Phm 1-25. Address. Thanksgiving for Philemon's Love and Faith. Intercession for Onesimus. Concluding Request and Salutations.
This Epistle affords a specimen of the highest wisdom as to the manner in which Christians ought to manage social affairs on more exalted principles.
1. prisoner of Jesus Christ—one whom Christ's cause has made a prisoner (compare "in the bonds of the Gospel," (Phm 13). He does not call himself, as in other Epistles, "Paul an apostle," as he is writing familiarly, not authoritatively.
our … fellow labourer—in building up the Church at Colosse, while we were at Ephesus. See my Introduction to Colossians.