For Love’s Sake: Onesimus, Once Useless, Now a Brother

Paul says he has enough boldness in Christ to command what is fitting, but he chooses instead to appeal “for love’s sake.” The person at the center of the request is finally named: Onesimus, whom Paul calls “my son” and says he has begotten in his bonds. Verse 11 makes a memorable wordplay. Onesimus’s name is associated with usefulness, while Paul contrasts his former state as “unprofitable” with his present usefulness to both men. Paul would gladly keep him as a helper, but he refuses to act without Philemon’s consent because the benefit must be willing rather than forced. Then comes the social shock of the letter: Paul asks that Onesimus be received “not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved…both in the flesh, and in the Lord.” The Greek doulos normally means slave, so the Roman institution must not be softened out of the passage. At the same time, the text does not explicitly say that Onesimus was a runaway thief; Paul’s later conditional wording about wrong or debt leaves the exact backstory open.