Paul's Epistle to Philemon, A Commentary by Max Klein

The epistle to Philemon is one of the four prison epistles, written during Paul's imprisonment in Rome. Philemon was a slave owner, not uncommon for a businessman since there were millions of slaves in the Roman Empire at that time. Many slave owners and slaves became Christians and advanced spiritually under the teaching of the apostles and other teachers of the Word. One of Philemon's slaves was Onesimus; lazy and poorly motivated for Paul mentions that "he was formerly useless" (verse 11). He was not only useless, but also entered into crime when he stole a lot of money from his master. Then with that money, Onesimus made the long journey from Asia Minor to Rome where he probably squandered it on high living and licentious behavior. Totally broke and desperate, he remembered what Philemon had said about his good friend Paul and so decided to contact him in prison...