decided to leave Colossae, writes this letter on behalf of Onesimus, who is not a runaway slave, but rather a slave who has been in some domestic trouble with his master Philemon and who has come to seek the intervention of an amicus domini (friend of the master) in the hope that he might be restored peacefully to his former status in the master’s household. Thus Onesimus would have risked traveling alone as a slave and coming to Paul, his master’s Christian mentor, so that he as amicus domini could