This letter, an appendix to the Pastoral Epistles, has a character of its own; so much so that those, whose mania it has been to doubt its genuineness as an inspired communication of the apostle, have without difficulty put together some slight appearances on which to build their destructive argument. Indeed Dr. Ellicott, one sees, does not include the letter to Philemon, but gives those only to Timothy and Titus as the Pastoral Epistles; and in this he does not differ from others. Nevertheless, allowing a marked difference, it is their beautiful complement and follows them so naturally that we may without violence class them together, rather than leave the letter to Philemon absolutely isolated.
But peculiarities there could not but be in a document so distinct from the governing instructions given to Paul’s fellow-labourers in their general work of superintendence. For the subject-matter before us is the opposite side of gracious care in a matter of domestic life. Divine love actively applies itself, in a manner essentially its own, to the ease of a runaway slave from Colosse, who had been brought to God through the apostle during his first imprisonment in Rome. For the date of this Epistle is at least as certain as that of the Second to Timothy, which was the latest of the apostle’s writings, just before his imminent death that closed the second imprisonment in the great metropolis: a date, as all know, far more defined than that of the First Epistle to Timothy or of the letter to Titus. It was written, generally speaking, about the same time as those to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, as well as to the Philippians.
It is clear too from a comparison of the apostolic statements that Colosse in Phrygia was the city wherein lived Philemon, Archippus (it would seem) being an inmate of his house. Nor was this all that characterised it. As there was one assembly in the house of Nymphas the Laodicean, while we hear of the assembly of Laodiceans, so we read of the assembly in Philemon’s house, though there was the assembly of Colossian faithful besides. All the saints composed the assembly in that locality; yet this in no way forbade, but well consisted with, the assembly in this house or in that.
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Author: William Kelly
Keywords: Epistle of Philemon, Letter to Philemon, Onesimus, Philemon, Archippus, Apphia, Slavery, Runaway slave, Runaway servant, Bond slave, Bond servant
Bible reference(s): Philemon 1
Source: London: Thomas Weston, 53, Paternoster Row, E.C. 1901.
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