NOTES for Pmn 1:14

Looking at the life of fallen humanity, a thought sometimes involuntarily enters the mind: what if God, either Himself or through people specially appointed by Him, immediately rewarded and encouraged good deeds, and just as immediately stopped evil deeds and punished them? Would we not then find ourselves in a world that, if not ideal, was at least much better than the one that now exists? At first glance it may appear that this is exactly how it would be. Who, indeed, would want to do anything bad knowing that he would be punished immediately? Except that people themselves would hardly become better because of it. After all, a person's spiritual life is determined above all by the choice he has made. And that choice must be voluntary. A choice made only out of fear of coming punishment cannot in any way be called voluntary. Strictly speaking, it is not a choice at all, because only a decision made freely, without any external pressure, can be considered a choice. Of course, pressure does not always lead to the desired results. Inner freedom often overcomes external influence, and a choice is made despite the situation, which does not in the least encourage a free decision. But in our hypothetical world, lack of freedom guaranteeing correct behavior would be the very source of goodness. And then it would turn out that people in such a world had not become better at all; they only seemed good, being forced to play the appropriate role. But in the Kingdom one must not play a role, but live. And God refuses to force people to do good. Paul, as a man of God, cannot fail to understand this, and he too does not want to make anyone do good deeds under compulsion, even if that compulsion were not by force but, for example, by authority or the pressure of public opinion. After all, his goal is not to force his addressee to behave well, but to point out to him the way into the Kingdom. A way that can be traveled only freely.

The form Paul chose for speaking with Philemon is very interesting. Let us look: Paul is an elder, as he himself says, that is, a respected person; an apostle, that is, a person who occupies a high position in the Church; a very authoritative person. Thus, occupying the position of a senior, he would seem to be able to command.

Paul does not want to command. First, he does not even put forward the claim that he could use his authority: he says that he "has great boldness in Christ to command." Not by his own merits, but in Christ, and not a right, but boldness. Moreover, he does not want to use even this boldness, but prefers to ask for love's sake.

Judging by the context, Onesimus, whose name Paul mentions at the beginning of the letter, was Philemon's slave, apparently converted to Christ together with his master. Later he became Paul's companion and helper, and now, being imprisoned in a Roman prison, Paul returns Onesimus to Philemon, in his own words no longer as a slave, but as a brother in Christ.

One may think that the spiritual formation of the newly converted Onesimus took place under the apostle's direct influence; it could not have been otherwise if Onesimus really accompanied Paul for a sufficiently long time. And when his spiritual formation in Christ was completed, he ceased to be a slave, if not legally, since there is no clarity about the formal status of Onesimus and it is unclear whether Philemon freed him as a freedman or not, then in fact.

After the baptism of the master himself and all his household, Philemon's house in fact became a space of the Church, where slaves in the traditional Greco-Roman sense could not exist, and Christian slaves could not exist by definition, whatever legal status the people living there had. Thus the Kingdom entered the world, transfiguring it first of all at the level of relationships, which constitute the spiritual foundation of the Kingdom.

But to cease being a slave in fact meant to walk the path that makes a person an inhabitant of the Kingdom. That means a person inwardly absolutely free and fully responsible. A person for whom there are no longer forced or unconscious relationships with anyone. And who, accordingly, can no longer be anyone's slave, but can be a helper to anyone whom God entrusts him to help. Regardless of status, which now becomes a matter sometimes important, but secondary, determining neither the spiritual life of the former slave nor his relationships with his former masters.