ONESIMUS

[READ THE TEXT]
	WHAT is the story behind this letter? What can we conclude from this text? Onesimus is a runaway Phrygian slave, who may have committed some crime from whose punishment he decided to flee, and may have even stolen property OTHER THAN HIMSELF in the process of his escape, and had split for Rome, probably to lose himself in the teeming masses. Records show the slave population to be enormous, certainly in the millions; some individual slave owners possessed more than 20 THOUSAND slaves.
	WHY was Onesimus so eager to blow town? Under Roman law, slaves were chattel. One ancient Roman writer classified slaves among implements, which he had classified as "articulate speaking" (slaves), "NONarticulate sound-producing" (oxen), and finally, "dumb, or NO-sound" (wagons). Roman law can be quoted as "The slave has NO rights", and we need to understand just how profoundly far reaching that statement is, since in that day even animals had SOME rights. The masters power was UNLIMITED and withOUT restraint. He could mutilate, torture or kill the slave at his pleasure. One man in the time of Caesar Augustus ordered a slave thrown into a pool of voracious lampreys, and although Augustus intervened in that particular case, he himself had a slave crucified to the mast of a ship for eating one of his favorite quails (the quail had more rights of protection against murder than did the slave). Old Roman law imposed the death penalty for killing a plow-ox; but the murder of a slave was not called into account. 
	SO, being a slave was NOT the somewhat protected existence one reads about in Mosaic Law. AND Onesimus had been a BAD slave in a really BAD time to BE a bad slave, and so off to Rome he goes. 
	What happened to him there? He got saved, and more than that, he got saved by the direct intervention of Paul. And what was the result of that? He went from being basically a sullen worthless thieving thug to a man SO filled with desire to serve that when Paul talked about sending him back, he did so with genuine reluctance (v13). The "I would" in v13 is in the imperfect tense, indicating the desire was "awakened but arrested".
	So now that he is saved and serving, BOTH Onesimus AND Paul are faced with a Divine dilemma: it turns out his precious new "son" in the Lord is an escaped criminal from ANOTHER of his "spiritual children", Philemon. Only God could have worked such a NON-coincidence. How easy it would have been for Paul to have purposefully ignored and broken the Law and just refused to have Onesimus return. After all, Roman law had landed HIM in PRISON! Also, it was inherently cruel and against ALL that Jesus represented. How easy it would have been for Onesimus to have fled again when Paul 1st suggested that Onesimus SHOULD return home to Philemon. He was being asked to WILLINGLY walk BACK into possible punishment that would make even the most sadistic American gag. [imagine how THAT conversation went! "Say, Onesimus, I want you to return home to Philemon..." ?!?!?]. 
	So why DID Paul want Onesimus to return? The stakes were changed. Onesimus was no longer the same man who broke the law and fled. He was a genuinely useful and Holy Spirit filled new creature in Christ, whose actions AFTER his salvation PROVED the sincerity of his conversion. NOW he was a fellow Christian who had WRONGED another Christian. WHAT a minute, you say, that was BEFORE his salvation, "King's X" and all that, RIGHT? WRONG!! Onesimus still owed a debt to Philemon and Paul was determined that that debt be paid IN FULL. 
Paul understood that there was MUCH more at stake here than just the return of some stolen property, even if it WAS Onesimus who was the property. 

	There are several levels of issues going on here. Paul knew that two Christians should not EVER have such a conflict remain unresolved between them. Onesimus had NOT just made some bid for freedom, he was apparently fleeing punishment for damage he had caused. He had WRONGED Philemon. And even SAVED, Paul knew that if EVER Philemon and Onesimus met again, at BEST it would rob them of that most PRECIOUS gift of God between Christians, their FELLOWSHIP with each other. So there are not two but THREE players in this drama of Church fellowship: The Offender, The Offended, AND the Mediator. Can you see the Gospel story here? How did the Mediator plead O? As innocent? NO! As guilty as charged! On what basis did the Mediator plead O 's case? On O 's merits? NO! Did Paul ask that the charges be dropped? Or forgotten? NO! Paul pledged to pay the debt himself! PAUL would be the bridge between the one wronged and the one who sinned; Paul was to be the debt-bearer here. And by doing so, every time P saw O , he would think of PAULS sacrifice, of the debt paid by Paul, and P would be satisfied. 
	Paul surely appreciated the parallel between ALL peoples lost condition, being horribly in debt to God without ANY hope of surviving the payment for their sins and Onesimus 's situation. Here was another chance to teach that truth to his precious brothers AND sisters at Colossae (Paul used the PLURAL for "you" at end of this letter in vs 22 and 25, indicating it's contents were for MORE than just Philemon, but for his church as well). 
	Another level is that within the local Colossian church. ALL of US can find ourselves SOMEWHERE among these three people: the hurt, the hurter or the one who seeks to restore, to reconcile. Are we willing to see which we are? And once having done so, are we willing to seek the resolution so deeply desired for by Paul? And what about the OTHER members of that church? Paul knew that he HAD to resolve the issue esp NOW that O was saved, otherwise, what would it say to all the OTHER church members? Both slave AND master, that you can do what ever you like without regard for the rest. The fact that Paul had to press the issue so far, even to reminding P that he owed him his very life, indicates to me that whatEVER it was that O did, it WASN'T SMALL; P must have been very hurt by O 's actions. And Paul did NOT attempt to minimize O 's sin, to tell P that "HEY, it was such a LITTLE mistake..."; they ALL knew better. This would NOT be the last time someone hurt someone else in that church; there HAD to be a way out of that for ALL concerned. 
	Another level is seen in the life of the man O himself. Can you appreciate the irony of his life? He breaks the law and flees. WHY? TO BE FREE. So, he gets away and loses himself in the masses of Rome...now, is he FREE? NO! He is STILL a slave; his location has NOT affected one bit his CONDITION. In fact, if anything, it's WORSE. He is NOW a fugitive slave, automatically condemned to die. He can't GO back, a well deserved death waits him, and there's no where else to GO. This is true for ALL of us! It doesn't matter WHERE we are in life, it doesn't matter what our location is: at the top or the bottom of the heap; our condition is STILL the same: we are slaves to sin, condemned to die for that inescapable debt. Poor O! He was TWICE a slave: BOTH to man AND to sin! And his supposed escape to Rome did not change EITHER! 
	So, NOW he gets saved. And by WHO?! A man who is in essence a SLAVE of the Roman Criminal System; a jail-bird. A man who knows ALOT about what freedom and it's loss means. And it it THIS man who leads him into an understanding of who Jesus is and what He has done for him on that bloody cross. And O BELIEVES! NOW, he IS free with a freedom that the entire might of the Roman Empire can NOT take from him; he is free from a slavery more horrible that any chains forged by men, he is free from ETERNAL slavery and everlasting death, from the eternal debt of Hell that we ALL deserve. BUT..., he STILL is a slave of Philemon, a man who has a SERIOUS grievance against him. And YOU thought YOU had problems with YOUR boss!! 
	So what now? BACK to Philemon! OH NO! And remember, the FIRST time P see's O is the moment O delivers the letter! How's THAT for a reunion fraught with a little bit of tension?? So, O is going back to "slavery"? Well, yes and no! See how Paul has forEVER changed the relationship between Master and Servant, between Owner and Slave: having heard about the "standard" condition or circumstance of a Roman slave, CONTRAST that with what Paul NOW describes as the relationship between P and O in vs 16-17. They are now BROTHERS, EQUAL before God, both beloved by Paul; O is to be received by P as if he were Paul himself! P NOW has a God ordained RESPONSIBILTY to his SLAVE! We are NEVER going to appreciate just how RADICAL a concept this was then. Even in the worst days of American slavery, this idea of a moral responsibility of owner to owned at least existed, even if it was violated by some. People were no longer "disposable"! Even just as amazing, Paul taught that slaves OWED their masters service "as unto the Lord". Through the fractured and twisted life of one lousy slave God has transformed forever the nature of relationships between ALL brothers and sisters within the Body of Christ. 
	What application does this all have for us? We have already seen an example for us in reconciliation between two estranged Christians. How about regarding our relationships with those who we work for? And those who work for US? What are our responsibilities to them? What does God call us as Christians to be to them?