If I'm in, yeah,

Philemen, yeah.

Hey, everybody, it's Matt.

This is the 10-minute Bible Hour podcast, and one of the things that has been perhaps most interesting to me on Twitter

during the Twitter era of my life, yes, I still call it Twitter, is the capacity for large

groups of people to listen to the same individual, a public figure, say something, and then

people hear completely different things based on their presuppositions,

based on their read about the world. I'm not above this at all. I completely participate in this,

though quietly I don't usually type what I think into the computer and then hit enter about

most political things on the interwebs. But the same phenomenon that you

and I have observed in the age of social media occurs when people go and look at the letter

of Philemon. It's kind of a Rorschach test, right? It's a little tiny 25 verse ink blot on just

one page of the New Testament in most Bibles. People look at it, and it is

fascinating to me how very scholarly, very intelligent people can look at this and come to two

very different conclusions about what Paul is actually saying. Here's what I mean. In the one camp are

people who say, Philemon is a request for manumission.

That's the fancy term for freeing a slave. Other people look at the letter and are honestly a little bit, you know, kind of grouchy or turned off.

Or they feel like they need to defend Paul for not demanding or requesting

manumission for Onesimus. Which one actually is it? Well, I'm not going to solve it today,

but I'll just read it to you. I mean, it certainly feels like it leaves the door open for

Onesimus to be freed, but let me just read it to you, a cold read. What do you make of this? Is this a request for Onnesomus to be freed, but let me just read it to you, cold read.

What do you make of this? Is this a request for Onesomis to be liberated? Or is Paul suggesting

...