Footnotes
Footnotes
1.John Knox argues that we should take "your” to refer to Archippus, who is named immediately before it. He thus sees Archippus as the person who owned Onesimus and to whom the request in the letter was made (Philemon Among the Letters of Paul [London: Collins, 1950], pp. 49-61).
2.J. B. Lightfoot, St Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (London: Macmillan, 1876), p. 316.
3.Knox, Philemon, passim.
4."The letter effectively shaped early Christian attitudes toward slavery for four centuries” (W. G. Rollins, "Philemon,” in IDBSup, p. 663).
5.According to Ralph Martin, the teaching in this letter "is more of how the Christian life is to be lived in a social context” than about the treatment to be given a law-breaking slave (Colossians and Philemon, NCB [London: Oliphants, 1974], p. 150).