<p>4:9 <em>Together with Onesimus, the faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, they shall make known to you all things that are done here</em>- As the Lord sent out the disciples in pairs, so it would seem that Tychicus and Onesimus were sent together. Onesimus was &quot;one of you&quot;, originally from Colosse and known to them. &quot;All things that are done here&quot; presumably refers to the kind of regime Paul was experiencing in prison, as well as the real state of things under Nero's terror against the Christians. Paul has to emphasize that Onesimus is faithful, because he would have been known only as the runaway slave. He is again called &quot;the beloved brother&quot; in Philemon 16. Paul would therefore have been writing the letter to Philemon at the same time as he was writing to the Colossians. As noted on Phil. 1:1, a fair case can be made that the prison epistles were all written quite close to each other, when Paul was no longer dwelling in his own hired house in Rome but was suffering the results of Nero's persecution of the Christians. In this case we note all the more his focus upon the spiritual wellbeing of others, when he was himself in such a time of crisis.</p>