The Difficulty

Paul tells enslaved people to “obey your earthly masters” (Eph 6:5; Col 3:22). He sends Onesimus back to Philemon rather than declaring him free. He writes “each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them” (1 Cor 7:20). These texts were used for centuries to justify chattel slavery in the Americas and elsewhere. Yet Paul also writes that in Christ “there is neither slave nor free” (Gal 3:28), calls Onesimus “no longer a slave but a beloved brother” (Phm 16), and undermines the master-slave relationship at every turn in Philemon. Did Paul support slavery? Tolerate it? Subvert it? And what do we do with texts that have caused incalculable harm?

Responses

Subversive Compliance / Seeds of Abolition

Tradition: Wesleyan / Evangelical Summary: Paul worked within the system while planting theological seeds that would eventually destroy it.

N.T. Wright, Scot McKnight, and many Wesleyan interpreters argue that Paul’s strategy was subversion from within. Philemon is not a letter returning a slave — it’s a letter that makes it impossible for Philemon to keep Onesimus as a slave while remaining faithful to the gospel. Paul calls Onesimus “brother,” asks Philemon to receive him “as you would receive me,” and offers to pay any debts — all of which obliterate the social distance between master and slave. The Haustafel (household codes in Eph 5–6 and Col 3–4) are revolutionary in their context: no Greco-Roman moralist addressed slaves directly as moral agents or told masters they had obligations to their slaves. The trajectory points toward abolition even if Paul didn’t issue the decree.

Strengths

• Takes both the accommodating and the subversive texts seriously
• Historically grounded — the Haustafel codes were genuinely countercultural
• The trajectory argument (Webb) is strong
• Explains why abolitionists like Wesley and Wilberforce could be biblical

Weaknesses

• “Planting seeds” is cold comfort to the enslaved
• Paul could have said “free your slaves” and didn’t
• The trajectory argument can justify almost anything if applied loosely
• The texts were in fact used to defend slavery for 1,800 years

Further Reading

• N.T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Fortress, 2013), ch. 1 on Philemon
• Scot McKnight, The Letter to Philemon (NICNT, 2017) — the best recent commentary
• William J. Webb, Slaves, Women & Homosexuals (IVP Academic, 2001) — the redemptive-movement hermeneutic
• Allen Dwight Callahan, Embassy of Onesimus: The Letter of Paul to Philemon (Trinity, 1997)

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Accommodation to Empire / Survival Strategy

Tradition: Social-Historical / Academic Summary: Paul’s instructions to slaves were pragmatic survival advice in a context where revolt meant death, not an endorsement of the institution.

Jennifer Glancy, J. Albert Harrill, and other social historians note that first-century slavery was enforced by extreme violence. Slave revolts (Spartacus) ended in mass crucifixion. Paul’s “obey your masters” was not moral philosophy but survival counsel for a tiny, vulnerable community that could be wiped out if perceived as socially destabilizing. The early church was in no position to challenge Roman slavery directly. Paul’s genius was to transform the meaning of slavery from within — the slave serves “as unto the Lord,” making the master irrelevant — while waiting for the eschatological reversal he expected imminently.

Strengths

• Historically realistic about the power dynamics of the first-century Roman Empire
• Explains why Paul didn’t issue a blanket abolition decree
• Takes seriously the vulnerability of early Christian communities

Weaknesses

• Even pragmatic accommodation was weaponized by slaveholders
• “He couldn’t say what he really meant” is speculative
• Other early Christians (the Essenes, some Stoics) did critique slavery more directly

Further Reading

• Jennifer Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford, 2002)
• J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity (Mohr Siebeck, 1995)
• Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death (Harvard, 1982) — the sociological classic on slavery as institution
• Murray Harris, Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ (IVP, 1999)

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Liberation Critique / Reception History

Tradition: Womanist / Black Liberation Summary: The history of these texts’ use to justify chattel slavery is itself a theological datum that must shape how we read them today.

Womanist and Black liberation theologians (Clarice Martin, Renita Weems, Allen Callahan, Kelly Brown Douglas) argue that responsible interpretation cannot ignore the reception history. These texts were read from Southern pulpits to justify American chattel slavery — a system far more brutal than anything Paul knew. The fact that the Bible was used this way is not incidental; it reveals a hermeneutical failure that must be named and corrected. Reading Paul’s slavery texts today requires centering the voices of the enslaved and their descendants, not the masters. Wesley himself called slavery “the sum of all villanies” and saw no biblical justification for it.

Strengths

• Takes the harm seriously
• Centers the most affected voices
• Historically honest
• Wesley’s abolitionism is a genuine Methodist heritage worth claiming

Weaknesses

• Can collapse the distinction between what Paul wrote and how it was misused
• Reception history is important but doesn’t determine original meaning
• Some will perceive this as reading modern concerns back into ancient texts

Further Reading

• Clarice Martin, “The Haustafeln (Household Codes) in African American Biblical Interpretation,” in Stony the Road We Trod (Fortress, 1991)
• Kelly Brown Douglas, Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God (Orbis, 2015)
• Wesley, Thoughts Upon Slavery (1774) — Wesley’s abolitionist pamphlet
• Mark Noll, The Civil War as a Theological Crisis (UNC Press, 2006) — how both sides used the Bible