"Onesimus: In the Particular" Philemon 1: 8-21

We meet Onesimus  as this week's minor character.  Going into the sermon preparation, I wanted to focus on how one person in the particular mattered to Paul and also matters to God.  The sermon will have some of that in it, or at least at this point I think it will.  Onesimus means "useful," which Paul plays on by describing how Onesimus went from "useless" to "useful."

But as I did some background work on the text, I was reminded that this passage was one of the favorites of the pro-slavery people.  They read Paul's letter to Philemon and said, "See, Paul understands we need slaves."  In fact, I read an article by Bruce Reyes-Chow, a former Moderator of the General Assembly, who suggests taking issue with the slavery  when preaching on this passage keeps us from passivly letting the text support slavery (see http://thq.wearesparkhouse.org/featured/lect23cepistl/ Bruce Reyes-Chow, September 8, 2013 for more on that perspective).

Paul also makes an argument for what it means to be in Christ. His thoughts seem to be reflected by Martin Luther: “A Christian is not only freed from captivities, but for praise of God and love of neighbor. In In Freedom of a Christian, Martin Luther built his argument around this paradox: 'A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, but subject to none. A Christian a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”