Toward the end of his ministry, Paul was under house arrest in Rome for two years. What did he do for two years?  

For one thing, he wrote letters to churches he couldn't visit. We have four of those letters in the New Testament: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon.  

For another, Paul had the freedom to preach in Rome, though he was hand-cuffed to a Roman guard. One of his converts was a guy named Onesimus, a run-away slave that had belonged to a fellow believer, Philemon in Colossae. So Paul wrote a public letter to the Colossian church, and a very private letter to Philemon. One purpose was to get Onesimus back to Philemon without getting him executed, the common penalty for a run-away slave.  

We'll look at those letters and their all-too human background in more detail in the class.