“Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:”
I am sending him back to you, sending my very heart — the act of sending (anapempō — to send back) returns Onesimus to his owner, but with transformed status. The phrase my very heart (ta ema splanchnoi) treats Onesimus as Paul's visceral self, his dearest possession. This emotional investment prepares Philemon for the moral claim: to receive Onesimus is to receive Paul's heart. The letter becomes a transportation of Paul's person toward reconciliation.
Church Fathers on Philemon 1:12
See how great is his prudence, how he confesses the man's faults, and thereby extinguishes his anger. I know, he says, that he was unprofitable. “But now” he will be “profitable to you and to me.” He has not said he will be useful to you, lest he should contradict it, but he has introduced his own person, that his hopes may seem worthy of credit, “But now,” he says, “profitable to you and to me.” For if he was profitable to Paul, who required so great strictness, much more…
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