Forgiving the One Who Hurt You: A New Philemon Bible Study

How do you forgive someone who hurt you and never said they were sorry? Type that into a search bar and you'll find page after page on it. A good many of them are on Christian sites. When Barna published its study on forgiveness in 2019, 23 percent of practicing Christians said there was someone they just couldn't forgive. That's close to one in four among people who take their faith seriously. Anyone who's preached for long has sat across the table from some of them.

Robert Enright, the University of Wisconsin-Madison psychologist who pioneered the scientific study of forgiveness, wrote last December in Psychology Today that an apology supports our sense of justice. When no apology comes, justice can feel blocked. I think that's close to how it feels. We hang on to the debt because letting it go feels like saying it never mattered.

There's another version of this problem that doesn't get searched as often. What do you do when the person comes back? He's sitting two pews up on Sunday morning. He's changed, the whole congregation is glad to have him, and you're the one who still remembers what he did.

A letter about a man coming home

That's the situation in Philemon, the shortest letter Paul wrote. Onesimus belonged to Philemon's household, and something had gone wrong between them. We usually call Onesimus a runaway, though Paul never uses the word. What Paul does tell us is that Onesimus has become a Christian and that he's sending him home: "I am sending him back to you — I am sending my very own heart" (Philemon 1:12).

Paul asks Philemon for something hard. He wants him to take Onesimus back "no longer as a slave, but more than a slave — as a dearly loved brother" (Philemon 1:16). Then he ties his own name to the request: "So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would me" (Philemon 1:17).

Look at what Paul does about the wrong itself. He doesn't tell Philemon it wasn't real or that he ought to get over it. He says, "And if he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account" (Philemon 1:18). In the next verse he puts his promise to repay in his own handwriting. Paul treats the hurt as a real debt. He offers to carry it himself so the two men can be brothers.

That should sound familiar to anyone who's been forgiven by God. Paul says as much to the Ephesians: "And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ" (Ephesians 4:32). We forgive from the position of people whose own account has already been covered.

I'll grant that Philemon doesn't answer every question about forgiveness. Onesimus has changed, and the person who hurt you may not have. The letter also never tells us what Philemon did after he read it. Even so, these twenty-five verses show us what's being asked of a Christian when a brother comes back. Most of our churches will face that sooner or later.

What this workbook does with it

We've just released Ed Rangel's Receive Him as a Brother, a workbook that spends fourteen lessons on those twenty-five verses. Ed reads the letter slowly. He keeps what Paul actually says apart from the stories readers have built around it. He asks what happens to a damaged relationship when both people belong to Christ. He also works through how repentance, restoration, consequences and trust fit together, which is where a lot of us get stuck.

The first four lessons cover the greeting to Philemon and the church in his house, Paul's prayer and thanksgiving, and his appeal for love's sake. Lessons 5 through 9 turn to Onesimus as a changed man and what it means to receive him as you'd receive Paul. Lessons 10 through 13 take up Paul's offer to cover the debt, the call to refresh his heart, and the closing greetings. The last lesson widens the study to the parable of the returning son and his older brother, Paul's instructions in 2 Corinthians 2, and Ephesians 4. Appendices deal with the authorship and canon of Philemon, along with the house church movement.

Each lesson comes in two parts. The Classroom Lesson fits a forty-five-minute class. It includes the reading, a central idea, Bible-marking directions, explanation, discussion questions and an application. Home Study and Resources then returns to the same passage with fuller background, supporting texts and charts for the student who wants to go deeper. A glossary, bibliography and indexes are in the book too. The workbook uses the NASB 1995, so its wording will differ a little from what I've quoted here.

About the writer

Ed Rangel has been preaching since 2000 and serves as an evangelist in Wisconsin. His ministry has taken him across the Midwest, the South, the Caribbean, South America and Europe. He also spent years as a special education teacher. You can see it in the way he makes a difficult subject clear without watering it down. You can find the rest of his work, including his studies of James and Jude, in Ed's author collection.

Who it's for

This would serve an adult Bible class or a midweek study well. Its fourteen lessons fit a quarter of weekly classes. It's also a good personal study for any Christian who's learning to forgive a brother or who needs to be received by one.

The workbook is $12. There's also an $8 PDF for individual use and a $100 class-use PDF. A class can order a workbook for each student or go with the PDF. If your class is still choosing its winter study, I'd take a look at Receive Him as a Brother.

We don't know how Philemon answered Paul. We do know what he was asked to do. If a letter like that came to your house this week, whose name would be in it?