Charles Ellicott Commentary Philemon 1

A prisoner of Jesus Christ.—It is interesting to note the substitution of the name “prisoner,” appealing to sympathy, for the usual title of “Apostle,” embodying a claim to authority. In the other Epistles of this period (Ephesians 4:1; Ephesians 6:20; Philippians 1:12–20; Colossians 4:18) the Apostle’s captivity is dwelt upon mainly as a ground of glory and thankfulness, only secondarily as a cause for sympathy. Here, on the contrary, in this personal Epistle, and in accordance with St. Paul’s courteous determination “not to command, but for love’s sake to entreat,” the latter aspect assumes an almost exclusive prominence.

Timothy.—Compare Philippians 1:1 and Colossians 1:1. Here, as in the other Epistles, the salutation includes Timothy, as Paul desired to imply through him, St. Paul’s own son in the faith, a closeness of connection and sympathy with the Apostle not found in others. But in all cases, and especially in this, the Letter is emphatically the Letter of St. Paul alone.

Philemon.—See Introduction.

Apphia.—The name is usually taken to be the Roman name Appia. But the occurrence of such a name in a Greco-Asiatic family, though of course possible, is perhaps improbable; and Dr. Lightfoot has shown that it occurs in the form Apphia in many Phrygian inscriptions and may therefore be naturally supposed to be a native name. There seems little doubt that Apphia was Philemon’s wife, like himself “the beloved,” though not the “fellow-labourer” or “partner” of St. Paul.

Archippus our fellow soldier.—From this mention of Archippus we may certainly conclude that he was a member of Philemon’s family; the ordinary conjecture makes him his son. The name fellow-soldier, applied elsewhere only to Epaphroditus (Philippians 2:25), as the name soldier of Jesus Christ to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:3), appears to denote ministerial office in Archippus, which agrees with the charge to him in Colossians 4:18 to take heed to his ministry and fulfil it.

Church in your house.—See Note on Colossians 4:15. The specially domestic and personal character of the Epistle need not induce any limitation of the phrase to Philemon’s own family. As the joining of Timothy’s name in giving the salutation did not prevent the Letter from being St. Paul’s only, so the joining the Church in the house in the receiving of the salutation does not prevent its being addressed only to Philemon and his family, who were, like himself, interested in Onesimus.

I thank my God . . .—Note the almost exact verbal coincidence with the salutations in Ephesians 1:15-16; Philippians 1:3–4; Colossians 1:3–4, with, however, the natural distinction that this is briefer and simpler in style.

Thy love and faith, which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all saints.—This description of a faith directed not only to the Lord Jesus, but to all the saints, has perplexed commentators, and elicited various explanations.

1. One is that “faith” here (Galatians 5:22) is simply fidelity; but this can hardly be accepted as an explanation of such a well-known and an almost technical phrase as “faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.”

2. Another, noting the distinction in the original between the two prepositions here—the former (pros) signifying direction towards, and the latter (eis) actual contact with, its object—explains the phrase as signifying “the faith which has as its object the Lord Jesus Christ, but which shows itself practically towards all saints.” But this, even if the word “hast” will bear this gloss, seems too artificial for a letter like this.

3. The comparison with the contemporaneous Letter to the Colossians—where we read, your faith in the Lord Jesus, and your love toward all the saints (Colossians 1:4)—seems to clear up the matter. We have here an equivalent phrase, in which, however (by what the grammarians called chiasmus), the extremes and means correspond to each other. The idea which runs through the Letter is Philemon’s “love to the saints.” In writing of that love St. Paul cannot refrain from referring it to its true origin—the faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Hence the broken phrase. The sense seems therefore to be that which in some MSS. has been brought out by a natural correction, “thy faith towards the Lord Jesus, and thy love to all the saints.”

That the communication of thy faith . . .—The general idea of St. Paul’s prayer for Philemon is clear—that his faith may become effectual, i.e., energetic and perfected, in full knowledge. This is exactly the prayer which, in different forms and degrees of emphasis, opens all the Epistles of the Captivity (Philippians 1:9; Colossians 1:9). It describes the true order of Christian life, so fully and beautifully drawn out in Ephesians 3:17-19, beginning in faith, deepened by love, and so growing to knowledge.

But it may be asked, “Why the communication of thy faith?”

1. The phrase is unique, but the word rendered “communication” is the well-known word generally rendered “communion,” or “fellowship,” except where (2 Corinthians 8:4; 2 Corinthians 9:13; Hebrews 13:16) it is used technically and derivatively of “the communication” of almsgiving. The phrase, therefore, should probably be rendered the “communion of thy faith,” i.e., “thy fellowship in faith.”

2. But, again, the question arises, “With whom is this fellowship? With God or man?” The answer probably is, “With both.” Perhaps for growth in divine knowledge the communion need only be with God. But we observe that the knowledge is not merely of every good thing, i.e., of all that is of God, but of every good thing which is in you (or, better, in us) towards Christ Jesus. It is, therefore, the knowledge of good—that is, of God’s gift—as dwelling in man by the unity which binds all to Christ Jesus.

3. Now for knowledge of this, fellowship with man is needed, as well as fellowship with God. The soul which dwells alone with God, even in the holiest seclusion, knows what is good in the abstract, but not what is good in man in the concrete reality. But Philemon’s house was a centre of Christian life. St. Paul might, therefore, well speak of this his two-fold “fellowship in faith,” and pray that it might grow into full knowledge at once of God and of man as in Him.

4. That all such growth must be “towards Christ Jesus,” dependent on unity with Him and serving to deepen such unity, is the characteristic doctrine of all this group of Epistles, especially of the Colossian Epistle, of which Onesimus was one of the bearers.