Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Philemon 1:12

Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:

12. whom I have sent again ] Lit., “ I did send ” ; the “epistolary aorist,” as in Col 4:8, where see note. How much lies behind these simple words; what unselfish jealousy for duty on St Paul’s part, and what courage of conscience and faith on that of Onesimus! By law, his offended master might treat him exactly as he pleased, for life or death. See Introd., ch. 4, and Appendix M.

“No prospect of usefulness should induce ministers to allow their converts to neglect relative obligations, or to fail of obedience to their superiors. One great evidence of true repentance consists in returning to the practice of those duties which had been neglected” (Scott).

receive ] Welcome; the same word as that in Rom 14:1; Rom 14:3; Rom 15:7; and below, Phm 1:17.

But there is strong evidence for the omission of this word, and (somewhat less strong) for the omission of “ thou therefore.” This would leave, him, that is &c., as the true reading. If so, this clause should be linked to that before it; Whom I have sent back him, that is, &c. a bold but pathetic stroke of expression. Such a connexion seems better than that adopted by Lightfoot, who begins a new sentence with “ him,” and seeks the verb in Phm 1:17.

mine own bowels ] Mine own heart; see on Phm 1:7. The Greek might, by usage, refer to Onesimus as St Paul’s son; as if to say, “bone of my bone.” But, as Lightfoot points out, this would be unlike St Paul’s use of the word everywhere else; with him, it always indicates the emotions. Cor, corculum (“ sweetheart ”), are somewhat similarly used in Latin, as words of personal fondness.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Whom I have sent again – That is, to Philemon. This was, doubtless, at his own request, for:

(1) There is not the slightest evidence that he compelled him, or even urged him to go. The language is just such as would have been used on the supposition either that he requested him to go and bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go, and that Paul sent him agreeably to his request; compare Phi 2:25. Yet I suppose it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother, and companion in labor, etc.; Col 4:7-8. All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord: whom I have sent unto you for the same purpose, that he might know your estate, etc. But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against their own will – nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus was; see the introduction, Section 2. See (4) Below.

(2) Paul had no power to send Onesimus back to his master unless he chose to go. He had no civil authority; he had no guard to accompany him; he could entrust him to no sheriff to convey him from place to place, and he had no means of controlling him, if he chose to go to any other place than Colosse. He could indeed have sent him away from himself; he could have told him to go to Colossae, but his power ended there. Onesimus then could have gone where he pleased. But there is no evidence that Paul even told him to go to Colossae against his own inclination, or that he would have sent him away at all unless he had himself requested it.

(3) There may have been many reasons why Onesimus desired to return to Colosse, and no one can prove that he did not express that desire to Paul, and that his sending him was not in consequence of such a request. He may have had friends and relatives there; or, being now converted, be may have been sensible that he had wronged his former master, and that he ought to return and repair the wrong; or he may have been poor, and a stranger in Rome, and may have been greatly disappointed in what he had expected to find there when he left Philemon, and may have desired to return to the comparative comforts of his former condition.

(4) It may be added, therefore,

(a) that this passage should not be adduced to prove that we ought to send back runaway slaves to their former masters against their own consent; or to justify the laws which require magistrates to do it; or to show that they who have escaped should be arrested and forcibly detained; or to justify any sort of influence over a runaway slave to induce him to return to his former master. There is not the least evidence that any of these things occurred in the case before us, and if this instance is ever appealed to, it should be to justify what Paul did – and nothing else.

(b) The passage shows that it is right to aid a servant of any kind to return to his master, if he desires it. It is right to give him a letter, and to plead earnestly for his favorable reception if he has in any way wronged his master – for Paul did this. On the same principle it would be right to give him pecuniary assistance to enable him to return – for there may be cases where one who has fled from servitude might wish to return. There may be instances where one has had a kind master, with whom he would feel that on the whole he could be more happy than in his present circumstances. Such cases, however, are exceedingly rare. Or there may be instances where one may have relatives that are in the neighborhood or in the family of his former master, and the desire to be with them may be so strong that on the whole he would choose to be a servant as he was before, rather than to remain as he is now. In all such cases it is right to render aid – for the example of the apostle Paul goes to sustain this. But it goes no further. So far as appears, he neither advised Onesimus to return, nor did he compel him; nor did he say one word to influence him to do it; – nor did he mean or expect that he would be a slave when he should have been received again by his master; see the notes at Phm 1:16.

Thou, therefore, receive him, that is, mine own bowels – There is great delicacy also in this expression. If he had merely said receive him, Philemon might have thought only of him as he formerly was. Paul, therefore, adds, that is, mine own bowels – one whom I so tenderly love that he seems to carry my heart with him wherever he goes. – Doddridge.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Phm 1:12

Whom I have sent again

Christianity and slavery

Not many years ago the conscience of England was stirred because the Government of the day sent out a circular instructing captains of men-of-war, on the decks of which fugitive slaves sought asylum, to restore them to their owners.

Here an apostle does the same thing–seems to side with the oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from the sole refuge left him, the horns of the very altars. More extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily going back, travelling all the weary way from Rome to Colosse in order to put his neck once more beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from Christian motives, and thought they were doing a piece of plain Christian duty. Then does Christianity sanction slavery? Certainly not; its principles cut it up by the roots. Historically it is true that as Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But the New Testament never directly condemns it, and by regulating the conduct of Christian masters, and recognising the obligations of Christian slaves, seems to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the sighing of the captives. This attitude was probably not a piece of policy or a matter of calculated wisdom on the part of the apostle. He no doubt saw that the gospel brought a great unity in which all distinctions were merged, and rejoiced in thinking that in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free; but whether he expected the distinction ever to disappear from actual life is less certain. The attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven and lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles. First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, and only afterwards, and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not ready for removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the root will certainly be left, and will grow again. The only true way is by slow degrees to create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off the evil. There will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once done will be done forever. So has it been with slavery; so will it be with war, and intemperance, and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilisation. Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness of the moral perceptions of nineteenth-century Christians in regard to matters of Christian duty which, hidden from us, are sun clear to them, with the same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which we look back to Jamaica planters or South Carolina rice growers who defended slavery as a missionary institution, and saw no contradiction between their religion and their practice. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Thou therefore receive him—

Forgiveness

I. The duty of forgiveness.

1. An imperative gospel demand (Mat 6:15; Mat 18:21-22; Mar 11:25; Luk 6:36; Luk 17:4; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13; Jam 2:13). To fail in this is to seek judgment for ourselves.

2. Culture essential to its discharge. This virtue results from experience, trial, exercise. More natural for men to consider themselves ingenious as they are able to detect an injury, and manly as they promptly and energetically resent it. The vengeful spirit among the earliest revelations of childhood. A Child hurts himself in his efforts to walk; incipient revenge on table or chair. Parents often show how little they apprehend the virtue of forgiveness. The spirit of retaliation lives long within us. Revenge is sweet has become a hideous proverb. Louis XII said: Nothing smells so sweet as the dead body of an enemy. We are supposed to have got beyond that. Yet what is the measure of grace within us?

3. Christian faith is equal to the demand. Intimate fellowship with Christ will transform by the renewing of the mind. Learn of Me, says Jesus; and He that doeth His will shall know (Col 3:12-16).

II. The prayer for forgiveness. A model for imitation, whether God or man be approached. Contains–

1. Humble confession. Apostle, for Onesimus, assumes becoming attitude of an offender. But deals more tenderly with the offence than the guilty one himself could do. Apostle shows the part of the wrong-doer as well as of the wronged. On the one hand acknowledgment, which is a manly because a severe duty, as first steps towards moral elevation; on the other pardon, complete and absolute, as proof of sympathy with Christ, and in imitation of His example. Intention of Epistle missed if both obligations be not recognised. Only by confession can it be known that pardon is desired or deserved. Honest avowal to one who knows the Lord will–

(1) Insure success of suit. The spirit that would reprove will be disarmed.

(2) Restrain from future error. Memory of struggle to tell of sin and shame will strengthen in seasons of weakness and peril.

2. Implicit expectation (Phm 1:21). The whole spirit of the gospel warrants the expectation that wrong frankly confessed will, by him who is subject to the gospel, be freely forgiven. Vindictiveness alien to kingdom of Christ, as darkness to light. Christianity Gods own protest against revenge.

III. The law of forgiveness. The special instance of generous love solicited by apostle was claimed–

1. On the ground of friendship. A true fellowship gives right of mediation.

2. On the stronger ground of Christian relationship. Friendship had sprung from highest and holiest source, and was thereby intensified and glorified. Still more, Paul was the agent in Philemons salvation.

3. On the strongest ground of Christs will. In the Lord, In Christ Jesus, appear throughout.

IV. The policy of forgiveness.

1. Each needs it himself. Who is he that doeth good, and sinneth not? Our necessity of Divine forbearance prohibits resentment.

2. Our wrong is against God. Customary to measure guilt by the rank of the person injured. Consequences of insolence and wrong not so serious when offered to a private person as when committed against a magistrate. Penalty greater still when the sin is against king. Act may be the same, but punishment gauged by dignity of offended person. How great the grace we claim when we pray forgive!

3. Aggravations of sin increase our need. Careful in reference to men, while unrestrained before God, whom we cannot see. These we fear, Him despise! His love despised, His Word, Son, Spirit. As, therefore, forgiveness is desired, forgive. (A. W. Johnson.)

The sinners Substitute

I. Generous conduct of the apostle–he pleads for a fugitive.

II. Interesting parallel to this example–our salvation by Christ.

III. Practical remarks.

1. How abundant is the comfort against sin provided for believers in Christ.

2. How much it concerns every soul to be a partaker of Christs mercy.

3. How binding is the example of Paul, and the greater example of Christ, upon the Church, to welcome penitents of every class. (Biblical Museum.)

Forgiveness–connection between forgiveness and readiness to forgive

1. Forgiveness makes us ready to forgive.

2. Readiness to forgive inspires us with courage to seek forgiveness.

3. The spirit of forgiveness ever joins the two more closely together. (J. P. Lange.)

He who cannot forgive man cannot find forgiveness with God

1. Because he will not believe in forgiving love.

2. Because he will not act upon its directions. (J. P. Lange.)

In what sense is it true that he who forgives shall be forgiven?

1. His forgiving is not the ground, but the evidence of his forgiveness.

2. His forgiving is an evidence that the forgiveness of God preserves him.

3. His forgiving shows the truth of his testimony, that there is forgiveness. (J. P. Lange.)

The duty of reconciliation

There must be a reconciliation between Christians: all offences must be buried (Col 3:12).

1. God offers reconciliation to us; and shall we be so hard-hearted as not to be reconciled one to another?

2. All we do is abominable in the sight of God without it (Mat 5:23-24). God should be first served, yet He will have His own service to stay till thou be reconciled to thy brother.

3. We can have no assurance of our reconciliation to God without it (Mat 18:35).

4. We have no certainty of our lives. This night may our souls be taken from us. Jovinian the emperor supped plentifully, and went to bed merrily, yet was taken up dead in the morning; and if death take us before we take another by the hand, as a token of hearty reconciliation, what shall become of us? (Eph 4:26). Johannes Eleemosynarius, Archbishop of Alexandria, being angry in the day with Nicetus, a senator, towards night sends this message to him: My honourable brother, the sun is setting; let there be a setting of our anger, too. If we do it not within the compass of a day and night, yet let us do it within the compass of our lives; let not our anger be like the fire of the temple, that went not out day nor night. Let our anger be the sting of a bee, that is soon gone; not the sting of a serpent, that tarries long, and sometimes proves fatal. (W. Jones, D. D.)

Forgiveness

Count Enzenberg, who was formerly Resident Minister of Hesse in Paris, has in his album of autographs three entries on the subject of forgiveness. M. Guizot has written: In the course of my long life I have learnt two wise rules: the first to forgive much, the second never to forget. M. Thiers follows this with: A little of forgetfulness would not injure the sincerity of the forgiveness. Below these Prince Bismarck penned the striking words: I have learnt in my life to forget much, and to make myself much forgiven.

Forgiveness of others

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven. (Lord Herbert.)

Reconciliation of brothers

The reconciliation of two brothers, gentlemen of position in Liverpool, was effected by the late Rev. Dr. McNeile as follows:–Although, on account of an unhappy feud which was publicly known, they scarcely recognised each other, yet they both attended Dr. McNeiles church. He therefore preached on one Communion Sunday on the duty of brotherly reconciliation, taking his text from Mat 5:23-24. The blessed effect upon the alienated brothers was simultaneous. They remained as if by consent to communicate, and as they advanced from their respective pews towards the Communion table the pastor motioned them into juxtaposition at the rails, and as they knelt side by side he, in silent but expressive action, joined their hands together in the mutual grasp of restored fraternal affection, continuing till they sealed their reconciliation over the memorials of their Lords dying love. Their widowed mother rejoiced as only a fond Christian mother could over the reunion of her children.

Mine own bowels—

Pauls affection for Onesimus

Of course mine own bowels is simply the Hebrew way of saying mine own heart. We think the one phrase graceful and sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did not think so, and it might be difficult to say why he should. It is a mere question of difference in localising certain emotions. Onesimus was a piece of Pauls very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable slave had wound himself round his affections, and become so dear that to part with him was like cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some of the virtues, which the servile condition helps to develop in undue proportion, such as docility, light heartedness, serviceableness, had made him a soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that would be with one who loved Paul as well as Philemon did! (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

Christian love for converts

We learn from hence that the love which Christians ought to bear to all the saints, especially to those whom they have been the means to convert, ought to be entire, hearty, earnest, most faithful, and most fervent. It is our duty to love all men, more especially the saints, but most especially such as have been gained to the faith by us. The reasons that may be rendered to uphold this doctrine are many and infallible.

1. For, first, there is great labour employed, long time spent, many means used, and continual care bestowed to convert a soul to God. It is no idle work; it is not brought to pass without much ado.

2. Secondly, by testifying of our love and showing forth the fruits thereof we gather great assurance that we are of the company of the faithful, of the communion of saints, and of the society of them that belong to the truth, when we love unfeignedly those that are of the truth.

3. Lastly, it is the sum of the whole law, and a token and testimony that we make conscience to walk in the ways and commandments of God.

Uses:

1. This, then, being a virtue so necessary that everyone which belongeth to the Lord Jesus Christ must yield their obedience, even to love the brethren, and show himself a true Christian by showing charity to his neighbour, let us consider the nature and properties of this love, that we may have right and true use of this doctrine.

(1) First, therefore, let us know what brotherly love is. It is a work of Gods Spirit, whereby a man is moved to affect his brother for Gods sake, and to show forth the fruits of this affection.

(2) Secondly, we are to consider the property of this love, how it is to be performed; for, as we have seen the parties who are to be loved, even all, so we must mark the manner how they are to be loved–that is, fervently and earnestly.

(3) Thirdly, we must know the form and manner how we are to love our brethren; to wit, even as ourselves.

2. Seeing this is the love that must be found in us towards the saints, it serveth to meet with many enormities, and to reprove many sins that reign in the world, and are as the forerunners of the full and final ruin thereof.

(1) Our love to others is a cold love; frozen, without heat; dead, without life; barren, without fruit; such as our Saviour speaketh of in the gospel: Because iniquity shall be increased, the love of many shall be cold. But our love is hot toward ourselves; we have abundance of self-love, which overfloweth in us, and overcometh true love. This is almost, or for the most part the only love that remaineth in the world in these days, which is the corruption, nay, the bane and poison of true love.

(2) As we see self-love checked and controlled, so they are condemned that place brotherly love in fair words and gentle speeches (and yet many fail in these, and cannot afford them, as if every word of the mouth were worth gold), whereas in such is no sound religion, but a vizor only of holiness. True love must be shown in the fruits, in sustaining, helping, pitying, and relieving those that crave our release and are in necessity.

(3) It reproveth such as give themselves to fraud and deceit, to cruelty and oppression, to subtlety and circumventing their brethren, to lying and using false weights and measures; for if this should be the rule of our love, that it ought to be fervent, we should examine our own hearts whether we would have another man to deceive and oppress us by forgery and falsehood.

3. Seeing all are to be loved, but especially such as have been converted by us, it teacheth us to further their salvation that have been brought into the way by us, and never to forsake them until we have brought them to their journeys end; for what a vain thing were it to find a man wandering out of his way and going astray from the right path, and when we have brought him back to leave him without further direction? or what an unnatural part were it for a mother to bring forth her child into the world and then to take no more care of it, neither to wash it in water nor to wrap it in swaddling clothes, nor to have any compassion upon it, but to cast it out into the open field. (W. Attersoll.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 12. Whom I have sent again] The Christian religion never cancels any civil relations; a slave, on being converted, and becoming a free man of Christ, has no right to claim, on that ground, emancipation from the service of his master. Justice, therefore, required St. Paul to send back Onesimus to his master, and conscience obliged Onesimus to agree in the propriety of the measure; but love to the servant induced the apostle to write this conciliating letter to the master.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Whom I have sent again; he comes not of his own head, but upon my persuasion, and upon my errand.

Thou therefore receive him; I therefore beseech thee to receive him kindly, and entertain him in thy house.

That is, mine own bowels; whom I love as I love my own soul; thou canst not therefore be unkind to him, but it will reflect upon me.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

mineown bowels as dear to me as my own heart [Alford]. Compare Phm1:17,as myself. The object of my most intense affection as that of aparent for a child.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Whom I have sent again,…. From Rome to Colosse, or to Philemon, wherever he was, along with this epistle:

thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels; meaning his son, who, in a spiritual sense, came out of his bowels, to whom he stood in the relation of a spiritual father; so the Syriac version renders it, as my son, so receive him; see Ge 15:4 and for whom he had a most strong affection, and tender regard; his bowels yearned for him, and he suggests by this expression, that should he reject him, it would give him the utmost pain and uneasiness; and he should be obliged to cry out as the Prophet Jeremy did, “my bowels, my bowels, I am pained at the very heart”; Jer 4:19 wherefore he entreats him to receive him again into his house and family, into his service, and into his heart and affections, where the apostle had received him.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

I have sent back (). Epistolary aorist. As it will look when Onesimus arrives.

In his own person (). “Himself,” intensive pronoun with (whom).

My very heart ( ). As in verse 7. He almost loves Onesimus as his own son.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

I have sent again [] . Rev., sent back. The epistolary aorist, see on 1Pe 5:12. Our idiom would be I send back. That Onesimus accompanied the letter appears from Col 4:7 – 9. Thou therefore receive. Omit, and render aujton him as Rev., in his own person; his very self.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “Whom I have sent again” (on anepempsa soi) Whom I have sent back to you.” The term “sent” (Gk. pempso) indicates a sending by “request,” not by I. commissioned authority” as indicated by the Greek term “stello.” Only the church has the commissioned authority to send one to preach or do divine service in the Lord.

2! “Thou therefore receive him” (auton) “Receive him. The brutal beating that a run away slave usually faced upon his return to his master was a thing Paul would have Onesimus escape from Philemon.

3) “That is mine own bowels” (tout’ estin ta ema splagchna) “This ne is of my own bowels or affections.” Onesimus, once an’ enemy to Christ, rebellious, stubborn, obstinate, and useless, had in conversion been changed to a new creature who had affections for Christ of the same nature that PauI had, 2Co 5:17; Rom 9:1-3; Rom 10:1-4.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

12. Receive him, that is, my bowels. Nothing could have been more powerful for assuaging the wrath of Philemon; for if he had refused to forgive his slave, he would thus have used cruelty against “the bowels” of Paul. This is remarkable kindness displayed by Paul, that he did not hesitate to receive, as it were into his bowels, a contemptible slave, and thief, and runaway, so as to defend him from the indignation of his master. And, indeed, if the conversion of a man to God were estimated by us, at its proper value, we too would embrace, in the same manner, those who should give evidence that they had truly and sincerely repented.

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

Phm. 1:12. Whom I have sent again.There were policethe fugitivariiwhose duty it was to track out runaway slaves: love succeeds better.

Phm. 1:13. I would have retained.I could have wished I might keep him. Paul was not a man to take a liberty with a friend. In thy stead.It was not with Philemons consent that Onesimus was in Rome; but if he might be his proxy, St. Paul knew that would be the most likely way to have retained the runaway for himself.

Phm. 1:14. That thy benefit.Lit. thy good. There are spontaneous benefactions, and others that are given reluctantly, but without a tell-tale face.

Phm. 1:15. Perhaps he therefore departed.He does not say, For this cause he fled, but For this cause he was parted; for he would appease Philemon by a more euphemistic phrase (Chrysostom). That thou shouldest receive him for ever.Not the design of Onesimus, but theres a Divinity that shapes our ends. Paul sees the design in the event which he reckons upon securely.

Phm. 1:16. Not now as a servant.The apostle utters no syllable of emancipation, though we can almost think he is playing round the word.

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Phm. 1:12-16

The Christian Teacher and the Slave.

I. The Christian teacher acknowledges the civil rights of the slave-owner.Whom I have sent again (Phm. 1:12). Paul did not propose to keep Onesimus, nor did he ask for his liberation from slavery, unless the words in Phm. 1:21Knowing that thou wilt also do more than I saymay be so construed. Even in these words there is no definite request for the manumission of the slave, but only a delicately expressed hint. Nor did Onesimus object, but seemed eager to go back to the master he had wronged. The time had not then come, as it did come, for the Christian teacher to boldly attack the inhuman system of slavery, which was so deeply and widely interwoven with the social life of that day. The law sanctioned the system: the apostle respected the law.

II. He identifies himself with the condition of the slave, and recognises the value of his services in the gospel.Receive him, that is, mine own bowels [my own heart] he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel (Phm. 1:12-13). Onesimus had so endeared himself to Paul that he regarded him as a part of himself, and had found his services so helpful that, if he had harboured the thought, he would fain have retained him. He was sure Philemon would have sanctioned such an arrangement; but justice demanded that he should be returned to his master, who could not but receive kindly the slave of whom his friend Paul spoke so highly, and with whom he so thoroughly identified himself. We are all Christs Onesimuses, and He out of His pure love makes Himself one with us and us one with Him.

III. He hesitates to claim what he believes the slaves master would have cheerfully rendered (Phm. 1:14).Paul might have kept Onesimus, and could easily have gained the consent of Philemon to do so; but with that fine delicacy of feeling that always distinguishes the true Christian gentleman, he declined to force an act of kindness which would lose all its grace and value if not spontaneous. The principle underlying these words is, that where the bond of love is, compulsion takes the sweetness and goodness out of even sweet and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. That freedom Christianity honours and respects. So in reference to the offer of gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them, but appealed to, and can turn deaf ears to the pleading voice, Why will ye die? For nothing is good but the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing bad but its aversion therefrom (Maclaren).

IV. He discerns the Divine purpose in a personal incident of slave life (Phm. 1:15-16).Onesimus escapade, and Philemons loss of his services for a time, led to the slaves conversion, and his return to his master with heightened qualifications for service, and in a new spiritual relationshipabove a slave, a brother beloved. So Gods purpose of mercy works through all the ways which our follies have made crooked. The history of every conversion is full of suggestive incidents that illustrate the gracious overruling of our waywardness and transgressions.

Lessons.

1. The minister of the gospel has a special love for his converts.

2. Christianity teaches us to respect the rights of others.

3. The saving power of God is realised in the most unlikely circumstances.

GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES

Phm. 1:12-14. Restitution

I. An undeniable Christian duty (Phm. 1:12).

II. Resists all temptations not to do what is just and right (Phm. 1:13).

III. Does not bargain for conditions (Phm. 1:14).

IV. Leaves the wronged one free to forgive the wrong done and for which restitution is offered.

Phm. 1:15-16. Providence in Individual Life

I. Works out its plans in the midst of sin and suffering.

II. Accomplishes its purpose in the most unexpected manner and by the unlikeliest methods (Phm. 1:15).

III. Is always beneficent in its aims and results (Phm. 1:15-16).

IV. Exalts the individual into the highest spiritual relationship (Phm. 1:16).

V. Brings loving hearts into closer union with each other (Phm. 1:16).

Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

12. whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my very heart:

a.

This sentence is choppy and ragged in wording. It evidently was written under strong emotion. The words blurted forth without regard to smooth poetic flow. A literal Greek rendering is: Whom I sent to you, him, that is my own heart.

Even though it is in the King James version, the command to Receive him is not in the best Greek manuscripts of this verse. It is, however, found in Phm. 1:17. And the idea is plainly implied.

b.

It was obviously Pauls own idea that Onesimus should go back from Rome to Philemon. Paul declares, I send him. It may have taken some persuading to get Onesimus to do this. Think of all the arguments that could have been advanced against Onesimus going back.

c.

If the case of Onesimus had occurred in the twentieth century, some churchmen would probably have put Onesimus at the head of a picket parade or protest march in front of the Rome Senate.

But never once did Christ or any of his apostles organize political and civil protests and disturbances in the name of the church. There were plenty of causes that needed rectifying in those times. Slaves outnumbered free citizens in Roman society. Gladiatorial games took hundreds of lives in cruel exhibitions. Children were occasionally exposed, that is, thrown out to perish as infants if their fathers so decreed.

The spread of the gospel guaranteed that the wicked social conditions would end. But the changes were brought about by the leavening influence of godliness in the lives of individual believers, not by the political lobbying of organized churchmen.

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(12) Thou therefore receive him.The word receive is not in the best MSS. It is supplied here from Phm. 1:17 (apparently rightly in respect of sense) to fill up a broken construction in the original.

Mine own bowelsi.e., my own heart, dear to me as my own soul. There is, indeed, an usage of the word which applies it to children as begotten of our own body. But this is hardly St. Pauls usage (see 2Co. 6:12; Php. 1:8; Php. 2:1; Col. 3:12; and Phm. 1:7; Phm. 1:20 of this Epistle), though it suits very well with the phrase whom I have begotten above.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

12. Sent again Sent back to thee. If all slaves sent back had been sent with a like spirit and result, a “fugitive slave law” might have been almost a Christian institution. The phrase thou therefore receive, is a reading of doubtful authority.

Own bowels My own soul and vitals. There is no allusion to paternity in the words.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘Whom I have sent back to you in his own person, that is, my very heart,’

Paul now further stresses that he has sent him back to Philemon in his own person. And then he reveals just how much Onesimus now meant to him. He describes him as ‘his very heart’. Paul had developed a genuine and deep-seated spiritual love for the young man Onesimus. He saw him very much as a son.

In all this we see what we saw in the introduction. Paul’s determination that Onesimus would do what was right whatever the cost with no half measures. And his own equal determination that it would be so. He was demonstrating by example how important it is that we do not respond to God in a half-hearted way, but are scrupulous in our obedience. He was also demonstrating the right kind of attitude to have when dealing with people, not that of overbearing authority, but rather that of an approach in love.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Phm 1:12. Mine own bowels: There are a number of passages in the ancient Greek and Latin writers, where children are called the bowels of their parents. Observe how the apostle rises in his expressions: in Phm 1:10 it was, my son Onesimus: here it is mine own bowels, or “my most dearly and tenderly-beloved son;” and Phm 1:17 it is, myself, or my very self. There is that in Christianity which so far throws down distinctions, as to set all good men upon a level,without destroying in the least degree that subordination which is essential to the existence of society. A slave, upon becoming a good Christian, is the son, the friend, the brother, the bowels, and the very soul or self of the great apostle of the Gentiles: such an alteration does the gospel make in spirituals, while it destroys not the civil distinctions among men. How graceful is the apostle’s manner of condescension! He had before laid aside all his apostolic authority, and entreated Philemon as a supplicant: he now humbles himself to a level with Onesimus, to exalt Onesimus’s character, and to intimate the worthiness of the person for whom he was petitioning. With what zeal and ardent affection does he serve his friend! How skilfully and strenuously does he plead his cause! adding motive to motive, though in the most concise and elegant manner, like one who was unwilling to take a denial. Scipio Gentilis has endeavoured to shew, that this Epistle has several of the beauties which shine in Demosthenes and Tully, and which Aristotle and Longinus have admired and celebrated in the ancient poets and orators.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Phm 1:12 . The rectified text [74] is: , (without ).

On , remisi , comp. Luk 23:11 .

] that is, my heart , by which Onesimus is designated as an object of the most cordial affection . So Oecumenius, Theophylact, and many. has an ingeniously-turned emphasis, in contrast to . According to others , the thought would be: , , Theodoret (comp. also Chrysostom); so too Beza, Cornelius a Lapide, Heinrichs, and others, following the Syriac. See instances in Pricaeus and Wetstein, and comp. the Latin viscera. But in this way the relation already expressed in Phm 1:10 would be only repeated, and that in a form, which would be less in keeping with that spiritual fatherhood. Paul, moreover, statedly uses for the seat of the affection of love (2Co 6:12 ; 2Co 7:15 ; Phi 1:8 ; Phi 2:1 ; Col 3:12 ; Phm 1:7 ; Phm 1:20 ; comp. also Luk 1:78 ; 1Jn 3:17 ), and so also here, where the person to whom one feels himself attached with tender love (which, according to Phm 1:10 , is certainly felt as paternal ; comp. Wis 10:5 ; 4Ma 16:20 ; 4Ma 16:25 ) is designated by the lover as his very heart , because its feelings and inclinations are filled by this object. Comp. on this expression of feeling, the Plautine meum corculum ( Cas . iv. 4. 14), meum cor ( Poen . i. 2. 154). When we set aside as not genuine (see the critical remarks), the verb is wanting , so that the passage is anacoluthic ; the apostle is involuntarily withheld by the following relative clause presenting itself, and by what he, in the lively flow of his thoughts, further subjoins (Phm 1:13 ff.) from adding the governing verb thought of with , until at length, after beginning a new sentence with Phm 1:17 , he introduces it in another independent connection, leaving the sentence which he had begun with in Phm 1:12 unclosed. Comp. on Rom 5:2 ff.; Gal 2:16 . See generally, Winer, p. 528 ff. [E. T. 709 ff.]; Wilke, Rhetor , p. 217 f. With classic writers, too, such anacoluthic sentences broken off by the influence of intervening thoughts are not rare, specially in excited or pathetic discourse, e.g. Plat. Symp . p. 218 A; Xen. Anab. ii. 5.13; and Krger in loc. ; Aeschin. adv. Ctesiph. 256, and Wunderlich in loc. ; Bremi, ad Lys. p. 442 f., 222, who rightly observes: “Hoc anacoluthiae genus inter scriptores sacros nulli frequentius excidit quam Paulo ap., epistolas suas dictanti”

[74] See the critical remarks. The text of Lachmann, . , , ., is followed by Hofmann, so that is in apposition to (see, on the other hand, Winer, p. 140 [E. T. 184]).

Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary

12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels:

Ver. 12. That is mine own bowels ] Pray for me, mine own heart root in the Lord (said Mr Bradford in a letter to Mr Saunders), Quem in intimis visceribus habeo ad convivendum et commoriendum.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

12 .] There does not appear to be any allusion to the fact of sonship in , as Chrys., Thdrt. ( , ), al.: for thus the spritual similitude would be confused, being here introduced materially. But the expression more probably means, mine own heart ‘as dear to me as mine own heart.’ Meyer compares the expressions in Plautus, ‘ meum corculum ,’ Cas. iv. 4. 14, ‘meum mel, meum cor ,’ Pn. i. 2. 154. Cf. also, ‘Hic habitat tuus ille hospes, mea viscera, Thesbon,’ Marius Victor, in Suicer, Thes. ii. 998, and examples of both meanings in Wetst., Suicer, and Koch.

The construction (see var. readd.) is an anacoluthon: the Apostle goes off into the relative clause, and loses sight, as so often, of the construction with which he began: taking it up again at Phm 1:17 .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Phm 1:12 . : the aorist, in accordance with the epistolary style. It is clear from these words that Onesimus himself was the bearer of the letter, cf. Col 4:7-9 . On St. Paul’s inistence that Onesimus should return to his master, see Intr. III. : note the emphatic position of this word, cf. Eph 1:22 . : again emphatic in thus preceding the noun.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

THE EPISTLE TO PHILEMON

IV.

Phm 1:12-14

THE characteristic features of the Epistle are all embodied in these verses. They set forth, in the most striking manner, the relation of Christianity to slavery and to other social evils. They afford an exquisite example of the courteous delicacy and tact of the Apostle’s intervention on behalf of Onesimus; and there shine through them, as through a semi-transparent medium, adumbrations and shimmering hints of the greatest truths of Christianity.

I. The first point to notice is that decisive step of sending back the fugitive slave.

Not many years ago the conscience of England was stirred because the Government of the day sent out a circular instructing captains of men-of-war, on the decks of which fugitive slaves sought asylum, to restore them to their “owners.” Here an Apostle does the same thing – seems to side with the oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from the sole refuge left him, the horns of the very altar. More extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily going back, traveling all the weary way from Rome to Colossae in order to put his neck once more beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from Christian motives, and thought that they were doing a piece of plain Christian duty. Then does Christianity sanction slavery ? Certainly not; its principles cut it up by the roots. A gospel, of which the starting-point is that all men stand on the same level, as loved by the one Lord, and redeemed by the one cross, can have no place for such an institution. A religion which attaches the highest importance to man’s awful prerogative of freedom, because it insists on every man’s individual responsibility to God, can keep no terms with a system which turns men into chattels. Therefore Christianity cannot but regard slavery as sin against God, and as treason towards man. The principles of the gospel worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery. Historically it is true that as Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But the New Testament never directly condemns it, and by regulating the conduct of Christian masters, and recognizing the obligations of Christian slaves, seems to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the sighing of the captives.

This attitude was probably not a piece of policy or a matter of calculated wisdom on the part of the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the Gospel brought a great unity in which all distinctions were merged, and rejoiced in thinking that “in Christ Jesus there is neither bond or free”; but whether he expected the distinction ever to disappear from actual life is less certain. He may have thought of slavery as he did of sex, that the fact would remain, while yet “we are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is by no means necessary to suppose that the Apostles saw the full bearing of the truths they had to preach, in their relation to social conditions. They were inspired to give the Church the principles. It remained for future ages, under Divine guidance, to apprehend the destructive and formative range of these principles.

However this may be, the attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven, and lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles. First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not ready fbr removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the root will certainly be left and will grow again. When a dandelion head is ripe, a child’s breath can detach the winged seeds; but until it is, no tempest can move them. The method of violence is noisy and wasteful, like the winter torrents that cover acres of good ground with mud and rocks, and are past in a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off” the evil. Then there will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once done will be done for ever.

So has it been with slavery; so will it be with war, and intemperance, and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilization. It has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole Church to learn the inconsistency of Christianity with slavery. We are no quicker learners than the past generations were. God is patient, and does not seek to hurry the march of His purposes. We have to be imitators of God, and shun the “raw haste” which is “half-sister to delay.”

But patience is not passivity. It is a Christian s duty to “hasten the day of the Lord,” and to take part in the educational process which Christ is carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself to it in the first place, and then by endeavoring to bring others under its influence. His place should be in the van of all social progress. It does not become Christ’s servants to be content with the attainments of any past or present, in the matter of the organization of society on Christian principles. “God has more light to break forth from His word.” Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness of the moral perceptions of nineteenth century Christians in regard to matters of Christian duty which, hidden from us, are sun-clear to them, with the same half-amused, half-tragic wonder with which we look back to Jamaica planters or South Carolina rice growers, who defended slavery as a missionary institution, and saw no contradiction between their religion and their practice. We have to stretch our charity to believe in these men’s sincere religion. Succeeding ages will have to make the same allowance for us, and will need it for themselves from their successors. The main thing is, for us to try to keep our spirits open to all the incidence of the gospel on social and civic life, and to see that we are on the right side, and trying to help on the approach of that kingdom which does ” not cry, nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the streets, “but has its coming” prepared as the morning,” that swims up, silent and slow, and flushes the heaven with an unsetting light.

II. The next point in these verses is Paul’s loving identification of himself with Onesimus.

The A.V. here follows another reading from the R.V.; the former has “thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels.” The additional words are unquestionably inserted without authority in order to patch a broken construction. The R.V. cuts the knot in a different fashion by putting the abrupt words, “himself that is, my very own heart,” under the government of the preceding verb. But it seems more probable that the Apostle began a new sentence with them, which he meant to have finished as the A,V. does for him, but which, in fact, got hopelessly upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, and does not right itself grammatically till the “receive him” of v. 1 7.

In any case the main thing to observe is the affectionate plea which he puts in for the cordial reception of Onesimus. Of course “mine own bowels” is simply the Hebrew way of saying “mine own heart.” We think the one phrase graceful and sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did not think so, and it might be difficult to say why he should. It is a mere question of difference in localizing certain emotions. Onesimus was a piece of Paul’s very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable slave had wound himself round his affections, and become so dear that to part with him was like cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some of the virtues, which the servile condition helps to develop in undue proportion, such as docility, lightheartedness, serviceableness, had made him a soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that would be with one who loved Paul as well as Philemon did! He could not receive harshly one whom the Apostle had so honoured with his love. “Take care of him, be kind to him as if it were to me.”

Such language from an Apostle about a slave would do more to destroy slavery than any violence would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it ceases to separate. So these simple, heart-felt words are an instance of one method by which Christianity wars against all social wrongs, by casting its caressing arm around the outcast, and showing that the abject and oppressed are objects of its special love.

They teach too how interceding love makes its object part of its very self; the same thought recurs still more distinctly in v. 17, “Receive him as myself.” It is the natural language of love; some of the deepest and most blessed Christian truths are but the carrying out of that identification to its fullest extent. We are all Christ’s Onesimuses, and He, out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us, and us one with Him. The union of Christ with all with all who trust in Him, no doubt, presupposes His Divine nature, but still there is a human side to it, and it is the result of His perfect love. All love delights to fuse itself with its object, and as far as may be to abolish the distinction of “I” and “thou.” But human love can travel but a little way on that road; Christ’s goes much farther. He that pleads for some poor creature feels that the kindness is done to himself when the former is helped or pardoned. Imperfectly but really these words shadow forth the great fact of Christ’s intercession for us sinners, and our acceptance in Him. We need no better symbol of the stooping love of Christ, Who identifies Himself with His brethren, and of our wondrous identification with Him, our High Priest and Intercessor, than this picture of the Apostle pleading for the runaway and bespeaking a welcome for him as part of himself. When Paul says, ” Receive him, that is, my very heart,” his words remind us of the yet more blessed ones, which reveal a deeper love and more marvellous condescension, “He that receiveth you receiveth Me,” and may reverently be taken as a faint shadow of that prevailing intercession, through which he that is joined to the Lord and is one spirit with Him, is received of God as part of Christ’s mystical body, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh.

III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed purpose which was put aside for a reason to be immediately stated.

“Whom I would fain have kepi with me “; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness of the desire. The very statement of it is turned into a graceful expression of Paul’s confidence in Philemon’s goodwill to him, by the addition of that “on thy behalf” He is sure that, if his friend had been beside him, he would have been glad to lend him his servant, and so he would have liked to have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of the service which he knows would have been so willingly rendered. The purpose for which he would have liked to keep him is defined as being, “that he might minister to me in the bonds of the Gospel.” If the last words be connected with “me,” they suggest a tender reason why Paul should be ministered to, as suffering for Christ, their common Master, and for the truth, their common possession. If, as is perhaps less probable, they be connected with “minister,” they describe the sphere in which the service is to be rendered. Either the master or the slave would be bound by the obligations which the Gospel laid on them to serve Paul. Both were his converts, and therefore knit to him by a welcome chain, which made service a delight.

There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy of these words, so full 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?

IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision which arrested the half-formed wish. ” I was wishing indeed, but I willed otherwise.”

The language is exact. There is a universe between “I wished” and “I willed.” Many a good wish remains fruitless, because it never passes into the stage of firm resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be bad. One strong “I will” can paralyze a million wishes.

The Apostle’s final determination was, to do nothing without Philemon’s cognizance and consent. The reason for the decision is at once a very triumph of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it were not so spontaneous, and an adumbration of the very spirit of Christ’s appeal for service to us. “That thy benefit” – the good done to me by him, which would in my eyes be done by you – “should not be as of necessity, but willingly.” That “as” is a delicate addition. He will not think that the benefit would really have been by constraint, but it might have looked as if it were.

Do not these words go much deeper than this small matter. And did not Paul learn the spirit that suggested them from his own experience of how Christ treated him? The principle underlying them is, that where the bond is love, compulsion takes the sweetness and goodness out of even sweet and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. If a man “could not help it” there is neither praise nor blame due. That freedom Christianity honors and respects. So in reference to the offer of the gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them but appealed to, and can turn deaf ears to the pleading voice, “Why will ye die?” Sorrows and sins and miseries without end continue, and the gospel is rejected, and lives of wretched godlessness are lived, and a dark future pulled down on the rejecters’ heads – and all because God knows that these things are better than that men should be forced into goodness, which indeed would cease to be goodness if they were. For nothing is good but the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing bad but its aversion there from.

The same solemn regard for the freedom of the individual and low estimate of the worth of constrained service influence the whole aspect of Christian ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army. The victorious host of priestly warriors, which the Psalmist saw following the priest-king in the day of his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and radiant with reflected beauty as these, were all ” willing ” – volunteers. There are no conscripts in the ranks. These words might be said to be graven over the gates of the kingdom of heaven, “Not as of necessity, but willingly.” “In Christian morals, law becomes love, and love, law.” “Must” is not in the Christian vocabulary, except as expressing the sweet constraint which bows the will of him who loves to harmony, which is joy, with the will of Him who is loved. Christ takes no offerings which the giver is not glad to render. Money, influence, service, which are not offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its turn, is set in motion by the recognition of .the infinite love of Christ in His sacrifice, are, in His eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is richer and more precious in His sight than golden chalices swimming with wine and melted pearls, which are laid by constraint on His table. “I delight to do Thy will” is the foundation of all Christian obedience; and the servant had caught the very tone of the Lord’s voice when he said, “Without thy mind I will do nothing, that thy benefit should not be, as it were, of necessity, but willingly.”

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

have. Omit,

sent again = sent back. App-174.

thou therefore receive. The texts omit, and read “sent again to thee”,

mine own bowels = as mine own self. Figure of speech Synecdoche. App-6.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

12.] There does not appear to be any allusion to the fact of sonship in , as Chrys., Thdrt. ( , ), al.: for thus the spritual similitude would be confused, being here introduced materially. But the expression more probably means, mine own heart-as dear to me as mine own heart. Meyer compares the expressions in Plautus,-meum corculum, Cas. iv. 4. 14,-meum mel, meum cor, Pn. i. 2. 154. Cf. also, Hic habitat tuus ille hospes, mea viscera, Thesbon, Marius Victor, in Suicer, Thes. ii. 998, and examples of both meanings in Wetst., Suicer, and Koch.

The construction (see var. readd.) is an anacoluthon: the Apostle goes off into the relative clause, and loses sight, as so often, of the construction with which he began: taking it up again at Phm 1:17.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Phm 1:12. , my bowels) An example , of spiritual affection, Phm 1:17.-, receive) A mild word, occurring again in the same Phm 1:17.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Philemon 1:12

whom I have sent back to thee in his own person, that is, my very heart:-Paul sent him back to his own master to serve him. The Christian religion does not destroy the relations regulated by the civil laws. It sanctifies, makes the Christian use them for the good of others, and with the fidelity with which he would serve God. The Spirit through Paul says: Servants, obey in all things them that are your masters according to the flesh; not with eye service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord: whatsoever ye do, work heartily, as unto the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the recompense of the inheritance: ye serve the Lord Christ. (Col 3:22-24.) This shows that God takes the service as rendered to himself and requires it to be with the fidelity with which he requires service to himself. Paul sent him to Philemon and asked him to receive him in the kindness of love-my own best beloved-begotten of myself.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

thou: Mat 6:14, Mat 6:15, Mat 18:21-35, Mar 11:25, Eph 4:32

mine: Deu 13:6, 2Sa 16:11, Jer 31:20, Luk 15:20

Reciprocal: Gen 15:4 – shall come Mic 6:7 – body Rom 11:14 – my Rom 16:2 – ye receive 2Co 7:2 – Receive Phi 1:8 – in Phm 1:17 – receive Phm 1:20 – refresh

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Phm 1:12. In keeping with his duty as a part of the life of a Christian slave, Onesimus returned to his master at the instruction of Paul. Thou therefore receive him is a kindly commendation. Mine own bowels. A child is brought forth from the bowels of his parents, and since that part of the human anatomy is used figuratively of mental and spiritual matters, Paul uses it here to signify that Onesimus had been begotten by him in the sense that he had brOught him to obey the Gospel.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Phm 1:12. Whom I have sent back to thee in his own person. This is the rendering of the most authoritative text. The Greek of the later MSS. has been corrected, after some errors of scribes had crept into it, by the addition of the word for receive him from Phm 1:17. But the oldest texts made a good sense. No doubt the discipline of Onesimus return was food both for master and slave, to the latter that he might have an opportunity of making some amends for his previous wrongdoing, and might show that his Christianity was worth the name and was already fruitful in ripe actions; to Philemon also it was a benefit that he should be called on to exercise forgiveness for a serious wrong, while the more tender conduct which would be shown towards Onesimus in the future, would do something, if not much, toward loosening the bonds of any other slaves among the congregation at Coloss.

even my very heart. See on Phm 1:7. Some, taking the literal rendering of the Authorised Version, have considered this expression as equivalent to my own child. But St. Paul everywhere else uses the word rendered bowels for the seat of the feelings and emotions, so that it is better to interpret the words here as an expression of deep affection.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here are several arguments used by our apostle, why Philemon should receive Onesimus into his service again.

1. Because St. Paul had sent him for that end a long and tedious journey from Rome to Colosse, and because he came with the apostle’s commendary letters, and in his name. We are not easily to reject those that come to us countenanced and encouraged with the commendations of the reverend and faithful ministers of God.

In the close of the first argument, at the foot of the twelfth verse, observe the endearing title he gives Onesimus, he calls him, his own bowels; Receive him that is my own bowels.

O Lord! certainly there is no stronger love, nor more endearing and endeared affection, between any relations upon earth, than between the ministers of the gospel and such of their beloved people whom they have been happily instrumental to beget unto thyself! How inexpressibly dear is the soul of a poor servant to a faithful minister of Christ, and how lovely when once converted!

Receive him, for he is as dear to me as if he had proceeded out of my own bowels.

Again, another argument is this: St. Paul sends him, because he was another’s servant, even Philemon his friend; and being very serviceable to the apostle, he would have gladly detained him; but could not satisfy himself to do it, without Philemon’s consent. Masters have such a right to their servants, and such a right unto their service, that they are not to be disposed of without their own consent. St. Paul, though he wanted, yet would not detain Onesimus, though a fugitive servant, without Philemon’s knowledge; Christian religion is no destroyer, but an establisher, of civil right. Onesimus’s conversion to Christianity gave him no manumission and liberty from Philemon’s service, and accordingly our apostle remits and sends him back to his old master Philemon.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Verse 12

Mine own bowels; mine own self.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels: 13 Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel:

14 But without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly.

Paul has determined to send this new believer back to his owner – to slavery, even though he is a new Christian. Christianity does not guarantee a grand life.

Paul wanted to keep him for assistance with the ministry, but is sending him back – with a request for Onesimus to return to him a free man, is the implication.

Fuente: Mr. D’s Notes on Selected New Testament Books by Stanley Derickson

1:12 Whom I have sent again: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own {d} bowels:

(d) As my own son, and as if I had begotten him from my own body.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

B. Paul’s motives vv. 12-16

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Onesimus had so endeared himself to Paul that his departure was an extremely painful prospect for the apostle. Paul could have justified keeping the slave with him, but he judged that Onesimus’ obligation to return to his owner was more important. Furthermore, Paul did not really have authority over the slave; that rested with his master. If Paul had kept Onesimus with him, Philemon would have felt obligated by his regard for Paul to let his slave stay with the apostle. The service Paul probably had in mind for Onesimus was to proclaim the gospel, not to perform menial prison duties for Paul. [Note: O’Brien, p. 294.] Nevertheless, Paul wanted Philemon to respond to his slave freely.

"The principle of consideration for others here manifested by Paul is a factor of vital importance today for effective Christian leadership. Many are the difficulties which might be avoided if those in places of authority in Christian work would follow Paul’s example in this." [Note: Hiebert, p. 113.]

"In the eastern part of the Roman Empire [including Asia Minor] during this period, fugitive slaves who sought sanctuary in a household were likely to be given temporary protection by the householder until either a reconciliation with the master had been effected or else the slave had been put up for sale in the market and the resulting price paid to the owner . . ." [Note: O’Brien, p. 292.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Chapter 5

Phm 1:12-14 (R.V.)

The characteristic features of the Epistle are all embodied in these verses. They set forth, in the most striking manner, the relation of Christianity to slavery and to other social evils. They afford an exquisite example of the courteous delicacy and tact of the Apostles intervention on behalf of Onesimus; and there shine through them, as through a semi-transparent medium, adumbrations and shimmering hints of the greatest truths of Christianity.

I. The first point to notice is that decisive step of sending back the fugitive slave. Not many years ago the conscience of England was stirred because the Government of the day sent out a circular instructing captains of men-of-war, on the decks of which fugitive slaves sought asylum, to restore them to their “owners.” Here an Apostle does the same thing-seems to side with the oppressor, and to drive the oppressed from the sole refuge left him, the very horns of the altar. More extraordinary still, here is the fugitive voluntarily going back, travelling all the weary way from Rome to Colossae in order to put his neck once more beneath the yoke. Both men were acting from Christian motives, and thought that they were doing a piece of plain Christian duty.

Then does Christianity sanction slavery? Certainly not; its principles cut it up by the roots. A gospel, of which the starting point is that all men stand on the same level, as loved by the one Lord, and redeemed by the one cross, can have no place for such an institution. A religion which attaches the highest importance to mans awful prerogative of freedom, because it insists on every mans individual responsibility to God, can keep no terms with a system which turns men into chattels. Therefore Christianity cannot but regard slavery as sin against God, and as treason towards man. The principles of the gospel worked into the conscience of a nation destroy slavery. Historically it is true that as Christianity has grown slavery has withered. But the New Testament never directly condemns it, and by regulating the conduct of Christian masters, and recognising the obligations of Christian slaves, seems to contemplate its continuance, and to be deaf to the sighing of the captives.

This attitude was probably not a piece of policy or a matter of calculated wisdom on the part of the Apostle. He no doubt saw that the gospel brought a great unity in which all distinctions were merged, and rejoiced in thinking that “in Christ Jesus there is neither bond or free”; but whether he expected the distinction ever to disappear from actual life is less certain. He may have thought of slavery as he did of sex, that the fact would remain, while yet “we are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is by no means necessary to suppose that the Apostles saw the full bearing of the truths they had to preach, in their relation to Social conditions. They were inspired to give the Church the principles. It remained for future ages, under Divine guidance, to apprehend the destructive and formative range of these principles.

However this may be, the attitude of the New Testament to slavery is the same as to other unchristian institutions. It brings the leaven, and lets it work. That attitude is determined by three great principles. First, the message of Christianity is primarily to individuals, and only secondarily to society. It leaves the units whom it has influenced to influence the mass. Second, it acts on spiritual and moral sentiment, and only afterwards and consequently on deeds or institutions. Third, it hates violence, and trusts wholly to enlightened conscience. So it meddles directly with no political or social arrangements, but lays down principles which will profoundly affect these, and leaves them to soak into the general mind. If an evil needs force for its removal, it is not ready for removal. If it has to be pulled up by violence, a bit of the root will certainly be left and will grow again. When a dandelion head is ripe, a childs breath can detach the winged seeds; but until it is, no tempest can move them. The method of violence is noisy and wasteful, like the winter torrents that cover acres of good ground with mud and rocks, and are past in a day. The only true way is, by slow degrees to create a state of feeling which shall instinctively abhor and cast off the evil. Then there will be no hubbub and no waste, and the thing once done will be done forever.

So it has been with slavery; so it will be with war, and intemperance, and impurity, and the miserable anomalies of our present civilisation. It has taken eighteen hundred years for the whole Church to learn the inconsistency of Christianity with slavery. We are no quicker learners than the past generations were. God is patient, and does not seek to hurry the march of His purposes. We have to be imitators of God, and shun the “raw haste” which is “half-sister to delay.” But patience is not passivity. It is a Christians duty to “hasten the day of the Lord,” and to take part in the educational process which Christ is carrying on through the ages, by submitting himself to it in the first place, and then by endeavouring to bring others under its influence. His place should be in the van of all social progress. It does not become Christs servants to be content with the attainments of any past or present, in the matter of the organisation of society on Christian principles. “God has more light to break forth from His word.” Coming centuries will look back on the obtuseness of the moral perceptions of nineteenth-century Christians in regard to matters of Christian duty which, hidden from us, are sun clear to them, with the same half amused, half-tragic wonder with which we look back to Jamaica planters or South Carolina rice growers, who defended slavery as a missionary institution, and saw no contradiction between their religion and their practice. We have to stretch our charity to believe in these mens sincere religion. Succeeding ages will have to make the same allowance for us, and will need it for themselves from their successors. The main thing is, for us to try to keep our spirits open to all the incidence of the gospel on social and civic life, and to see that we are on the right side, and trying to help on the approach of that kingdom which does “not cry nor lift up, nor cause its voice to be heard in the streets,” but has its coming “prepared as the morning,” that swims up, silent and slow, and flushes the heavens with an unsetting light.

II. The next point in these verses is Pauls loving identification of himself with Onesimus.

The A.V here follows another reading from the R.V; the former has “thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels.” The additional words are unquestionably inserted without authority in order to patch a broken construction. The R.V cuts the knot in a different fashion by putting the abrupt words, “himself that is, my very own heart,” under the government of the preceding verb. But it seems more probable that the Apostle began a new sentence with them, which he meant to have finished as the A.V does for him, but which, in fact, got hopelessly upset in the swift rush of his thoughts, and does not right itself grammatically till the “receive him” of Phm 1:17.

In any case the main thing to observe is the affectionate plea which he puts in for the cordial reception of Onesimus. Of course “mine own bowels” is simply the Hebrew way of saying “mine own heart.” We think the one phrase graceful and sentimental, and the other coarse. A Jew did not think so, and it might be difficult to say why he should. It is a mere question of difference in localising certain emotions. Onesimus was a piece of Pauls very heart, part of himself; the unprofitable slave had wound himself round his affections, and become so dear that to part with him was like cutting his heart out of his bosom. Perhaps some of the virtues, which the servile condition helps to develop in undue proportion, such as docility, lightheartedness, serviceableness, had made him a soothing and helpful companion. What a plea that would be with one who loved Paul as well as Philemon did! He could not receive harshly one whom the Apostle had so honoured with his love. “Take care of him, be kind to him as if it were to me.” Such language from an Apostle about a slave would do more to destroy slavery than any violence would do. Love leaps the barrier, and it ceases to separate. So these simple, heartfelt words are an instance of one method by which Christianity wars against all social wrongs, by casting its caressing arm around the outcast, and showing that the abject and oppressed are objects of its special love.

They teach, too, how interceding love makes its object part of its very self; the same thought recurs still more distinctly in Phm 1:17, “Receive him as myself.” It is the natural language of love; some of the deepest and most blessed Christian truths are but the carrying out of that identification to its fullest extent. We are all Christs Onesimuses, and He, out of His pure love, makes Himself one with us, and us one with Him. The union of Christ with all who trust in Him, no doubt, presupposes His Divine nature, but still there is a human side to it, and it is the result of His perfect love. All love delights to fuse itself with its object, and as far as may be to abolish the distinction of “I” and “thou.” But human love can travel but a little way on that road; Christs goes much farther. He that pleads for some poor creature feels that the kindness is done to himself when the former is helped or pardoned. Imperfectly but really these words shadow forth the great fact of Christs intercession for us sinners, and our acceptance in Him. We need no better symbol of the stooping love of Christ, who identifies Himself with His brethren, and of our wondrous identification with Him, our High Priest and Intercessor, than this picture of the Apostle pleading for the runaway and bespeaking a welcome for him as part of himself. When Paul says, “Receive him, that is, my very heart,” his words remind us of the yet more blessed ones, which reveal a deeper love and more marvellous condescension, “He that receiveth you receiveth Me,” and may reverently be taken as a faint shadow of that prevailing intercession, through which he that is joined to the Lord and is one spirit with Him is received of God as part of Christs mystical body, bone of His bone, and flesh of His flesh.

III. Next comes the expression of a half-formed purpose which was put aside for a reason to be immediately stated. “Whom I would fain have kept with me”; the tense of the verb indicating the incompleteness of the desire. The very statement of it is turned into a graceful expression of Pauls confidence in Philemons good will to him, by the addition of that “on thy behalf.” He is sure that, if his friend had been beside him, he would have been glad to lend him his servant, and so he would have liked to have had Onesimus as a kind of representative of the service which he knows would have been so willingly rendered. The purpose for which he would have liked to keep him is defined as being, “that he might minister to me in the bonds of the Gospel.” If the last words be connected with “me,” they suggest a tender reason why Paul should be ministered to, as suffering for Christ, their common Master, and for the truth, their common possession. If, as is perhaps less probable, they be connected with “minister,” they describe the sphere in which the service is to be rendered. Either the master or the slave would be bound by the obligations which the Gospel laid on them to serve Paul. Both were his converts, and therefore knit to him by a welcome chain, which made service a delight.

There is no need to enlarge on the winning courtesy of these words, so full of happy confidence in the friends 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 Pauls 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 Apostles 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 masters. Can the master fail to take him as if he were Paul?

IV. The last topic in these verses is the decision which arrested the half-formed wish. “I was wishing indeed, but I willed otherwise.” The language is exact. There is a universe between “I wished” and “I willed.” Many a good wish remains fruitless, because it never passes into the stage of firm resolve. Many who wish to be better will to be bad. One strong “I will” can paralyse a million wishes.

The Apostles final determination was, to do nothing without Philemons cognisance and consent. The reason for the decision is at once a very triumph of persuasiveness, which would be ingenious if it were not so spontaneous, and an adumbration of the very spirit of Christs appeal for service to us. “That thy benefit,”-the good done to me by him, which would in my eyes be done by you-“should not be as of necessity, but willingly.” That “as” is a delicate addition. He will not think that the benefit would really have been by constraint, but it might have looked as if it were.

Do not these words go much deeper than this small matter? And did not Paul learn the spirit that suggested them from his own experience of how Christ treated him? The principle underlying them is, that where the bond is love, compulsion takes the sweetness and goodness out of even sweet and good things. Freedom is essential to virtue. If a man “could not help it” there is neither praise nor blame due. That freedom Christianity honours and respects. So in reference to the offer of the gospel blessings, men are not forced to accept them, but appealed to, and can turn deaf ears to the pleading voice, “Why will ye die?” Sorrows and sins and miseries without end continue, and the gospel is rejected, and lives of wretched godlessness are lived, and a dark future pulled down on the rejecters heads-and all because God knows that these things are better than that men should be forced into goodness, which indeed would cease to be goodness if they were. For nothing is good but the free turning of the will to goodness, and nothing bad but its aversion therefrom.

The same solemn regard for the freedom of the individual and low estimate of the worth of constrained service influence the whole aspect of Christian ethics. Christ wants no pressed men in His army. The victorious host of priestly warriors, which the Psalmist saw following the priesting in the day of his power, numerous as the dewdrops, and radiant with reflected beauty as these, were all “willing”-volunteers. There were no conscripts in the ranks. These words might be said to be graven over the gates of the kingdom of heaven, “Not as of necessity, but willingly.” In Christian morals, law becomes love, and love, law. “Must” is not in the Christian vocabulary, except as expressing the sweet constraint which bows the will of him who loves to harmony, which is joy, with the will of Him who is loved. Christ takes no offerings which the giver is not glad to render. Money, influence, service, which are not offered by a will moved by love, which love, in its turn, is set in motion by the recognition of the infinite love of Christ in His sacrifice are, in His eyes, nought. An earthenware cup with a drop of cold water in it, freely given out of a glad heart, is richer and more precious in His sight than golden chalices swimming with wine and melted pearls, which are laid by constraint on His table. “I delight to do Thy will” is the foundation of all Christian obedience; and the servant had caught the very tone of the Lords voice when he said, “Without thy mind I will do nothing, that thy benefit should not be, as it were, of necessity, but willingly.”

Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary