Charge It to My Account

A man in prison takes the pen into his own hand and writes a promise about money.

If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.

Philemon 1:18

That is not a warm sentiment. It is an accounting instruction. Paul is telling a man named Philemon: open your books, find the line where someone cost you, cross out his name and write mine.

Paul is a travelling teacher of the Christian faith, locked up for it. Philemon is a well-off man in the town of Colossae who has become a Christian, and a church meets in his house. Philemon owns a slave named Onesimus. In the Roman world a slave was legal property, and an owner could punish a runaway harshly.

Onesimus ran. He ended up with Paul in prison, heard the Christian message, and believed it. This letter, about twenty-five verses long, is Paul's answer to what happens next.

1. Paul sends him home

Paul's first move is surprising. He does not hide him.

I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart.

Philemon 1:12

Paul could have kept Onesimus, told nobody, and let distance solve it. Instead he puts him on the road toward the one man with a legal claim on him, and admits it costs him. Repair between two people rarely starts with a feeling. It starts with somebody going back.

Jesus said the same thing, and made it inconvenient on purpose:

So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there and go. First be reconciled to your brother.

Matthew 5:23-24

The altar stood in the temple in Jerusalem, where a worshipper brought an animal or grain to God, often after days of walking. Jesus says that if you remember on the way that someone has a real complaint against you, put the gift down and go sort it out first. An apology you have owed for a year is not just between you and God. It is between you and the person you owe it.

Going back usually costs something. Zacchaeus, a tax collector, did the arithmetic out loud:

And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.

Luke 19:8

He collected taxes for the occupying Romans and skimmed extra, so his neighbours despised him. He did not just say sorry. He named the wrong and the repayment. Turning around is a number and a date.

Be honest about what Paul is not saying. He does not think slavery is fine. Writing to a different church:

Were you a bondservant when called? Do not be concerned about it. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.

1 Corinthians 7:21

"Bondservant" is a slave. Take freedom if you can get it, Paul says. He sends Onesimus back into a situation he hopes will change, and the rest of the letter is his attempt to change it.

2. He asks when he could order

Paul has real authority here, and names it just before refusing to use it.

Though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do what is required, yet for love's sake I prefer to appeal to you.

Philemon 1:8-9

Paul brought Philemon to faith. He could give an order and expect it obeyed. He says so, then declines:

I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord.

Philemon 1:14

"Compulsion" means being made to do it. A forced kindness is not kindness. It is obedience wearing a kind face. Paul would rather risk a no than manufacture a yes.

He held the same rule about money:

Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

2 Corinthians 9:7

He wrote that while raising relief money for poor Christians in Jerusalem, so he had every reason to press hard. He refused. What God wants is not the money. It is a person who meant to send it.

Jesus told his followers to hold power the same way:

Those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. But it shall not be so among you. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Mark 10:42-45

He said this to twelve men who had just argued about which of them deserved the best seat. "Gentiles" meant anyone not Jewish, the nations around Israel, whose rulers threw their weight about. Jesus says his people work the other way, and points at himself as proof: a ransom is the price paid to set a captive free, and his life is it.

Paul is not perfectly hands-off, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. He also slips in that Philemon owes him "even your own self" (Philemon 1:19). He asks, but with his thumb near the scale.

3. He changes what the man will be called

The centre of the request is not about punishment. It is about a title.

No longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother.

Philemon 1:16

Paul asks Philemon to receive the same man under a different name. The word Philemon uses for him has to change. Not because any paperwork changed, but because both men now belong to Christ.

Paul had already written that the old labels do not survive:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Galatians 3:28

Those were the three great dividers of that world: nation, legal standing, sex. Paul does not say the differences vanish. He says they stop deciding who counts. The owner and the runaway sit as equals, because neither got in on merit.

It seems to have worked. In a letter to Colossae, Philemon's own town, Paul lists a travelling companion:

And with him Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you.

Colossians 4:9

Same name, same town, introduced to the congregation as a brother and one of their own. What this letter asks for turns up in the next as a fact.

Now the hard part. The New Testament does not call for an uprising. In that same letter to Colossae Paul writes:

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters.

Colossians 3:22

That verse has been badly misused and should be faced, not skipped. Paul is not blessing the system. He is telling people stuck inside it how to live with integrity while it stands. But watch what he does with one real case and one real name. He does not tell Onesimus to be a better slave. He tells the owner to take him back as a brother.

4. Charge it to my account

Then comes the sentence the letter hangs on.

If he has wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it.

Philemon 1:18-19

Paul never argues that Onesimus is innocent. The debt may be real: stolen money, lost work, damage. He does not ask Philemon to pretend nothing happened. He asks him to move it. The debt stays real. The name on it changes. Paul signs it himself, the way you sign for a loan.

He has already asked for the matching welcome:

So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.

Philemon 1:17

One man's record, the other man's reception. The man who ran gets the greeting reserved for the man who taught him.

Scripture had described that trade centuries earlier:

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:6

Isaiah describes a servant who suffers for what other people did. "Iniquity" is the guilt of the wrong, not just the wrong. Laid on him means picked up off us and set down on him. Sheep wander off one at a time, each in a different direction, and one person carries every direction.

Paul put the exchange in a single line elsewhere:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

"Righteousness" here means being in the clear with God — the verdict, not the improvement. Christ takes what is ours. We receive what is his. Charge it to my account, and receive him as you would receive me: both halves, done at the cross where Jesus was put to death.

Here is the complication. Paul could cover Onesimus. No person can cover the deeper debt:

Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice.

Psalm 49:7-8

The psalm mocks wealthy men who assume money can buy them out of dying. Nobody has enough. Paul's offer covers stolen coins; it cannot reach the account that actually threatens us. That is why this letter is a picture, not the answer. The one who could pay, paid:

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Not once we had improved. While it was still true of us.

What to do this week

Go back. If you have been avoiding someone because of something you did, send one message this week naming the thing without excusing it. Not "sorry if you were upset." Say what you did.

Ask, do not force. If you want something from someone, make the request and leave room for a no. A yes you had to squeeze out is not worth having.

Change the name. Think of one person you have quietly filed under what they did to you. Decide, before you next see them, what you will call them instead.

When the wrong is too big to repay and you are the one who did it, the letter points past Paul. Someone with a clean record has already written his own name on your line.