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There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! (Col. 3:11)

Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly. Children obey your parents in everything, for this is acceptable duty in the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart. (Col. 3:18-21)

• 1 & 2 Thessalonians

These letters provoke some controversy because some scholars think the second of them may have actually been written first. Both letters to the church at Thessalonica, the capital of the Roman province of Macedonia (modern Salonica in northern Greece) are believed to be the first of Paul’s letters, written about 50 CE. These Christians may have been victims of the earliest Roman persecutions, and Paul congratulates them for their faith in the face of adversity.

Paul was preoccupied with two major practical concerns. The first was sex—Paul specifies keeping away from sexual immorality and says Christians must control their bodies in a holy fashion, not giving way to “selfish lust.” And the second issue was hard work. Apparently some people, certain that the second coming of Jesus was due any day, had decided not to bother with work. Paul urges them to refuse food to those who don’t work, establishing a precedent later employed by the legendary English adventurer-soldier Captain John Smith, who enacted a similar policy in the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

Although some scholars have questioned the attribution of 2 Thessalonians to Paul, it is now generally believed to have been written by him.

So let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. (1 Thess. 5:5-9)

• Philemon

This is the only truly “personal” letter of Paul’s to survive, the only correspondence to an individual on a private matter. Paul wrote this letter of only twenty-five verses while in prison, where he had met and converted Onesimus (“Useful”), the runaway slave of Philemon, a leader of the church at Colossae. Early Christians kept slaves, like many in the Mediterranean world who could afford to do so. There was nothing unusual or wrong with it in their view. Paul was a “social conservative” who told Christians to obey laws. But there are hints in the New Testament that the attitude toward slavery was changing. Masters were instructed to treat their slaves fairly and give them freedom if the opportunity arose. Even more radical was Paul’s teaching that “in Christ” there was no distinction between free and slave.

Paul sent Onesimus home with a letter asking his master Philemon to take Onesimus back. However, he urged Philemon to treat Onesimus not as a slave but as a new brother in Jesus. Paul offers restitution for anything that Onesimus may have stolen when he escaped, and hints that Philemon might free the slave to continue to work for the author in prison.

While Paul did not openly attack slavery, an accepted and legally protected institution, he implied that through conversion to Christianity, Onesimus had become an equal. That Onesimus the slave was “brother” to Philemon, his legal master, would have been a revolutionary idea. It was certainly seen that way in nineteenth-century America when Christian abolitionists cited Paul’s letter to refute the ideas of slaveholders that slavery was sanctioned by the Bible.

Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (Philemon 15-16)

THE “PASTORAL LETTERS”

1 & 2 TIMOTHY, TITUS

The three “Pastoral Letters” are addressed to disciples and helpers of Paul, and deal with the running