Quotes About Onesimus

But more important here is the rhetorical point that they make: Philemon is to respond to Paul because he, Paul, and Onesimus are all "in the Lord/Christ."1365 The fellowship that is created among those who have faith in Christ (v. 6) brings with it obligations to one another.

Paul is not only urging and requesting but actually embodying what he elsewhere calls 'the ministry of reconciliation'. God was in the Messiah, reconciling the world to himself, he says in 2 Corinthians 5.19; now, we dare to say, God was in Paul reconciling Onesimus and Philemon.

I appeal to you for my child Onesimus, whose father I became while I was in chains.