Philemon

Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon (Second Edition; PNTC)

Moo, Douglas J. The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon. PNTC. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2024. xlix+478 pp.; Hb.; $53.99. Link to Eerdmans.

This second edition of the Pillar New Testament Commentary on Colossians and Philemon replaces Moo’s 2008 volume. In his brief preface to the second edition, Moo indicates that this new edition updates the commentary with secondary literature written over the last fifteen years. The original commentary had a select bibliography (twenty-one pages), while the second edition has a full bibliography (thirty-six pages). In the introduction to Colossians, the first edition had 87 footnotes; the second edition had 107. Many older notes have been updated with newer literature.

Colossians Philemon

In his introduction to Colossians (pages 3-54), Moo begins where most commentaries on Colossians must begin, by discussing the authorship of the letter. Did Paul write Colossians, or is it pseudepigraphic? Colossians appears quite different from Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, and Galatians in style and theology. Moo interacts with Luke Timothy Johnson’s suggestion that Paul authored the letter but did not write it. He “supervised” the production of the letter. Similarly, James Dunn suggested Timothy wrote the letter with loose supervision by Paul. Although these are possible ways to avoid Colossians as a late pseudepigrapha, Moo rejects both. “Paul must be seen as the real author” (20). Concerning provenance, Moo recognizes that the letter may be written from a hypothetical Ephesian imprisonment, but he slightly prefers Rome as the place of writing (26). This introductory material remains more or less the same as the first edition of the commentary.

Commentaries on Colossians also need to deal with the nature of the false teaching Paul responds to in the letter. As Moo observes, there are a bewildering number of scholarly reconstructions of the so-called Colossian Heresy (27). He rejects the view of older commentators that Colossians is walking about Gnostics. If Paul wrote the book, then Gnostics as we know them do not exist yet. Nor does he think calling the opponents proto-Gnostics is helpful. Any Gnostic or Stoic elements in Colossians are simply part of the general first-century intellectual environment. Moo suggests the best solution is to admit there are two or more perspectives behind the false teachers. He summarizes what Colossians 2:8-23 implies about the false teachers in eleven points, none of which are controversial. Following this list, he makes three more controversial points. First, the false teachers use the language of “fullness.” But this is not drawn from Gnostic or Stoic thinking. Second, the false teachers advocate circumcision, implying Jewish influence. Third, the false teachers denigrate Christ or at least question the sufficiency of Christ.

Based on this evidence, Moo surveys several possible solutions for the identity of the false teachers. First, the Colossian Heresy was some form of Jewish mysticism. This was most recently Scot McKnight’s solution in his NICNT commentary. Second, James Dunn suggested that false teaching is nothing more than Judaism. Third, Clint Arnold thought the opponents represented a syncretic mix of local Phrygian folk belief, Judaism, and Christianity. Moo is convinced by Arnold (especially since it also includes the first two elements). This conclusion remains unchanged from the first edition.

In his introduction to Philemon (pages 351-370), Moo observes that Pauline authorship is rarely doubted for this short letter. The introduction to commentaries on Philemon uses mirror reading to construct a plausible story explaining why Paul is sending a letter about a slave named Onesimus to Philemon. Moo lists out several points that seem clear from the letter and then summarizes several suggested scenarios. Two merit discussion. First, Onesimus was an escaped slave who arrived where Paul was in prison (whether Ephesus or Rome) and somehow encountered Paul. Paul led him to Christ and now sends him to his master to ask forgiveness. The letter is a “letter of recommendation” for Onesimus, in which Paul advocates clemency. A second solution is to argue Onesimus is not an escaped slave. He was wronged in some way by his master and knew Philemon was a Christian under Paul’s influence. Onesimus purposefully traveled to visit Paul and enlist his help as an advocate. Like the first edition, Moo finds deciding between these two likely scenarios challenging.

The problem for modern readers of Philemon is that Paul did not ask Philemon to set his slave Onesimus free. Why did Paul not tell Philemon to free his slave now that he was a brother in Christ? To answer this question, Moo discusses slavery in the Roman world and early Christian attitudes toward slavery. Even though it appears that there is no explicit command to free Onesimus, Moo wonders if a master/slave relationship is appropriate now that he is a “dear brother.” Moo observes that slavery is “not what Philemon is ultimately about.” Following N. T. Wright, he concludes that the book is about fellowship in Christ. “In Christ, we belong to one another; we enjoy each other’s company and support; and we are obliged to support, to point to the point of sacrificing our own time, interests, and money, [on behalf of] our brothers and sisters” (370).

The body of the commentary follows the pattern of other Pillar commentaries. Moo proceeds through the text verse-by-verse, commenting on the English text. Although the commentary is based on the NIV, he does refer to the Greek text with all Greek words transliterated, so readers without Greek training will have no trouble with the commentary. Interaction with secondary sources appears in footnotes. The notes are often updated with additional secondary sources published since the first edition. Like the introduction, there are slightly more footnotes in the section edition. For example, the first edition covers Colossians 2:6-4:6 in 156 pages (175-331), and has 522 footnotes. The second edition covers the same section in 163 pages (162-325), with 565 footnotes. The first edition reset note numbering for each section; the second edition has continuous numbers throughout the 163-page section. I also noticed one other helpful cosmetic change. Passages in Colossians are now given as chapter and verse (3:12-17) rather than vv. 12-17.

Conclusion. Twelve years ago, when I wrote a post on the top five Colossians commentaries, I included Moo’s first edition in the Pillar New Testament Commentary series. After reviewing what I said, I still think this commentary is excellent. Along with Scot McKnight’s NICNT volumes on Colossians and Philemon, this is one of the first commentaries I pull off the shelf when I study Colossians. It will serve academics, pastors, and Bible teachers as they prepare to present this essential but often overlooked Pauline letter.

If you already own the first edition, do you need the second edition? Maybe. The updated bibliography makes this new edition essential to scholars working on Colossians. However, the content of the exegesis has not changed much, so pastors and teachers may not need to upgrade to the second edition.

 

NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Adam Copenhaver and Jeffrey D. Arthurs, Colossians, Philemon (Kerux)

Copenhaver, Adam and Jeffrey D. Arthurs. Colossians, Philemon. Kerux Commentaries. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Ministry, 2021. 281 pp. Hb. $29.99   Link to Kregel Ministry  

Adam Copenhaver (PhD, University of Aberdeen) pastors Mabton Grace Brethren Church in Mabton, Washington, and teaches biblical studies courses for the Ezra Bible Institute. Reconstructing the Historical Background of Paul’s Rhetoric in the Letter to the Colossians (LNTS 585; Bloomsbury, 2018) and Translating Colossians Clause-by-Clause: An Exegetical Guide (2016). Jeffery Arthurs (PhD, Purdue University) is Robinson Chair of Preaching and Communication and Dean at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and has published Preaching with Variety (Kregel 2007) and Devote Yourself to the Public Reading of Scripture (Kregel 2012). He contributed the preaching section to the Kerux commentary on Ephesians (Kregel 2021, reviewed here).

Colossians CommentaryThe introduction covers both books. Colossians and Philemon were both written by Paul during an Ephesian imprisonment A. D. 52-55. They present the usual arguments for and against the traditional authorship of the letters and offer answers to objections. They argue Paul wrote the letters from an otherwise unknown imprisonment in Ephesus, although this has become a more common view. This solves problems of Onesimus’s escape: a one-hundred-mile trip to Ephesus is more reasonable for an escaped slave than a long journey to Rome. As Copenhaver says, the main problem with this view is the stubborn fact that no direct evidence exists for Paul’s imprisonment in Ephesus (38). The introduction includes a brief comment on the origin of the Colossian church, the history, and geography of Colossae. There is also a brief note on slavery in the Roman world, which could be expanded, given the context of Philemon.

As is necessary in most commentaries on Philemon, Copenhaver offers a brief reconstruction of the situation behind the letter. Onesimus encountered Paul in prison in Ephesus and was converted to Christ. Paul then found him useful in his ministry. Paul sent Onesimus back to his master with the letter to be read at a church meeting in Philemon’s home. Near the end of the volume is a long sidebar, an “epilogue” to the book of Philemon connecting Onesimus to the tradition that he became the bishop of Ephesus.

Colossians, therefore, offers a broader context for Paul’s appeal to Philemon. Colossians establishes Paul’s relationship to the church since he did not establish the church. He feels an apostolic responsibility towards those believers and offers some theological correction and pastoral encouragement. Copenhaver points out several exhortations in Colossians which set up Paul’s appeal in Philemon. For example, put aside anger and forgive one another (3:8; 13-15). “Surely the entire church had eyes on [Onesimus] and Philemon when they heard these instructions” (44). In fact, the theme of reconciliation is present in both letters. Paul establishes this theme early in Colossians: Christ has reconciled all of creation to God through the cross (1:20-22). Paul tells the church to do all things that bring about reconciliation one with another (3:8), and be bound by love (3:14)

The commentary divides Colossians into thirteen preaching units and three for Philemon. As with other volumes in the Kerux series, each preaching unit begins with literary and structural themes (an expanded outline) followed by exegesis of the unit. Greek appears without transliteration, although syntactical details in the main text are rare. The exegetical section includes two types of sidebars. First, word studies dig deeper into lexical data. Second, a translation analysis usually examines a difficult element of Greek syntax. These are rare, however, and some of this kind of information appears in the commentary’s body.

Following the exegesis is a short section titled “Theological Focus.” This sums up the unit’s key themes and serves as a transition to the Preaching and Teaching strategies. Arthurs provides a Haddon Robinson style preaching idea for each unit and then makes a series of contemporary connections (What does it mean? Is it true? Now what?)

As with other commentaries in this series, there are sidebars covering theology, culture, and application. For example, there are several sidebars on slavery in Colossians 3:22-4:1—Aristotle’s definition of a slave, slaves and sincerity (citing Columella), do slaves serve two masters, slaves and inheritance? Finally, Arthurs offers a few paragraphs on creativity in presentation. These include basic illustrations or activities to enhance a sermon or Bible lesson. There are several lists in sidebars in the preaching tips section (for example, “Ten ways parents provoke their children”; “One another commands in the New Testament”). Arthurs includes a wide range of contemporary voices, including John Steinbeck, Martin Luther, F. F. Bruce, Tim Keller, and even Jim Gaffigan.

Given the importance of slavery as background for Colossians and Philemon, there is less background material on slavery in the Roman world than expected. Perhaps it is unnecessary to write several hundred pages, as in the 588-page Philemon commentary by Markus Barth and Helmut Blanke (Eerdmans, 2000). But some interaction with John Byron (Recent Research on Paul and Slavery, Sheffield, 2008) or Scott Bartchy.

Conclusion. Copenhaver and Arthurs are successful in their goals. They do indeed provide the quality exegesis necessary to preach and teach the text of Colossians and Philemon. The preaching strategies will point pastors to creative ways to present these two books.

 

NB: Thanks to Kregel for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

Other volumes reviewed in this series:

 

Book Review: John Byron, A Week in the Life of a Slave

Byron, John. A Week in the Life of a Slave. Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2019. 160 pp. Pb; $16.  Link to IVP Academic

John Byron is professor of New Testament at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio and is well-known for his publications on slavery in the Roman world. His Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity: A Traditio-historical and Exegetical Examination (WUNT/2 162; Tubingen: Mohr-Seibeck, 2003) is a major contribution to the study of slavery in the New Testament and his article “The Epistle to Philemon: Paul’s Strategy for Forging the Ties of Kinship” in Jesus and Paul: Global Perspectives in Honor of James D. G. Dunn for his 70th Birthday (London: T&T Clark, 2009) laid the foundation for this academic novel. As with the other contributions in the Week in the Life series from IVP Academic, Byron is a world-class scholar who knows his material every well as he spins an engaging tale. 

Byron, A Day in the Life of a SlaveByron focuses this book on one particular slave, Onesimus, the escaped slave in the background of Paul’s letter to Philemon. In order to make the plot line work, Byron suggests Paul was imprisoned in Ephesus when he wrote Philemon rather than Rome. His guards at his prison are Christians and they facilitate Paul’s continued ministry while under arrest and also arrange for the escaped slave Onesimus to meet with Paul in his prison cell several times. Since the series books are supposed to place in one week, Paul must be in prison some place close enough to Colossae for Onesimus to escape, travel to Paul and then return to his master within one week. This would simply be impossible if Paul was in prison in Rome. 

In addition to illustrating some aspects of the life of a slave in the Roman world, Byron also suggests how stories about Jesus may have passed between various local churches. He imagines how congregations in Ephesus, Laodicea, and Colossae worshiped together and how the owner of the home hosting a gathering may have had some influence on how the church functioned. Example, in the novel one church permitted slaves to worship alongside free people, but another church did not. This is an excellent illustration of how the Pauline view of equality within the body of Christ had a real-world impact on people. At one point the slave Onesimus is amazed that a master and his slave worship equally and that some masters treat their slaves with respect during the church service.

As with the other contributions to the series, Byron supplements the novel with many sidebars explaining some aspect of slavery in the Roman world. For example, Byron includes information on sexuality and marriage among slaves, how an individual might become a slave, the exposure of infants, slave names, the practice of manumission, etc. Given Byron’s academic interests, he includes almost two pages on slave metaphors in the New Testament. He has a page on the use of slavery or freedom in the New Testament and a two-page note on letters of mediation in antiquity, including the famous letter from Pliny as background for the letter Paul sent to Philemon mediating the situation between Onesimus and his master. 

I will not give away the plot (as if you haven’t read the book of Philemon before), but I do have one concern about this book. Because it focuses on a suggested plot line in the background of Philemon, there are many things about slavery that are not covered in this book. I was expecting a week in the life of a generic Roman slave rather than the story of Onesimus and Philemon. I interacted with John Byron on slavery in the Roman world in this post, and was hoping the book would be more along those lines. Because the book of Philemon is so brief, it generates more than its fair share of fictional narrative and we may not need yet another novel about Philemon. 

Nevertheless, A Week in the Life of a Slave is a very good introduction to slavery in the Roman world. Byron told an entertaining story, which illustrates how the early church may have function in the city of Ephesus, Laodicea, and Colossae. Most readers will be both entertained and educated in this short book.

For reviews of other volumes in this series, see my reviews of James L. Papandrea, A Week in the Life of Rome and Gary M. Burge, A Week in the Life of a Roman Centurion. Although not part of this series, see Ben Witherington, Priscilla: The Life of an Early Christian and Paula Gooder, Phoebe.

 

NB: Thanks to IVP Academic for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.

 

Philemon and Slavery in the First Century

There is an obvious need for a clear understanding of slavery as we approach the book of Philemon. In this post, I want to summarize a few points from John Byron on slavery. The article deals with Paul’s metaphor of a slave, and some of the information provides an excellent entry point into the difficulties of slavery in the first century. Be sure to scan through the comments below. John Byron has interacted with this post in the past. He recently published A Week in the Life of a Slave (IVP Academic, 2019). This short book uses a novel to present the life of a slave in first-century Rome. It is in the same series as Gary Burge’s A Week in the Life of a Roman Centurion or James L. Papandrea’s A Week in the Life of Rome.

John Byron surveys recent attempts to deal with Paul’s slavery metaphors in New Testament studies. The bulk of the article examines a shift from Bartchy’s 1973 work, which made extensive use of Greco-Roman and Jewish legal texts, to more recent sociological studies by Patterson and others. Bartchy’s view was that slavery in the first century was “decidedly benign,” while Patterson argues that slavery was equivalent to a “death experience.” Bartchy’s views have been far more influential on New Testament commentaries than Patterson’s studies, perhaps skewing the point of Paul’s metaphor of slavery. Byron’s article is a challenge to the commonly taught idea of selling oneself into slavery to pay debts and the possibility of a better life as a slave.

Slavery in the New Testament

This debate highlights the problem of sources. Bartchy, for example, uses legal texts to show that there was a softening of attitudes toward slaves in the first century, which made the slave into something more like an “employee” rather than property. There are several problems with using legal, as Byron points out in his conclusion. The primary source for Roman Law is dated to A.D. 533, well after the first century. In addition, there is a great difference between a law and actual social attitudes. Bartchy may cite laws protecting slaves, but there is no real evidence that society accepted those laws or that authorities consistently enforced them.

Even in America, we know that simply having a law does not guarantee that everyone obeys it, nor does the law tell us anything about society’s attitude toward it. Traffic laws would be a good example here. Someone studying American law could say the maximum speed on the highway is no more than 70 M.P.H., but we know this is not the case at all. In some cases, authorities may choose not to enforce a strict speed limit. The same may have been true for slavery; therefore, Roman law becomes less secure for reconstructing actual practice towards slaves in the first century. Consistency in the application of laws is not a forgone conclusion in the case of slavery in the world of the first century.

There are other literary sources on slavery dating to the first century that may provide some data. Philosophers are often cited as indicating a shift in society’s attitude toward slavery. As Byron notes, there is no evidence that these writings reflect public sentiment. In fact, one might argue that there are very few times in history when the writings of a philosopher accurately reflected the views of society as a whole! It is possible to miss the point of a philosopher by not taking a saying in the context of their system of thought. For example, the oft-cited view of Seneca that masters ought not to mistreat their slaves is not an example of a softening of attitudes toward slaves but rather an example of the Stoic ethic of self-control.

References to slaves also appear in Roman satirists and in novels. These references are also problematic since they do not really say anything about the status of a slave in society. To take sayings of Marital, for example, as indicative of the general thinking of the populace is akin to taking Jerry Seinfeld as an example of how all Americans think. Novels that portray slaves as virtuous, socially mobile, etc., are poor evidence since the slave character is usually a prince who has wrongfully been enslaved and overcomes this setback and is restored to his proper status in the end. If a novel tried to describe the life of a real slave accurately, it would not be a very interesting novel at all! Novelists and satirists do not offer a sociological opinion of the status of the slave in the first century; therefore, it would be dangerous to rely too heavily on this literature in research on first-century slaves.

There is much to learn from the sociological approaches to slavery described by Byron. These studies seem to turn the accepted view of slavery one typically encounters in a commentary on Philemon around in an opposite direction. The law codes are a “legal fiction,” and slavery was far from a pleasant experience. If one was forced into slavery, it was as if one had died. This was no mere economic decision (selling yourself into seven years of slavery to pay off a debt, for example). At the social level, the slave was no longer a person but had become property, no longer his own. This “dying to self” and giving up personal ownership to a master is an appealing element in Paul’s use of the metaphor, but it may be more influenced by American/western values of individuality and freedom rather than those of the Greco-Roman world. Was “freedom” more important than slavery? Perhaps not, sometimes it may have been better to be a slave to an influential person than a freedman.

How does this “background” affect the way we look at Philemon and his slave, Onesimus?

 

Bibliography:  John Byron, “Paul And The Background Of Slavery: The Status Quaestionis In New Testament Scholarship,” CBR 3.1 (2004) 116-139.

Why Did Paul Write to Philemon?

The traditional “background” to Philemon posits Philemon as a wealthy man and slave owner (15-16) probably living in Colossae.  He is described as a “partner” in Paul’s ministry and his house appears to have been used for meetings of believers (2).  His wife and son appear to share in the ministry of this house church.  Paul considers Philemon an “old friend.” It is possible he was saved in Ephesus when Paul spent three years earlier in the city.

Philemon BibleOne of Philemon’s slaves, Onesimus has escaped and fled to Rome. It is possible Onesimus stole something from Philemon when he left. Rome is an easy place to “get lost” since it was very large; he could easily find a place to lay-low for the rest of his life.  While in Rome Onesimus meets Paul and accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior.  He apparently is with Paul for a while, since he is described as “useful” in Paul’s ministry.

Onesimus returns to his former master to ask forgiveness and accept his punishment.  The letter to Philemon is something like a “letter of recommendation” from Paul to Philemon vouching for Onesimus’ conversion.  Paul also promises to pay any debt Onesimus has incurred as a result of his escape.

This traditional background makes for a great story but it is hard to make this short letter fit this complex story. The main problem with the traditional view Onesimus’s encounter with Paul. If Rome is such a large city, how does Onesimus just happen to meet Paul there, a good friend of his former master?

One attempt to answer this problem is to assume Onesimus fled to Rome in order to find Paul and ask him to intercede on his behalf. Perhaps Philemon was not treating him fairly “in Christ” and he wanted to Paul to adjudicate their dispute. Paul would function as an amicus domini, a “friend of the master,” who is called upon to mediate a dispute. The situation is not unusual. In fact, Pliny wrote a letter which is similar to the situation in Philemon. In this letter Pliny writes Sabinianus on behalf of a freedman who has “fallen at his feet.”  Pliny asks Sabinianus to forgive a man who has insulted him in a youthful indiscretion.

A second possibility is Onesimus was an unsaved slave sent to help Paul in his imprisonment, perhaps on the analogy of Epaphroditus in Philippians. While working with Paul Onesimus accepts Christ and becomes useful in Paul’s mission in Rome. The letter of Philemon is therefore Paul’s requests to Philemon allow Onesimus to join Paul’s ministry team and perhaps even grant Onesimus his freedom.

A third, less likely possibility is that Onesimus is not a slave, but the wayward brother of Philemon. Verse 16 could be read as saying Onesimus is Philemon’s literal brother. The point of the letter would be the same (reconciliation with Philemon).

Fourth, perhaps Philemon was not the owner at all, but rather Archippus, from Colossians 4:17.  In Col. 4:17 Paul tells this man to “complete the work you have in the Lord.”  John Knox takes this to mean, “Free Onesimus.”  Philemon is the local “partner in ministry” in Colossae who is asked to act as a go-between for Onesimus and Archippus.  While this is an intriguing theory, there are a number of un-provable assumptions standing behind it.

 

 

Bibliography: John Knox, Philemon among the Letters of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1959). L. Cope, “Rethinking the Philemon – Colossian Connection” Biblical Research 30 (1985): 45-50.  Knox is following his teacher E. R. Goodenough,  “Paul and Onesimus,” HTR 22 (1929): 181-83.