for love's sake I rather exhort, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now also prisoner of Jesus Christ.
Paul had every right to order Philemon about the runaway slave Onesimus. In this verse he refuses to use it. He leans instead on two things with no legal weight: love, and the picture of an old man writing from prison.
The previous verse says that Paul could have commanded. An order would have got the right outcome and lost something greater.
Suppose he had sent back Onesimus with an apostolic order. No doubt it would have been obeyed, and the runaway pardoned and reinstated. But would this have satisfied his heart? Where then would be the precious display of the grace of Christ? That grace rises above everything, even the deepest evil. It does not only forgive the wrongdoer; it welcomes him to its heart for ever. ... He would not command, but pleaded; he names his authority, only to set it aside in a case like this.
Paul is asking for something an order cannot produce.
You can never demand or claim grace. In writing the letter to Philemon, the apostle brings motives of grace to bear on the case. He does not dictate what Philemon was to do. He reminds him of his heavenly relationship, and leaves it to Philemon's grace. The law could justly have put the runaway slave to death, for Roman masters, and indeed any others, had the right to punish slaves that way. Yet Paul would have Philemon receive him back no longer as a slave, but as a brother.
Paul's apostleship does not disappear. He chooses not to stand on it, and stands somewhere else.
Paul therefore could not waive his apostleship. But he was free to act in grace, and to take his stand on what he had in common with Philemon and the whole church — brotherhood in Christ Jesus. And here, instead of an authoritative command, he could "beseech."
He drops the title that could compel and picks up one that can only move. Where the ESV has "an old man," older translations read "Paul the aged."
So he says, "For love's sake I beseech you, being such a one as Paul" — not merely "the prisoner." He had already pleaded that as his actual situation, and would soon repeat it with emphasis. Now he takes another ground: Paul — "the aged." Would Paul, "the prisoner" and "the aged," have a weak and ineffective claim on the heart of Philemon? ... And indeed he proves how well he knew the distinctive value of his apostleship — he had not forgotten it. He proves it by keeping it hidden wherever asserting it might have spoiled the free exercise of grace.
The second description does double duty. It shows what following Christ had cost him, and it shows how he read his own chains.
In this he showed Philemon two things. First, that he was a sufferer, and not someone who had kept his place in the world by his confession of Christ. Second, that all the misery of his prison was gone, because he could see that men were only the hand of the Lord. So he was content to be there, for he was the Lord's prisoner.
A long life had taught him something. It is the very thing he now asks Philemon to show.
And what had Paul the aged been learning through his long course? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. His claim on Philemon is not the authority he might have used. It is his own experience of the blessedness of the ways of grace, and his present suffering for preaching the gospel of that grace to Philemon and other Gentiles.
Paul did not invent this way of handling a real right.
Here the apostle appeals to one of the special and mightiest features of the gospel: the assertion of a title that is true, just, and beyond dispute — a title he still gives up, to leave free and full scope for grace in the one he is appealing to. So Christ lived, moved, and had His being here below.
The appeal leaves Philemon a real choice.
Paul would then consider the mind of Philemon, his thoughts and exercises. He would leave to him the full responsibility of acting rightly towards Onesimus. This is the true grace of God. Philemon would not be forced, but left free to act as before God.
- Right held — Paul could have commanded. He names the right so we can watch him lay it down.
- Right dropped — grace cannot be demanded or claimed. An order would have won the outcome and killed the thing itself.
- Ground changed — he trades his apostolic title for what he shares with Philemon: brotherhood in Christ. Age and chains move the heart; they do not bind the will.
- Grace learned — his claim rests on what a long life and a prison taught him about grace. He was the Lord's prisoner, not a victim of men.
- Christ copied — Christ lived by asserting a just title and then setting it aside. That way of living leaves Philemon free to act before God.
I exhort thee for *my* child, whom I have begotten in [my] bonds, Onesimus,
Paul writes from prison for a runaway slave who had wronged his owner. He does not open with the man's crime. He opens with a family word: this man is his child, and Philemon must now decide what to do with him.
Onesimus had done real damage before he disappeared, and no one in the ancient world would have expected mercy for him.
He had deserted his excellent master, and had probably cheated him as well (verse 18). Even the worst master would have punished such an act with the greatest severity. We may be sure Onesimus had no good reason for leaving Philemon. He proved himself a worthless man who could not value goodness. But what is too hard for the Lord? He led him into Paul's path, converted him, and turned his heart and his steps back to his master.
Older translations read "whom I have begotten in my bonds." That is birth language. It describes what happens to a person who believes the gospel.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians, "I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel" (1 Cor. 4:15). Of Onesimus he says, "whose father I became in my imprisonment" (Philemon 10). This means he had been the means of their conversion, for the Christian is born of God (1 John 5:18; 1 Peter 1:3).
So Paul can speak as if the new birth were his own work. The credit belongs elsewhere.
In one place Scripture says that God "bore witness to the word of His grace." In another, an apostle speaks by the same Spirit of a man whose father he had become while in chains, as if he himself had brought about the man's conversion. This shows how gracious God is. He owns the part we play, and He makes much of our little service and faithfulness. Yet we can truly add, "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory."
Paul also says where this birth happened. That detail is aimed straight at Philemon's affections.
So he writes, "I, Paul, an old man and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I became" — and not only that, but "in my imprisonment." That would make Onesimus a special object of interest and affection to a man who honoured and delighted in the apostle. If Philemon loved Paul, he would love Paul's child; and Onesimus was his child. Paul calls him his child as emphatically as he ever called Titus or Timothy. But he was a son born as neither Timothy nor Titus was — born while Paul was in chains.
Paul had the right to command. He chose to plead instead, and God Himself deals with people that way.
What has God done! We may well say this when we see the Lord God Almighty, the High and Holy One, presenting Himself to us in such a way that He pleads with us. "We are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us." … This is the grace Paul would bear witness to. He could have commanded, and yet for love's sake he chose to plead. He pleaded for his son Onesimus, whose father he had become while in chains. Had Philemon listened to the ministry of reconciliation, and received the Son of God into his soul? Then let him, as one reconciled to God Himself, exercise that same grace towards Onesimus.
The slave is coming home. But he is no longer just property, and Paul expects Philemon to feel the difference.
The return of his runaway slave was likely to stir up something in Philemon's natural heart. So the apostle steps in with his letter on behalf of his dear child in the faith, born during his captivity. God had already stepped in with the work of His grace. That grace ought to act on Philemon's heart, producing altogether new relationships with Onesimus. The apostle begs him to receive his former slave as a brother.
The feelings in this appeal are Paul's own. They also show something beyond him.
This is not only a beautiful picture of spiritual affections — of the unbreakable ties between Christians, and especially between a servant of God and the converts given to his ministry. It is also a striking picture of the heart of Christ for His own. Yes, these are Paul's feelings, Paul's tender love, Paul's pleading; but in all of them he was only the vessel of Christ.
- Fled — Onesimus ran from his master and probably robbed him first. No one expected mercy for such a man. But nothing was too hard for the Lord, who steered him into Paul's path.
- Fathered — "Whose father I became" is birth language. Paul was the means of the conversion. God gives the new birth, and He still credits His servant with the work.
- Fettered — Paul names where that birth happened: his chains. A son born in Paul's prison had a claim on anyone who loved Paul.
- Favour — Paul could have commanded. He chose to plead, as God pleads with people through His messengers. A man who has received such grace should now pass it on.
- Family — Grace made new relationships. The runaway comes back not as property but as a brother. The tenderness of the appeal is the heart of Christ working through His servant.