Slavery, The Politics of Power, and The Risk of Grace

The following is a great quote from a New Testament scholar regarding his reflections on the message of Philemon:

"All societies rest upon inequities--some concealed, others noticed--that make brotherhood impossible. Every age and locale has its particular and familiar slaveries. What heightens injustice is that all believers--exploiters or exploited--are equally nearsighted about the oppressions we have unwittingly learned to live with. No one cries out: the strong because they need not, the weak for they dare not. Or perhaps this unfair: it might seem that slaves would sense injustice that owners ignor. But even slaves must have their eyes and their feelings dulled; you cannot long entertain hope for what is unattainable. So, rather than live in perpetual frustration, the enslaved man generally will not allow his conscience to become too sensitive...Yet there is no social order, no revision of the economy, no advance in politics, no possible world situation that adequaetely conforms to the gospel or even makes room for its full realization, no revolution that does not eventually redistribute injustice."

This is the whole point of Paul not commanding Philemone to emancipate Onesimous; rather, tries to persuade Philemon in love and relationship. He (Paul) is trying to live out the Gospel that restores creation with Shalom or peace and he courageously keeps his "power" as an apostle under control--so he will not become an oppressor or exploiter and operate by the same world system that Christ came to redeem, and calls his church to redeem by operating Christ's way (love and self-sacrifice, power under not power over)--not the world's way.  Further, we have the Hope that God, when he returns, will finally correct all injustices--1 Samuel 2 is an example of this Hope/Faith in the life of Hannah.

I have a lot to learn from Paul and this letter to Philemon. I dare say the church in general has a lot to learn as well.

The quote above is from J. T. Burtchaell as quoted by Ben Worthington the III in his Socio-rhetorical Commentary on The Prison Epistles.