John Paul Heil, «The Chiastic Structure and Meaning of Paul’s Letter to Philemon», Vol. 82 (2001) 178-206

This article proposes a new chiastic structure for Paul’s letter to Philemon based on rigorous criteria and methodology. The center and pivot of the chiasm, ‘but without your consent I resolved to do nothing, so that your good might not be as under compulsion but rather under benevolence’ (v. 14), is a key to explicating the letter’s supposedly unclear purpose. Paul wants Philemon to give his former slave Onesimus back to Paul as a beloved brother and fellow worker for the gospel of Jesus Christ, because of Philemon’s response to the grace of God evident in his faithful love for the holy ones as a beloved brother and fellow worker of Paul.

III. Listening to the Chiastic Structure of the Letter

        We will now focus on how the authorial or implied audience responds as it hears the chiastic sequence of the letter¹⁰. The authorial or implied audience refers to the audience Paul envisions in composing the letter. Paul assumes this audience possesses the knowledge necessary to actualize the letter’s meaning. Although we cannot presume that the audience of the letter to Philemon has heard the other Pauline letters or the Acts of the Apostles, we can use them to glean much of the knowledge about Paul’s missionary work that he presupposes on the part of his implied audience¹¹.

A. Paul opens with a framework of imprisonment and partnership under grace (vv. 1-3).

        Paul’s opening designation of himself as ‘a prisoner of Christ Jesus’ (v. 1) has a threefold meaning for the audience: (1) that Paul is located in a prison because of his preaching of the gospel about Christ Jesus¹²; (2) that Paul’s being in prison is for the sake of preaching the gospel about Christ Jesus — that is, that he can advance the gospel despite being in prison (cf. Phil 1,12-18); (3) that Paul is a ‘prisoner’ of Christ Jesus in a metaphorical sense which transcends his literal imprisonment, as it expresses both Christ’s total, authoritative claim upon Paul for the preaching of the gospel and Paul’s total dedication to that claim¹³. As a ‘prisoner’ Paul addresses the audience as one who has special authority from and for the preaching of the gospel about Christ Jesus.