v. 8 Paul's confidence (Gr. parresia) was his assurance that if he commanded Philemon to do as he requested because Paul was an apostle, Philemon would do it.16Nevertheless he declined to appeal on that basis. Rather he appealed on the basis of love, the love of Christ that bound all the parties involved in this situation together.
"If a slave ran away, the master would register the name and description with the officials, and the slave would be on the wanted' list. Any free citizen who found a runaway slave could assume custody and even intercede with the owner. The slave was not automatically returned to the owner, nor was he automatically sentenced to death. While it is true that some masters were cruel (one man threw his slave into a pool of man-eating fish!), many of them were reasonable and humane. After all, a slave was an expensive and useful piece of personal property, and it would cost the owner to lose him."17
v. 9 Paul perhaps referred to his aged condition to remind Philemon of the affliction he had undergone for the gospel that may have aged him prematurely.18At this time Paul would have been about 55 years old which in his day was older than it is in ours because life expectancies were shorter then. He appealed as a father for his son in the faith. His reference to his present imprisonment also would have encouraged Philemon to accede to his appeal.
". . . Paul knew Philemon as modern commentators cannot and no doubt had a good idea of how Philemon was likely to react to such sentiments being read in public in the church of which he was a member as well as leader."19
vv. 10-11 "Onesimus"means "useful."Paul mentioned his name here (v. 10) for the first time having prepared Philemon for the unpleasant memories associated with his formerly unfaithful servant by the foregoing comments. He called Onesimus his child. The figurative parent-child relationship was common in both Judaism and the pagan mystery religions as an illustration of the teacher-pupil relationship or the leader-convert relationship.20
"In addition to the tender love that is contained in this expression there lies in it the thought of immaturity: Onesimus is only a child as yet and in this condition needs much tender care lest his young spiritual life suffer or die."21
"This is the one-time self-righteous Pharisee, the heir of Jewish exclusiveness, and he is speaking of a Gentile, and a Gentile slave at that, from the very dregs of Roman society--yet he can refer to him as a son. So his statement (Col. iii. 11) that there is neither Greek nor Jew . . . bond or free' [Gal. 3:28] is no empty formula but reflects the attitude of heart to which he himself had been brought by God."22
Paul had led Onesimus to Christ while Paul was in confinement. The apostle sweetened the unpleasantness that the mention of Onesimus' name would have produced by making a pun. "Useful"had been "useless"to Philemon, but now he was living up to his name. He had proved useful to Paul and he could be useful to Philemon. There was no need for Paul to identify exactly what sin Onesimus had committed against Philemon. Instead of magnifying it he minimized it (cf. 1 Pet. 4:8).
"Achrestos["useless"] designates Onesimus with reference to his flight and the time before his conversion. Apparently he was useless even before he ran away. He was a Phrygian slave and as such had confirmed the popular estimate of his class and nation by his own conduct'23since Phrygian slaves were proverbial for being unreliable and unfaithful."24
"(The name Philemonmeans affectionate' or one who is kind.' If the slave was expected to live up to his name, then what about the master?)"25
