In my previous post about reference, I said that I’d return to the topic to give an example of the importance of reference analysis for biblical interpretation. I focus here on personal reference chains. Eggins (*Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics*, 38) notes that personal reference chain analysis can help us know who are the major human participants in a text.

It’s nearly universally acknowledged that Paul’s letter to Philemon is a letter of recommendation on behalf of Onesimus. What is often not *explicitly* acknowledged is that the letter is really more about the relationship between Paul and Philemon. A reference chain analysis makes this crystal clear. Here are the analyses:

Clearly Philemon and Paul are the two dominant human participants in the letter. Ironically, Onesimus, the one for whom the recommendation was written, is a rather minor participant in the letter.