I have no idea why the Epistle to Philemon is not simply read in full, but the Lectionary contains quite a lot of that sort of thing.
Anyway, today's passage means exactly what it says. It only occurred to me as I was reading it out in 2019.
The runaway slave Onesimus and his master Philemon have the same biological father, and Saint Paul just mentions that as a given.
Welcome to slavery.
Which verse?
ReplyDelete16.
DeleteIt is mentioned almost incidentally, as the kind of thing that people accustomed to slave societies would take as a given.