Philemon 1:13
In chains for the gospel
- The gospel’s word εὐαγγέλιον euangelion · gospel
Original
Translations
I would have liked to keep him with me, so that on your behalf he could minister to me in my chains for the gospel.
Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel:
whom I intended to retain to myself, that in your behalf he might minister to me in the bonds of the good news,
저를 내게 머물러 두어 내 복음을 위하여 갇힌 중에서 네 대신 나를 섬기게 하고자 하나
내가 그를 나와 함께 있게 하여 복음으로 인해 결박당한 나를 너 대신 섬기게 할 수 있었으나
Commentaries
Matthew Henry on Phlm 1:8-14 as a whole
It does not lower any one to condescend, and sometimes even to beseech, where, in strictness of right, we might command: the apostle argues from love, rather than authority, in behalf of one converted through his means; and this was Onesimus. …
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Note
Paul would have liked to keep Onesimus, the son he gained in prison. In the sentence where he gives that wish up, he names his own condition: chains for the gospel.
I would have liked to keep him with me, so that on your behalf he could minister to me in my chains for the gospel.
Philemon 1:13Philemon is the shortest of Paul's letters, and it is about one household. Paul calls himself "a prisoner of Christ Jesus" (Philemon 1:1) and writes to Philemon about his slave Onesimus. Onesimus had been away from his master, met Paul in prison and come to faith; Paul calls him "my child Onesimus, whose father I became while I was in chains" (Philemon 1:10). Just before this verse comes a play on his name, which means "useful": "Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me" (Philemon 1:11). Here Paul admits he could have kept him; in the next verse he says he would do nothing without Philemon's consent (Philemon 1:14).
The noun stands in a genitive phrase, tois desmois tou euangeliou, literally "the chains of the gospel." The chains belong to the gospel: it brought them on Paul, and he wears them for its sake. In Philippians he sets his chains beside his "defense and confirmation of the gospel" in the same way (Philippians 1:7). The verb "minister" (diakonē) belongs with diakonos, from which the church's "deacon" comes, and diakonia, the New Testament's word for ministry; and "on your behalf" (huper sou) is a gracious touch: Onesimus's service to Paul would have counted as Philemon's own. Even as he sends the slave back, Paul lets him stand in for his master.
The KJV keeps the Greek phrase as it stands, "in the bonds of the gospel," and the LSV has "the bonds of the good news." The BSB makes the relation explicit with "my chains for the gospel." The Korean Bibles each choose a side of the genitive. The 흠정역 reads it as cause, chained because of the gospel, and the 개역한글 as purpose, imprisoned for the sake of the gospel. The 개역한글's 내, "my," has no word behind it in the Greek, and a Korean reader may take it either with the gospel (my gospel) or with the imprisonment (I, imprisoned for the gospel), as the BSB's "my chains" does. The Greek can hold both: the gospel is why Paul is bound, and it is what he is bound for.
Matthew Henry, writing on these verses, notes that "the apostle argues from love, rather than authority" Matthew Henry: it lowers no one to plead where he might command. He reads the change in Onesimus as the gospel's work in a life: "But what happy changes conversion makes! of evil, good; of unprofitable, useful" Matthew Henry.
The letter to the Colossians, sent at about the same time, mentions Onesimus again. Paul sends him to Colossae with Tychicus and calls him "our faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you" (Colossians 4:9). Of Philemon he had asked the same: to have him back "no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a beloved brother" (Philemon 1:16).
The gospel that put Paul in chains made a slave who had left his master into a brother, and the news did not stop at one person's heart: it changed the names a master and a slave would call each other.