NOTES for Pmn 1:17-25

The words “receive him as you would me” echo Jesus' parable (Matt 25:34-46) about how we should receive the poor, the sick, and simply those whom we meet along the way. “I was sick and you visited Me.” The pronoun “me,” the comparison “as you would me,” seems excessively personal, because it is impossible to practice constantly seeing the Savior's features in every person. Faith in God and trust in God often cannot help us with this. Then Paul's rational argument, which appeals to our reason, comes to our aid. If you cannot understand or explain this, if you do not want to live this way, remember how much you personally owe God for your salvation. You can repay that debt in only one way: by receiving the other, the one who is different, who differs from you in every respect.

Much has been said and written about Christian love, including by Paul himself. Yet the best way to understand what Christian love is may be from the example of those relationships which are not even described, there is no talk of descriptions, but are mentioned in the apostle's letters as if in passing, as something self-evident. "If you are in fellowship with me, receive him also." Of course, something similar is possible according to the laws of the untransformed world. One can present an ultimatum to someone who depends on you. One can try to manipulate those who love you. But here, clearly, there is neither one nor the other. Here there is simply absolute confidence that, if the issue is Christians, inhabitants of the Kingdom, the relationships of love linking him, Paul, with two different people will necessarily be established between these people too. Or, more precisely, have already been established; otherwise the apostle would not write with such confidence. But where does it come from, this confidence? Of course, one could say that it is a matter of Christian duty, that a Christian simply cannot fail to receive a brother who needs support, and much else of the same kind. But on "Christian duty" alone, as two millennia of Christian history show, one does not get far. Christian love, however, as the same experience shows, can work wonders. This is not surprising, for it is itself a wonder, like everything that belongs to the Kingdom. And the love of which the Savior spoke fills the Kingdom, forming its nature, its spiritual substance, the fabric of those relationships that bind the inhabitants of the Kingdom to one another and each of them to Christ, and Christ Himself to the Father. Then Paul's request becomes not only not at all surprising, but self-evident: the Kingdom knows no distances in our sense; here people spiritually close to one another turn out to be near in the most literal sense, and if we do not notice this, it is only because untransformed reality blocks the Kingdom from us. For Paul, however, as one can see, this barrier is absent, and he writes to his correspondent as if it did not exist for him either. Perhaps this is excessive optimism. Or perhaps simply hope and confidence. Confidence in the Kingdom, in the One who brought it into the world, and in those who followed Him.

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.