Paul recognizes his apostolic authority to enforce a specific action, especially with one of his converts who owes him a debt: “you owe me your person” (19). However, Paul knows how to renounce his rights for the benefit of others (see 1 Cor 9), and he now believes that love is more potent than obedience. The runaway slave taken in by Paul is like a son to him through conversion, for he “begot him in prison” (10). As a father, Paul would have liked to keep him with him by right of spiritual fatherhood, but he gives up this right and returns the fugitive to his legal owner. With him, he says tenderly, also goes “my heart.”
Onesimus is no longer the same as he was before. Referring to the Greek meaning of his name—commonly a slave name, Onesimus means “useful, profitable”—Paul states that if the fugitive “was of no use to you before… now he will be of great benefit to you and to me” (11), because although he was once a slave, he is now returned as a brother in Christ. This brotherhood is what gives men and women their dignity and worth as human beings, making them a gift to others.
As with other similar passages in the New Testament, Paul does not attempt to eliminate slavery through social or political measures but introduces a new Christian relationship system capable of transforming all human bonds. The bond of brotherhood, which is definitive, exceeds the bond of ownership. This is the bond of love that makes Onesimus “a very dear brother to me, and even more so to you, as a man and as a Christian” (16). This was the true revolution brought about by Christ’s message, the only one capable of freeing us from all forms of slavery, both past and present. See also the comments on Galatians 3:23-4:11; Ephesians 6:1-9 and Colossians 3:18-4:1.
Using real or feigned commercial language, Paul is willing to pay for the damage caused by the runaway slave since he has benefited from his services in prison. Although strictly speaking, Philemon, as a convert of the Apostle, is more of a debtor and now has the opportunity to settle the debt.