Philemon

Real Love

This is one of five single-chapter books in the Bible. From one point of view, it exhibits the literary impulse in its pure form: instead of discoursing about a subject, the letter sets the issues in a concrete narrative situation. This narrative situation, moreover, is so striking and heightened as to be a fit subject for a television drama. A runaway slave has met up with Paul and been converted, and Paul sends him back to his former master, Philemon, with a letter explaining how Paul wants Philemon to handle the situation of a returned slave who is now a brother in Christ. For narrative tension, it is hard to beat this. – ESV Study Bible