Philemon About this letter - Plain English Version(PEV)

About this letterPaul wrote this letter to Philemon about 2,000 years ago, more than 20 years after Jesus went back to heaven, and it is now in the Holy Bible.After Jesus went back to heaven, God sent Paul to lots of countries to tell people about Jesus. Philemon was in one of those countries. He heard what Paul said, and he believed in Jesus. After that, Paul went to other places to tell more people about Jesus.At that time, the Roman people were the bosses over all the countries where Paul went. They didn’t like Paul telling people about Jesus, so they grabbed him and put him in jail. Paul wrote this letter while he was in jail.In those days there were some people that had to work for no pay. They were like prisoners, but they were not in jail. They lived with the boss they worked for, and they were not allowed to go away from them. They were called slaves. You see, if somebody borrowed money, and if they didn’t pay it back, they had to be a slave of the person they borrowed that money from. Or if the Roman soldiers caught some of their enemies, they might force them to be slaves.Onesimus was a slave of Philemon, but one day Onesimus left him and ran away. After that, Onesimus heard Paul talk about Jesus, and he believed in Jesus. Then Paul told him, “You have to go back to your boss, Philemon.” Philemon was a Christian too. So Paul wrote this letter for Onesimus to take with him, to give to Philemon.Paul wrote this letter to Philemon, but we can learn from what Paul said to him.Chapter