Therefore, though I might be very bold in Christ to command you what is fitting, (9) yet for love’s sake I rather appeal to you – being such a one as Paul, the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ – (10) I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while in my chains, (11) who once was unprofitable to you but now is profitable to you and to me. (12) I am sending him back. You therefore receive him, that is, my own heart, (13) whom I wished to keep with me, that on your behalf he might minister to me in my chains for the gospel. (14) But without your consent I wanted to do nothing, that your good deed might not be by compulsion, as it were, but voluntary. (15) For perhaps he departed for a while for this purpose, that you might receive him forever, (16) no longer as a slave but more that a slave – a beloved brother, especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (17) If then you count me as a partner, receive him as you would me.

The letter to Philemon was written by the apostle Paul. To put this story in context, all the characters lived in an honor/shame culture and one that allowed slavery under Roman law. We have the apostle Paul, former Rabbi, zealous Jew and former Pharisee, now a prisoner in Rome for preaching the gospel. He calls himself a slave for Jesus Christ. He is writing to Philomen, wealthy businessman and a leader of the church in Colosse, in the matter of Philomen’s runaway slave, Onesimus. ( The punishment for Onesimus could be death.) Onesimus somehow met up with Paul (in chains) in Rome and was converted and endeared himself to Paul.

Certainly Paul and Philomen knew of each other. Paul felt the obligation to return Onesimus to his master was more important than keeping the slave with him. In this letter Paul appealed to Philomen to voluntarily receive his runaway slave and forgive him. AND to accept him as a brother in faith in Christ. Paul makes it clear that he has the authority to command this action but did not do so. Paul wanted Philemon’s action to be testimony to the fact that believers should want to be useful in God’s service. Personal circumstances of the believer are not to be separated from the fellowship of believers. God changes every person He saves. He changes the believer’s character. The key to loving relationships is God is transforming our hearts by faith in Christ.

I love the sense of humor Paul showed when he writes that Onesimus – his name means useful or profitable – as Philomen’s runaway slave was not “useful”. But now as a Christian he was useful to both Philomen and Paul. The fact that Paul had this letter delivered by Onesimus himself to Philomen was a big bet. And that this letter was saved and shared indicates that Philomen did what Paul asked and was a powerful example of Christian living in those ancient days. From A Grief Observed c.s.Lewis writes : “Your bid – for God or no God, for a good God or the Cosmic Sadist, for eternal life or nonentity – will not be serious if nothing much is staked in it. “And you will never discover how serious it was until the stakes are raised horribly high, until you find that you are not playing not for counters or for sixpence but for every penny you have in the world. Nothing less will shake a man – or at any rate a man like me – out of his merely verbal thinking and his merely notional beliefs.” Philemon was all in.