“. . . I preferred to do nothing without your consent in order that your goodness might not be by compulsion but of your own accord. For this perhaps is why he was parted from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a bondservant but more than a bondservant, as a beloved brother—especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.” (Philemon 14-16)
Paul wrote a deeply personal letter from prison to Philemon, a man he had led to the Lord. He wrote about his runaway slave Onesimus, appealing to him on the basis of their deep relationship to accept him into Christian fellowship and back into the household, to be restored and forgiven. Paul pointed out to Philemon that despite their difference in social class, both master and slave were brothers and partners for both were followers of Jesus. Now the time had come to reconcile these brothers.
We may object to what Paul did because slavery in all its forms is immoral and sinful. Yet in Paul’s day it was part of the social system, one which no New Testament writer ever opposed or called to be abolished. This is because those in Christ, whether slave or free are brothers, no longer bound by the control of the social system that had determined their strictly separate relationships. In Christ both the slave and the freeman are free yet both are bound as servants to serve Him and His kingdom and each other.
In our modern world we should bear this relationship in mind when dealing with other believers and live it out in our lives. Those who, by faith, are members of the Kingdom of God, are all bound by the law of love, obligated to treat each other as equals, to serve one another in love and with compassion regardless of social status, race, or ethnicity. There are no celebrity saints, not elite or lower class in the Kingdom of God.
Many in our culture these days seek to create and enforce equality through various means: legislation, education, the media, virtue shaming, intimidation, and violence. All human methods are all doomed to fail. The Kingdom of God in Christ Jesus has already provided and implemented the solution to all the hatred, racism and inequality in the world. By faith in Christ Jesus all are made brethren.