But if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account;Onesimus was a runaway slave, who had fled to Rome, met Paul, and come to Christ. He had apparently had a complete turnaround in his attitude as a result of being saved, and become a helper to Paul in his house arrest. As a result, he was returning to Philemon, his owner, and Paul wrote a letter of appeal to him, including this key line.
Christ took on what we all owed God; in the same way, Paul is taking on what Onesimus owed Philemon. Paul did not have to do this, but chose to anyways. We don't even know if Paul had the means to pay whatever was owed, but he took the debt regardless, possibly as a means to show Philemon how much he cared about the slave.
No comments:
Post a Comment