The Book of Philemon

For those of you interested in reading the Bible, but also wanting to impress people with how many books you can read really quickly, I recommend Philemon. It's not even long enough to have a second chapter. And, as a bonus, it's written by Paul, but has very little of his convoluted theologizing. It could almost be a blog entry.

Some caveats: in the letter, Paul is trying to get Philemon to accept back gracefully a slave who had run away from him to serve Paul. So in the past people used the text to justify slavery. I would say that Paul is mostly just working within the status quo, not necessarily agreeing to it. In fact, he seems to be trying to get an exception made to the rules based on his authority as an apostle.

Still: There's something about the rhetoric of the book that I really like. This is Paul at his most appealing and personal. You get the feeling he really loves Philemon, the householder, and Onesimus, the slave, and wants both of them to do the right thing out of love for each other and Christ. Like I said: short on theologizing, long on personality.

And if you didn't like it, it's technically pretty short on everything.