for as I hear of your love and loyalty to the Lord Jesus and to all the saints,

I prefer to appeal to you on the ground of love. Well then, as Paul the old man, who now-a-days is a prisoner for Christ Jesus,

I would have liked to keep him beside me, that as your deputy he might serve me during my imprisonment for the gospel;

no longer a mere slave but something more than a slave ??a beloved brother; especially dear to me but how much more to you as a man and as a Christian!

You count me a partner? Then receive him as you would receive me,