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The story of Paul, Philemon and Onesimus.
We know about this story because of a letter that St. Paul wrote to Philemon.
Onesimus was a slave and he belonged to Philemon. Nowadays, people do not think that it is right to own slaves but in the time of St. Paul this was quite usual. Some people became slaves when they ran out of money and could not buy food to keep themselves alive. If they became slaves they were given food to eat and they had shelter but they had to do all the work that they were told and they were not paid any money for doing it.
Onesimus would not work very hard. He must have been very unhappy as a slave because one day he ran away. This was a very dangerous thing to do because if he had been caught he might have been put to death.
Now at this time, Paul was in prison. He had not done anything wrong but he would not stop preaching and telling people about Jesus so his enemies caught him and put him in prison.
We do not know how Onesimus first met Paul. Perhaps Paul's friends met Onesimus and took him to visit Paul in prison. Paul talked to Onesimus and told him about Jesus. Onesimus became a Christian and also a friend of Paul. He did everything he could to help Paul.
Onesimus began to feel that he had done wrong to run away from Philemon but he was frightened to go back. He might be punished or even put to death. Paul said that he knew Philemon and said he would write to him about this.
Paul wrote a lot of letters. We find them in the New Testament of the Bible. Among them is his letter to Philemon.
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