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New Testament Reading - Onesimus & Philemon

^8-9 Now I want to ask a favor of you. I could demand it of you in the name of Christ because it is the right thing for you to do, but I love you and prefer just to ask you — I, Paul, an old man now, here in jail for the sake of Jesus Christ. ¹⁰ My plea is that you show kindness to my child Onesimus, whom I won to the Lord while here in my chains. ¹¹Onesimus (whose name means “Useful”) hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is going to be of real use to both of us. ¹²I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart.

¹³ I really wanted to keep him here with me while I am in these chains for preaching the Good News, and you would have been helping me through him, ¹⁴but I didn’t want to do it without your consent. I didn’t want you to be kind because you had to but because you wanted to. ¹⁵Perhaps you could think of it this way: that he ran away from you for a little while so that now he can be yours forever, ¹⁶no longer only a slave, but something much better—a beloved brother, especially to me. Now he will mean much more to you too, because he is not only a servant but also your brother in Christ.