Philemon 1:11

Philemon 1:11. Which in time past was to thee unprofitable. Alluding not only to the loss which Philemon had suffered by his slave absconding, but also to the bad service which a disaffected slave, ready to run away as soon as an opportunity offered, would have rendered to his master for a long time before. The word for ‘unprofitable' is only a synonym of that which would be derived from Onesimus, so that this verse is rather an allusion to the meaning of the name, than a play upon words, though of the latter, in respect of names, the Jews were very fond. See on Philemon 1:20.

but now profitable to thee and to me. The returning runaway would come back in the spirit which St. Paul inculcates elsewhere, teaching that Christian slaves should count their own masters worthy of all honour (1 Timothy 6:1). The world, even the Christian world, was not advanced far enough to see that slavery was utterly repugnant to the spirit of Christianity. St. Paul to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 7:21) only exhorts to contentment under the slave's condition, and he does not meditate that Philemon should do more for Onesimus than treat him with the kindness of a brother in the faith. Men were a long while in learning the lesson against slavery, even good men finding no wrong in it, provided slaves were well cared for. So to Philemon Onesimus is to be profitable in a temporal sense; the profit to St. Paul was that which elsewhere (Romans 1:13) he calls ‘fruit,' the result of his missionary labours, which he considered the crown, and glory, and joy of his life.