Philemon 1:13 Whom I would have retained with me, that in your stead he might have ministered to me in the bonds of the gospel: There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy of these words, so fall of happy confidence in the friend's disposition, that they could not but evoke the love to which they trusted so completely. Nor need I do more than point their force for the purpose of the whole letter, the procuring a cordial reception for the returning fugitive. So dear had he become, that Paul would like to have kept him. He goes back with a kind of halo round him, now that he is not only a good-for-nothing runaway, but Paul's friend, and so much prized by him. It would be impossible to do anything but welcome him, bringing such credentials; and yet all this is done with scarcely a word of direct praise, which might have provoked contradiction. One does not know whether the confidence in Onesimus or in Philemon is the dominant note in the harmony, in the preceding clause, he was spoken of as, in some sense, part of the apostle's very self. In this he is regarded as, in some sense, part of Philemon. So he is a link between them. Paul would have taken his service as if it had been his master's. Can the master fail to take him as if he were Paul? (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: |
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