Philemon 1:19

Philemon 1:19. I Paul write it with mine own hand. Up to this point, the apostle had probably used his amanuensis; but that the transaction may be formal and secure, he attaches his own signature to what has been written, and so transforms the Epistle into a bond.

I will repay it. It is no mere ofter of himself as security for the slave's future good conduct, and that in time he shall, by his working, clear off the loss he has caused: St. Paul would at once by his own payment set Onesimus free from such debt.

that I may not say to thee how thou owest unto me even thine own self besides. He might have urged the larger debt which Philemon owed to him for his conversion to the faith of Christ, should be held to far outbalance the loss inflicted by Onesimus. But this he will not press, though by a delicate reference to it, he gives force to the appeal which he is making. On St. Paul's connection with the Colossian church see the Introduction. It appears probable that Philemon's conversion was wrought by the apostle's preaching at Ephesus, for St. Paul seems up to this time not to have been in Colossæ. And he speaks to Philemon of his ‘own self,' that he may remind him how paltry the consideration of money gain or loss must be in comparison of the salvation of that which alone of man is to know immortality.