Philemon
King James Version · 1 chapters · 25 verses · New Testament
One chapter about one runaway slave
Twenty-five verses, the shortest of Paul's letters, and though it greets the church that met in Philemon's house, it turns on one private matter. Onesimus, a slave, had run away from Philemon and somehow ended up with Paul in prison, where he became a believer. Paul is sending him back, carrying this letter. He says outright that he could command Philemon but would rather ask, and asks him to receive Onesimus not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved. Then he offers to pay whatever was owed himself, in his own handwriting, and mentions that Philemon owes him rather more than that.