Handbook for Bible Students

Philemon

Key-word, “Receive” (Intercession); Key-verse, 17.-If “Ephesians is the lyric,” Philemon is “the idyl of the New Testament,” combining beauty with brevity. Onesimus was a slave who had stolen, and then run away, from Philemon. Converted, baptized, cherished by Paul, he was by him sent back to his master, whom the apostle besought to receive him no longer as a slave, but a brother, and to put to Paul’s account any wrong he had done him as master. [p. 129] HBS 44.6