WHY?

Why does Paul open up his letter with so many other greetings, when it's a personal letter to Philemon?

Why does Paul close with so many greetings from other brethren, when the letter to the Colossians does the same?

Deuteronomy 23:15-16.
Why does Paul directly break this Old Testament command? Is there possible another command that supersedes it?

Who is Epaphras? Why does Paul mention him?

**If your having trouble with interpretations (the how to), please email me.**

Just a reminder.

The homework for the next meeting was to bring two observations in each paragraph to interpretation. Each observation needs two interpretations to go with it.

Since verse 8-16 is one of the main paragraphs in this letter you should do at least five observations to interpretations.

Remember this is were your paragraph titles come in handy. A paragraph title is the main point in each paragraph . When doing your interpretations, pick the main observations that would apply to the main point of each paragraph.

Observation:
Interpretation.
Interpretation.

Observation:
Interpretation.
Interpretation.

This is the format for each paragraph, except for the 5th which gets five instead of two.

Who: Paul, a Prisoner

Observation: "Paul (who), a prisoner (repeated word/theme) for Christ Jesus (who/deity)"

Notice: Paul mentions his name in this letter three times, and refers to being a prisoner five times.

Examine: This is the only letter Paul starts out with mentioning that he's a prisoner. In all the other letters he mainly mentions his apostleship, and sometimes a servant/slave/bond-servant, depending on your translation.

Paul (who):
1st "Paul, a prisoner"
2nd "I, Paul, an old man"
3rd "I, Paul, write this with my own hand"

Prisoner (repeated word/theme):
1st Prisoner for Christ
2nd A prisoner also for Christ
3rd My imprisonment
4th Imprisonment for the gospel
5th Epaphras, my fellow prisoner

Historical Background:
People are being put into prison for the sake of the gospel. Both Paul and Epaphras are in prison.

Interpretation:

Why: Mention prison?
Paul is in prison for the sake of the gospel, which he keeps emphesising. Paul's faithfulness to the gospel led him to lay down his rights of freedom, and in the same way, now he is asking Philemon to lay down his rights and take up forgiveness.

Imply:
Paul is putting a strong but subtle touch in his letter. He wants Philemon to know that the favor he is asking, is not from a place of authority (although he is) but from a place of sincerely living out the gospel, with all of it's implications.

Literary context:
why does Paul mention himself 3 times?
Paul is making sure that Philemon knows that he is the author of this letter, and at crucial times in the letter he invokes his name to reassure Philemon.


***interpretations can build on each other, or they can stand on their own. As in the example above the second interpretation builds off of the first, but the third stands on it's own.***

Interpritation: based on observations.

Once you've gone through your bible and pulled out all the historical background from the book of Philemon and Colossians, you'll want to start looking into bible dictionaries (historical background info only, sometimes dictionaries are really interpretations).

Look up: Philemon, Onesimus, house church, slaves etc... then once you've gleaned all you can from both the internal (The Bible) and external (Dictionaries and other helps) historical background, you'll begin to bounce all your observations off of the historical info and come up with interpretation: what did it mean to the Original Reader.

Observations: refer to your chart/handout from first week.
Notice: pick an observation
Examine: mention every thing about the observation

Historical Background: The only binding cultural background is the internal background found in the bible.

Interpretation: What did it mean to the original readers.

Historical Background

BASIC REQUIRED INFORMATION

1. Critical Method:

a) Who wrote the book?

b) To whom was it written?

c) When & were was it written?

2. Historical Method:

a) What is the historical setting of the book? What is the culture of the audience?

b) If it is an epistle, when was the church founded?

c) Who makes up the church?

d) What are their strengths and weaknesses?

3. Literary Method

a) What is the type of literature? (Refer to last page in booklet)

c) If an epistle, what are the parts and references?

. name of writer

. name of recipient

. prayer, wish, or thanksgiving

. body of letter

. final greeting

4. Survey Method (use 2-3 sentences for each of the following)

a) What is the main idea of the book?

b) What is the major reason that the book was written?


Remember, your observations will help you with the historical background.
Review what you observed, then pull out of the text history. I.e "church in your house"-historical we know that the early church to which Paul was writing meat in a house. Another example would be "I Paul a prisoner for Christ" Historicaly people are being put into prison do to their faith in Jesus.

Also refer to Colossians, for further historical background. Philemon is just one member of a church (which meats in his house), he's part of the church of Colossi. Historical things mentioned in the book of Colossians would also apply to the book of Philemon.

Key what???

In the observations step, one of the last things to look for is the key verse.
The key verse is a verse that summarizes the main idea of the book (it can be more then one verse), it tells why the book was written. This can be done at anytime in the observation method, yet usually it's one of the last things I will look for. By the time you've color coded all your observations, you'll have a good idea what the main point of the book is.

Just a friendly hint, there is one figure of speech in the book of Philemon that is (not the key verse) a very important key to unlocking the reason why the book was written.

Color Coding is a useful tool in the Inductive Method. Not only does it get you into the text to pick out each observation, it helps you see how the flow of a book is laid out. Remember good observations are key to good interpretations. The more you see, the more you have to build a biblical interpretation.

So color away your text.

Also just as a side note, in the observation process were just looking to see what is there, not to interpret it.