan, avoiding the region of Samaria. No dealings. The Jews called Samaritans dogs and it was racism.
So along comes Jesus and He traveled through Samaria when going north to south or south to north. He loved the Samaritans though He disagreed with them. He disagreed with the Samaritans on virtually every point. The Samaritans claimed that the Jewish Torah was tainted and distorted and that only they had the true Torah. Jesus told them this was not so. The Samaritans claimed that the other thirty-four books in the Hebrew Old Testament, besides the Torah, were crafted by man and not inspired by God but Jesus told them that those other books came from His Father and are indeed the Word of God. The Samaritans claimed that the true temple was not on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem and Judea, but the true temple was at the foot of Mount Gerizim in Samaria. Jesus, in His conversation with a Samaritan woman explained the. temple is in Jerusalem. Of course Jesus told the Samaritans that they were foreigners. They were not of Jewish blood. The Greek word that Jesus used shows that He viewed the Samaritans as of a different race and yet Jesus loved the Samaritans in the same way He loved the Jews. He wanted Jews and Samaritans to love each other because Jesus hates racism. And so Jesus tells the Parable of the Jericho Road. The hero of the parable is a Samaritan, the Good Samaritan. The Priest and the Levite, the finest in the Jewish world, were the negative characters in the story. The Samaritan was the hero. How hard it must have been for the attorney who was talking to Jesus to answer when Jesus said, “Who is the hero in this story? Who proved neighbor? Who fulfilled the law?” How hard it must have been for the attorney to say, “The Samaritan!” Of course he did not say that. He simply said, “the one who had mercy.” It was difficult to overcome the racism.
Jesus traveled between Galilee and Judea and in the region of Samaria. He saw ten lepers. He healed them as they cried out for mercy. He healed them but again only one came expressing thanksgiving and gratitude and that one was a Samaritan, the hero of that story. How weird when you think about it that Jews and Samaritans were in a little band of ten together in the midst of their common affliction of leprosy. It takes a lot to overcome their normal racism but, you see, Jesus hates racism in all of its form. If you have any racism in your heart or if I have any racism in my heart, we need to repent. Even if it is not combined with oppression, if you just acknowledge that in your heart there is any racism it is time for repentance. Even if you are not abusing power, even if your racism is not expressed in oppression, still it is a sin.
The second kind of oppression of course is gender oppression, oppression based on gender. Some of you have been to South America and you know that in South America the longest river there and the second longest river in the world is the Amazon River. Part of the Amazon River flows through the Amazon Rain Forest. The Amazon River is 4,000 miles long and the Amazon Rain Forest covers two million square miles, two-thirds of the Amazon Rain Forest is in the nation of Brazil.
Have you ever wondered why it is called Amazon? Why is the river called the Amazon River? Why is that rain forest called the Amazon Rain Forest? It all goes back to 1541 to a Spanish explorer whose name was Francisco de Orellana. Francisco de Orellana went to that region of the world in South American in 1541. He explored the river and the rain forest. His conquistadors were attacked by a tribe of warriors who at least he reported was made up of women, women warriors. He thought of the Amazons in Greek mythology and so named the river the Amazon and the rain forest Amazon, the whole region Amazon.
In Greek mythology the Amazons were a fierce race of warrior women, and they had a matriarchal society, a matriarchal society where men were oppressed and enslaved, used and abused, women in power. Some historians believe that the myth of the Amazons in Greek mythology was actually based on the Sithians whose women were fierce warriors north of the Black Sea, but historians also tell us that the Sithians were not matriarchal. In fact if you look back at history, you could long and hard and not find any matriarchal society. What you will find throughout history is patriarchal societies, societies with men in power, societies with men oppressing women. You will find that throughout history, men oppressing women, gender oppression.
Of course that was true in the Jewish and the Greco-Roman world. Obviously, Philemon was not a woman and Onicimous not a woman and Paul not a woman. Philemon’s wife was probably Apphia whose name is in the little letter of Philemon. That was probably his wife, and she was property. In the Greco-Roman world, wives were property. It was a patriarchal society. Of course even the institution of slavery was not equal. It was far better to be a male. If you were a man, you could enter into slavery through self-sale. You could sell yourself into slavery for a period of time as a means of progression in society. Many Roman slaves were not born slaves or bred as slaves, and they were not slaves through conquest of war. They had entered into slavery through self-sale. The proceeds, the money they received, they used for varying purposes. They knew that if they entered into self-sale slavery, they would be educated by their masters so that when Manumission came, when they were free from slavery, they could have a viable job.
This was not true of women, however. Women were never educated. They were not trained, not in the Greco-Roman world, and they could not enter slavery through self-sale. They were conscripted. Even free women were property. Free women were property. They were the property of a male. They might have been the property of a father. They might have been the property of a husband, but they were property because of the Roman Doctrine, Appatria Protestus. Appatria Protestus means, “father power.” All power was given to men. They owned women and they owned their wives.
In the Jewish world, women were also, generally speaking, viewed as property. We have seen in times past how, in the rabbinical world, disciples were recruited, and those disciples had gone through Bet Safar and Bet Talmud and those disciples had memorized the Torah and they had memorized the whole thirty-nine books in the Hebrew Old Testament. They were ready for discipleship, but they were all men. Women were not allowed to go through Bet Safar. Women were not allowed to go through Bet Talmud. Women were not allowed to be so educated. Rabbis did not teach women. That was casting “pearls before swine.” Jewish men woke up every morning and thanked God they were not a woman.
Jesus was different. Jewish rabbis would not teach women or talk to women in public, but Jesus did. And so you see Jesus traveling through Samaria. You see Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman at the well at Sychar. You see the disciples amazed, not simply because a Jew is talking to a Samaritan, but a man is talking to a woman and a rabbi teaching a woman. This was not done. You see Jesus recruiting into his broader band of disciples women so that He was accompanied by men and women. Radical concept in that ancient world. We see incredible statements by the Apostle Paul, shocking statements, to the Greco-Roman world and to the Jewish world.
When Paul wrote to Christian husbands and wives and he told the wives that their bodies did not belong to them but to their husbands, that was perfectly normal in the Jewish and the Greco-Roman world but when Paul flipped it around and Paul the husbands that they did not own their own bodies but that their bodies belonged to their wives, that was radical. No Jewish rabbi would have said that, save Jesus. That was not taught in the Greco-Roman world. That was radical. When Paul said, “There is, in Christ, neither male or female but all are one in Christ Jesus… ” Radical! No one had ever heard anything like that. Historians now tell us women fled into the church. What drove the growth of the early Church of Jesus Christ? Primarily women as they fled from the Roman world and even the Jewish world and into the church in masse where they found respect, dignity, and freedom.
How is it going today? How are churches doing today? So many churches where women are just kind of relegated to cooking and cleaning and decorating and teaching children, all of which are noble – noble for men and for women.
How about women in leadership? How are we doing today? How do we understand the Bible? How do we interpret passages of scripture? How do we understand the teachings of Jesus Christ? We are going to look at this in more detail when we look at Priscilla but remember this today. God hates oppression. He hates racial oppression. He hates gender oppression. God hates the abuse of power.
If you are a husband here and you have hit your wife, it is a call to repentance. You need to get help. God hates oppression.
Well, there is another kind of oppression, age oppression. Maybe you do not think much of age oppression but of course it exists. Some people are oppressed because of their age. We do not know how old Philemon was. We do not know how old Onicimous was. We do know that Paul was probably in his 60’s when he wrote this little letter. We also know that it was not easy to be elderly in the Roman world, not easy at all. Of course in all nations throughout history as people grow older, they decline in strength, in physical strength. Then, of course, oftentimes as people grow older, they decline in their income production, and they have fixed income or maybe little income at all. It has always been the case. It is not true of the upper classes in certain societies and nations and the rich and the powerful, but for most people it is hard to grow older.
There can be age oppression. Even in the institution of slavery, it was hard to grow old. Manumission sometimes came late in life. Some slaves in the Greco-Roman world were freed at age 30, some forty, some fifty but, you see, life spans were far shorter. Many times when slaves attained Manumission, they were beaten down in body and in spirit, not so much self-sale slaves but slaves that were bred for slavery. It was hard for them to grow old and few of them did. When they received Manumission, they had to follow the three Roman dictates of obsequiem, which means, “to be eager to serve all masters.” Op-er-aay, the Roman Dictum of day labor, they had to provide operaay or day labor to their former master whenever it was requested for no pay. Just another form of age oppression. Officium, the Roman Dictum or moral duty that every slave who had obtained Manumission was bound by moral duty to former slave owners. It was a hard life.
Of course in the Jewish world there were laws from God designed to protect the elderly, but people are people, and some people just neglected the elderly anyway. Some people even neglected their own mom and dad. So you have that passage in Mark, chapter 7, where Jesus is speaking to Jewish leaders, and He condemns them for rejecting or for oppressing their parents. They had a lot of money, but they had declared their money “korban,” a transliteration of the Hebrew to the Greek and to the English. You find the word korban in the Book of Leviticus and in the Book of Numbers. It means, “offered to God.” When something was declared korban, it was offered to God.
Josephus, in his Iniquities, says that the Nazarites declared their whole life to be korban, offered to God. But, you see, these Jews that Jesus was talking to claimed they were not able to help their parents or give money for the needs of their parents because they had declared their money korban, offered to God. Jesus said, “This is bogus. You’ve got to take care of your mom and dad.” Later in the Mishnah we read how, even if money is declared korban, there is one exception. You can give it to your parents. But Jesus was offended and outraged at these people who were not providing for their mom and dad.
Of course age oppression can take place at any age. Moms and dads can oppress their kids if moms and dads abuse their power. That is why Paul writes to parents, and he says, “Do not provoke fathers. Do not provoke your children to anger.” Age oppression can take place in a variety of settings and at a variety of ages.
How about abortion? Talk about powerless. How about the unborn? Are they not powerless? Of course abortion in America is a national tragedy. This is not a political issue. It is but it is more than that. It does not matter whether you are a Democrat or whether you are a Republican. It is a national embarrassment, that since the passing of Roe v. Wade we have aborted in America approximately forty-five million babies. Of course maybe you think, “Well, abortion is okay if there is danger to the life of the mother.” I would agree with that. Maybe you think, “Abortion is okay if there is incest or rape or gross fetal deformity but you all know most abortions have nothing to do with those things. They are simply belated efforts at birth control in a society that is increasingly promiscuous.
A few weeks ago I was reading a book – Jimmy Carter’s latest book, the former President, a book on values and morality in America. It is called, “Endangered Values.” Jimmy Carter was expressing his outrage at the scary numbers in America with regard to abortion. He is a liberal Democrat, but he says it cannot continue, this lack of respect for life. He said, “Jesus would not tolerate this.”
It might be that some of you have had an abortion. I am not here to condemn you and God loves you. God offers forgiveness and I do not know what your circumstances were, but can we agree we do not want to be oppressive? We do not want to abuse power. Can we agree that God has a heart for the powerless? He has a heart for the oppressed, the weak, the afflicted, so we do not like oppression in any form.
One more type of oppression and that is economic oppression, the oppression of the poor. Have you ever wondered why the Bible does not more harshly renounce the institution of slavery? I mean there are passages in scripture that say, “Slaves, obey your masters and submit to them.” Have you ever wondered why the Bible does not more directly renounce the institution of slavery? Of course the Bible does set forth principals that ultimately undermined slavery and destroyed it. The Bible does condemn the viewing of human beings as property. You do have those lofty passages like, “In Christ there is neither slave nor free, but all are wanting Christ.” You have Paul telling Philemon to “receive Onicimous no longer as a slave but as a beloved brother.”
It is true that in the early Christian churches in those early centuries, the world was turned upside down and, in many churches, slaves were the pastors and masters sat in the pews. They turned it around and they viewed people as a community of equals. That is true. Koinonia. But have you ever wondered, “Why doesn’t the Bible more strongly and directly condemn the institution of slavery,” but we should understand what the Bible is really concerned with is oppression and particularly the oppression of the poor. We should understand that in Israel, when slavery was practiced it was not always oppressive and it oftentimes had nothing to do with poverty. If you look at the Holiness Code in Leviticus, chapter 17-26, or the Deuteronomic Code in Deuteronomy 12-26, or the Covenant Code in Exodus 20-23, you see slavery was practiced in Israel, but you also see that Jewish people could only be enslaved for six years. After only six years, Manumission, the setting free. Slavery was for good reasons. People had committed crimes, or they had impossible debt and so they entered into slavery for six years and then Manumission and then when they were set free by Jewish law as recorded in the Bible, they were given sheep, grain, and wine that they might have provision because the Jewish people were afraid to force anyone into poverty. They did not want to force anyone into poverty.
Understand that even that in the Roman world and the Greco-Roman world, the institution of slavery was far different in the 1st Century A.D. than it had been in the 1st Century B.C. In the Roman world, you had slaves who were cooks and cleaners and personal attendants, but you also had slaves who were teachers and physicians, attorneys, nurses, managers. You have slaves throughout the Roman world who were CEOs, and they ran large companies and businesses. There were slaves who were shipmasters. There were slaves who were CEOs of vast estates. Understand that by Roman law throughout the Roman Empire, in many circumstances slaves could own slaves and slaves could own property. Some slaves had great prominence, power and wealth. Some slaves were so powerful because of how their masters had postured them that Roman citizens and free people were afraid of them. If there had been a cry in the Roman world, “Slaves, unite!” it would have fallen on deaf ears in the 1st Century A.D. The time of Spartacus was long gone.
You see what the Bible is primarily concerned with is oppression, racial oppression, gender oppression, age oppression and yes, the oppression of the poor. We have passages like Luke 16 where Jesus tells the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus. The rich man is, in the eyes of Jesus, an oppressor. He is abusing power. And why? This poor man Lazarus is just sitting at his gate. Yes, he is starving and yes, he would gladly have eaten the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table, and yes, he is ulcerated and sore, but the rich man is not doing anything to him. He is not kicking him. He is not even noticing him. The rich man is robed in purple, and Jesus tells us, “eating sumptuously.” He lives on his lavish estate, and he just does nothing for the poor. You know the story. The poor man dies and goes to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man dies and goes straight to hell.
The message of Jesus is very clear. He cannot stand the oppression of the poor. You oppress the poor when you ignore them. I oppress the poor when we ignore them. They are at our gates, so we have twenty or so ministries in the inner city where we seek to help the poor and we serve organizations around the world that seek to help the poor. Some percentage of every dollar you give here goes to help the poor because this is the call of Christ upon His people. You understand God has a heart for the weak. God has a heart for the oppressed. God has a heart for those who are afflicted, helpless. That is God’s heart and God is seeking to change our heart, seeking to change the way we think, seeking to change the way we live.
So this morning after I pray, there is going to be a little presentation and it is meant to help you understand the heart of God and maybe change our hearts just a little. Let us look to the Lord with a word of prayer.