Hey everybody, it's Matt. This is the 10-minute Bible hour podcast. And let's just say that you were going to go on a big vacation, like a real long one, the kind where you got to have a house sitter to keep track of the stuff and make sure things don't freeze up and make sure your pets are okay and everything. And so you're thinking, uh, how do I get a house sitter? Well, you can't put that on Facebook. You're gonna get an idiot. You gotta find somebody with, you know, that you can get a real vouch for from real people, right? So you're like, all right, who knows a lot of people? Ah, Craig. Craig knows a lot of people. I'm asked Craig. So you call up your buddy Craig, and you're like, Craig, I need a house sitter. So my house doesn't freeze up, my dogs are okay, and everything. And Craig's like, yeah, all right. Well, you can't put that on Facebook. And you're like, right? So that's why I'm calling you. What do you got for me, Craig? And Craig is like, um, I alright, I know the person. It's uh it's Michelle. He gives you Michelle's full name and everything. I didn't think of what her last name would be in this scenario. And he's like, it's Michelle. Michelle is honest, she never steals nothing, and she's real good at keeping things from freezing. She's the dog lady, you know. Michelle, she's that's that's your gal. She'd be great. Okay, well, what's the next logical question that you're gonna ask Craig in this hypothetical situation? This is easy, right? It's gonna be, well, how do you how do you know Michelle? And if Craig's like, well, she is actually my cousin, and I've known her my whole life, and we've been on trips together and family events, and I know her from work settings, and like, you know, if it's a he knows her really well, then you're like, okay, I've heard what I need to hear. I'm calling this Michelle lady. I think we're off and running. But if Craig is like, oh, how do I know her? Uh yeah, she's like a friend of a friend. I think I saw her once at an event, but she was sitting like way down at the other end of things. I've heard she's really honest and likes dogs and keeps houses from freezing really well. Well, then you're like, Craig, you're an idiot. And this actually just hurt our relationship and your reputation because that's a terrible vouch. You have to know the person you're vouching for. What the heck? Likewise, the apostle Paul is vouching for a slave owner in the book of Philemon. That's a pretty big vouch, right? Like, I've never vouched for any slave owners that I've personally known in my life ever. Like, you got to be pretty sure that's a decent guy in order to put your name next to that. But that's exactly what Paul does. And he puts his name next to Philemon's name in writing and vouches for him with the following words, which I know I've already read the last couple days. I'm gonna read it again. Philemon 1, 4 through 7. Paul talking about Philemon here. I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers because I hear about your faith and the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith so that you'll have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints. Well, if Paul's saying, Hey Onesimus, you should go back to that guy because of all those things that I just said right there. I mean, he's a really super dude, but Paul's never actually met him and he's going entirely on reputation. I mean, that would give me pause if I were Onesimus, who's being exhorted to voluntarily return to my former master. Or if I was reading this letter after the fact and I found out, well, Paul doesn't actually know the guy at all. He knows him like Craig knows Michelle. Well, that doesn't work very well. But we have a Bible problem here because Philemon, as you know, is from our favorite town for the purposes of this season of the podcast, which is Colossae. It's in southwest modern-day Turkey. It's an inland town. It's in a place called the Lycus Valley. There's a couple of more prominent cities that had popped up there in recent centuries before the time this letter was written, like Laodicea and Hieropolis, but Colasse, it's got some credit, it's got some history, it's got some cachet to it. And Philemon is probably from an old, well-established family there. Maybe he's some sort of businessman or you know, does some sort of like artisanship or he does merchant stuff. I don't know. He's rich enough to have at least one slave. We know that, and that wasn't cheap. And I am reading the heck out of ancient accounts about slavery right now, just as a side note. And man, there's a lot that went into it. If if you wanted, you couldn't just be a hack and have slaves. This was a pretty heavily regulated thing in the Roman Empire, and there are quite a bit of expectations on who could claim ownership over another person. I mean, make of that whatever you will, but it it wasn't totally haphazard like you might imagine. So Philemon is a guy, he's a man of means, he is a man of influence. I now see that looking at these source documents, you would kind of have to be that to own any kind of slaves and have the community accept that. And he's a Christian, and apparently Paul knows him well enough to vouch for him to Onesimus, hard enough to get Onesimus to make the trip back voluntarily. But the problem that I'm hinting at is it doesn't look like Paul ever went to Colossae. It's kind of like Alexander the Great. We know his travels very clearly, and when he conquered the region around Colossae, it was like Colossae smelled like onions or something because Alexander's route went exactly around it in every way possible. Alexander walked a big giant horseshoe around Colossae. Well, you know who else did? Paul. I can't find anywhere in the accounts of Paul's travels, his missionary journeys, that really get him very close to Colossae. It looks like Ephesus is probably the closest stop. Maybe somewhere on the third missionary journey as he was coming out of historic Galatia and through historic Phrygia, he would have been within 50 miles of Colossae. But really, the longest time that Paul is set up anywhere near Colossae would be when he is in Pisidian Antioch during his visits to the old Galatian churches, or when he's set up for years in Ephesus. Now, this is my guess. Paul's letter here to Philemon is solidly the most personal letter in the New Testament, maybe other than 2 Timothy. Come on, man, that's Paul writing to his protege from jail. And it's not like cute jail anymore, it's like serious jail when Paul's writing this, and he's like, I don't even have a coat. I bring my coat and my scrolls, I'm just stuck in here and I'm alone. I mean, that feels pretty personal. But Philemon is right up there. So if Philemon's even in the discussion for being the most personal letter in the New Testament, that means Paul had to have known the guy, right? This couldn't be a Craig and Michelle kind of situation. They had to have had overlap. And especially because Paul uses language in here that's like, you owe me kind of language. I mean, uh, verse 19, I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back, that being whatever Onesimus owes Philemon. But then he goes on, he says, not to mention that you owe me your very self. Well, that doesn't sound like a Craig and Michelle situation. That sounds like these two men, even though now they're separated by a great distance, sounds like Paul and Philemon really legitimately know each other very well. And it sounds like Paul is his spiritual father, like Paul personally led Philemon to Christ. But how can that be if Paul never went to Colossae? Well, let me riddle you this one. Have you ever gone to a town that isn't the town you're in right now? What if Philemon went to a town that wasn't the town that he was from at some point? I'm being a little bit facetious. I don't know why people act like this is such a hard thing. But certain biblical scholars are like, I don't know about the veracity of the book of Philemon or Paul's relationship with him because Philemon was from Colossae and Paul never went there. Well, yeah, but like people sometimes they go on trips, you know? Like they like you ever been to a town that isn't the town you're from? Come on, yo. So, what I think probably happened is that Philemon made trips probably to Ephesus, maybe to Pisidian Antioch, that's where one of those Galatian churches was located. That isn't far from Colossae, and we know Paul was there. Maybe Syria in Antioch, where of course, I mean, that was the launching point for all of Paul's missionary journeys. It's where the Christians were first called Christians, and it was a major trade hub. It wouldn't have been too crazy for a guy like Philemon with those kind of means to be in either of the Antiochs, but most likely they met in Ephesus because Paul was there for three years. It's recorded in Acts chapter 19, and maybe during that time, even I mean, three years is a long time. Maybe during that time, Paul made the relatively modest 100-mile trip by ancient standards down the road to Colossae because a couple of people had come to Ephesus and become Christians there, and there wasn't quite a church happening in Colossae yet. And maybe Paul at some point did set foot in Colossae during that Ephesus time. Probably more likely because there is one little note in the book of Colossians that says that he has never seen most of them face to face. So probably more likely, Philemon got connected with this fledgling church in Ephesus and was compelled by the character of Paul, and they got to know each other really well. And Philemon then was maybe one of the two or three guys who took the gospel, the Christian faith, back to Colossae and established the church there. So, in that sense, this would be like a kind of a stepchild church for Paul. And indeed, when you go and read Colossians, it does hit a little different than Galatians and Ephesians and Philippians, where you can really tell Paul was there, he knew the people, like you kind of get the impression Paul can imagine the sights and sounds and even some of the personalities involved. Whereas Colossians feels a little more abstract, like he knows a couple people there, but it's kind of like when you're at a group event and you're out of your element and you know the host and maybe like one other person, but everybody else you just kind of know by vouch and by distance. That's how it feels. So, do we have enough to say that Paul knew Philemon personally and that therefore his vouch would be legitimate? I think we do. I mean, look, we have this many pages for the whole New Testament here. It really isn't that much. And the New Testament doesn't spend a lot of time trying to make sure we know the exact travel itinerary of every single character who comes up. It would be a far worse document if that's what it was trying to do. But we get little hints of where everybody was and kind of what orbits they run in. And yeah, as we go along and we look at a little bit more of the personal greetings in Philemon, we also get a little bit more of a sense of how Paul was connected with people who were very closely connected with Philemon. And that even more so gives the impression that these guys legitimately knew each other. Paul at one point said, indicates that he feels like he has enough command in Philemon's life to just tell him, receive Onesimus back no longer as a slave, but as a brother. But then Paul is like, yeah, but I'm not gonna do that, you know, and I'll paraphrase a little bit. I'm not gonna do that because you know what's right, and we're friends. I'd be willing to wager a pretty substantial bet with money if I was into that kind of thing or a reputation, which I'm doing right now, that Paul literally personally face to face knew Philemon, that they had a lot of history together in person. I got a sneaking suspicion that they have exchanged a lot more letters back and forth than just this little one that makes it into the Bible. Further, I think Paul probably personally led Philemon to Christ. And I bet Paul had coached Philemon up into how to get the church in Colossae started and how to lead it properly. I am positive that Paul and Philemon ran in the same circles and knew a whole bunch of the same people. I am positive from other evidence we'll get to later, that Paul knew other members of Philemon's family and thought highly of them. And therefore, I am positive that when Paul tells you and I, the outside after-the-fact reader, about the character of Philemon here in verses four through seven, that that is a real vouch, not a lazy Craig vouching for Michelle who he doesn't know kind of vouch, but a legit vouch rooted in actual miles on the tires, war stories, history together, and an up-to-date relationship, even if that relationship was being carried on for the most part by letter writing and correspondence back and forth. Next time around, we're gonna put in a little more effort to see if we can flesh out a better understanding of Paul's relationship, not just with Philemon, but with the church in Colossae in general. All right, that's plenty for now. I'm Matt. 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