Philemon 1:13

Philemon 1:13. Whom I would have retained with me, St. Paul inserts the pronoun emphatically: I personally would have liked to do this. And the rest of the language is also indicative of much desire: ‘I was in the mind to hold (or keep) him unto myself.' The spiritual father had become much bound unto his child in Christ, and the parting was not acceptable.

that in thy stead, for the apostle feels sure that if Philemon himself could have been near, there would have been no lack of zeal in him to do whatever might be needed for his father in the faith. And it is worth while to notice how St. Paul, without saying so, hints that his thoughts had been oft carried back to Philemon in his communion with Onesimus. What the one did the other would have done. It would be interesting to know what it was which led the slave to seek out St. Paul. That he should go to Rome is not to be wondered at. It was, as in our own day London is, the place to which all grave offenders would make their way. But it may be that on reaching the capital city, he sought out or was found by some of those Christians whom he had known in Colossæ. From them he would hear of the apostle, whose work could nowhere be done in a corner, and of whose teachings in Asia he no doubt had heard, though he had not then been moved by them. Whatever the agency through which he was guided to St. Paul, it is clear from this verse that the apostle had become much attached to his convert, and had found his service helpful in his need.

he might hare ministered onto me in the bonds of the gospel. How many wants a prisoner in St. Paul's condition would have may be conceived when it is remembered that day and night alike he was chained to the soldier who was his guard. This it is which causes the apostle to speak so often of his ‘chain.' A man thus hampered, and yet, in spite of bodily infirmities, full of zeal for the cause on behalf of which he was suffering, and through the care of all the churches, needing to send frequent lettersof counsel and advice, must have found deep consolation in the presence of an attached disciple, able and willing to do whatever work might be necessary. And we need not confine in our thoughts the services of Onesimus to mere acts of kind attention to the bodily needs of St. Paul. Slaves in that age, we know, were not unfrequently well taught, and it may be that Onesimus could help the apostle in that labour of writing which from some reason or other he clearly found painful to himself, and performed whenever possible by an amanuensis. Yet, though he here speaks of his bonds as making a servant needful for him, it is not that he is sorrowing over or ashamed of his chain. It is bondage ‘of Christ,' and so in all that he may have to bear, he is prepared to rejoice that he is counted worthy to suffer in such a cause.