Philemon

Philemon (meaning: who kisses) was a wealthy Christian at Colossae to whom Paul addressed the shortest of his canonical letters. He was a convert of Paul's (possibly from Paul's Ephesian ministry), a host of the church that met in his house, and a slave owner whose runaway slave Onesimus had come to Paul in Rome, been converted, and was being sent back with the letter. Paul appeals to Philemon to receive Onesimus "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother" — one of the New Testament's most significant statements about the transformation of social relationships within the household of faith.