Friday, September 2, 2022

Joseph A. Fitzmyer on Philemon 1:3

  

from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. The source of the “grace and peace” is double. Paul prays that both God and Christ will bestow this blessing on Philemon and the others. By “God the Father” the Christian Paul thus acknowledges not only Yahweh, the God of the OT, but also His fatherhood in a special way. In the OT God is called often the Father of corporate Israel (Deut 32:6; Isa 63:16; 64:8; Jer 3:4, 19; 31:9; Mal 2:10; Sir 51:10), because He was perceived as the creator and provider of His people. Now Paul speaks of God as the Father of Christians, as in Gal 1:3, 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Phil 1:2; Rom 1:7b.

 

Paul acknowledges that the risen Christ is equally the source of such blessing. He thus puts the risen Christ on the same level as God the Father, recognizing them both as the source of the grace and peace in his greeting. “God and Christ issue grace and peace to Philemon and others in the context of the human social world” (Soards, “Some Neglected Theological Dimensions,” 214).

 

The title Kyrios is used of Christ, which denotes his status as the risen Lord; see further Fitzmyer, Romans, 112–13; EDNT, 2. 328–31. For the combination “Lord Jesus Christ,” see also 1 Thess 1:1; 5:23; Gal 1:3; 6:18; Rom 5:1, 21. Calling Jesus Christ Kyrios in this letter is particularly significant, because as a common noun the word denotes “lord, master” and was particularly used in the contrast of kyrios and doulos, “master” and “slave,” in the social world of the time. Recall how Paul describes a slave who has become a Christian as apeleutheros Kyriou, “a freedman of the Lord” (1 Cor 7:22). (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Letter of Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [AYB 34C; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 91)