Here is Paul’s letter to Philemon in the New Eclectic Version. And here is one of my favorite parts of the letter, in which the wiley apostle, without forcing Philemon’s will, piles on reason after reason to extend the love that he (Paul) knew was already in his heart.

A Plea for Onesimus

Therefore, though I have great liberty in Christ to order you to do the proper thing, yet for love’s sake I choose instead to appeal to you, being the kind of man people refer to as “Paul, the aged”, and now as a prisoner of Jesus Christ as well. I appeal to you, then, concerning my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten while yet in my chains. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is useful both to you and to me. I am sending him—which is to say my very heart—back to you in person. I wanted to keep him here with me, so that on your behalf he might minister to me during my imprisonment for the cause of the gospel; but I was unwilling to do anything without your knowledge or consent, so that your good deed might not seem to be by compulsion, but rather by your own free will. For perhaps for a little while he was separated from you for this reason, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave, but as more than a slave: as a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord!