2 Timothy 1:16-18. The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus; for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain: but, when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently, and found me. The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day: and in how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.
Nothing causes more acute pain to a sensitive person than the unkindness and desertion of friends. This is not so much because of the loss of their assistance and advice, or even of their company and sympathy, but chiefly from those gloomy views of human nature with which the faithlessness of friends is apt to fill the soul, sometimes shaking one’s reliance on providence itself. Such feelings are specially apt to be roused by the breach of friendships that were consecrated by religion. Then one’s holiest affections are cheated and one feels as if all things were moved from their foundations.
This appears to have been the Psalmist’s state of mind when he describes these words as bursting from his agitated spirit: “All men are liars”. Thus Jeremiah cursed the day of his birth, and Micah exclaimed, more in the bitterness of grief than in anger: “Woe is me! . . . The good man is perished out of the earth, and there is none upright among men. . . . The best of them is as a brier; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge. Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide.” The most pious of men would be overcome by this temptation, if they were left to their own resolutions. But God is faithful and will not suffer them to be tempted beyond what they are able to bear; in His wisdom He provides the external means He knows are best calculated to restore their peace of mind and re-establish their confidence. Who can express the delight which they feel in this deliverance!
Few have been more fitted to relish the enjoyments of Christian friendship than Paul. This is apparent from how tenderly he salutes his friends. But as his sufferings increased, he found the ranks of his friends gradually thinned, until at last he had to stand and fight the good fight alone. He repeatedly alludes to this with deep feeling, but with a composure which shows he had overcome the distress it once gave him. He wrote to Timothy shortly before his martyrdom for the name of Christ: “All they which are in Asia be turned away from me . . . Only Luke is with me. . . . At my first answer no man stood by me, but all men forsook me.” The selfishness, inconstancy and cowardice which were thus brought to light, could not but wound Paul’s spirit, but the wound was healed. Though cast down he was not dispirited; though deserted by his friends he was not left destitute.
He could say with his divine Master that, though they left him alone, yet he was not alone: “All men forsook me . . . . Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me . . . and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” Before the Emperor, he was enabled to open his mouth boldly in confessing the cause of Christ; when remanded to prison, and when his timid friends in Rome stood aloof from him, the compassionate Master whom he served brought from a distance a friend whose visit banished his gloom and inspired him with fresh strength for the approaching combat. When Paul landed in Italy, some of his brethren in Rome came out to meet him, “whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage” (Acts 28:15).
A friend who visits in a time of adversity is sufficient to compensate for the loss of ten thousand pretenders to friendship. Such a friend Paul found in Onesiphorus. From the way it is here mentioned, we sense that the Christian conversation of this friend left a fragrance behind him which continued to cheer the solitude of this Apostle.
Paul prays on behalf of his friend’s family: “The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus”. He then tells Timothy the obligations he was under to his friend: “He oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but when he was in Rome, he sought me out very diligently”. Then he resumes his prayer more fervently: “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord at that day”. He concludes by referring to his early kindness: “In how many things he ministered unto me at Ephesus, thou knowest very well”. It is difficult to say which should be more admired and imitated: the Christian kindness and constancy of Onesiphorus, or the Christian gratitude and piety of Paul. Let us contemplate each of them.
1. The conduct of Onesiphorus.
He lived in Ephesus and was a member of the church there. He probably “owed his own self” to Paul; he testified his love to the gospel and his gratitude to his spiritual instructor, by his kindness while Paul preached in Ephesus. It appears from Paul’s farewell to the elders of Ephesus that he had laboured with his own hands to support himself (Acts 20:33-35). But as his work was interrupted by public teaching and persecution, kind individuals had an opportunity to relieve him from difficulties. Although his fortitude and self-denial would have enabled him to bear these difficulties, they must have upset him and hindered him in his duties.
In giving relief to Paul, Onesiphorus had distinguished himself; he most likely was well off. Though Paul did not desire a gift, and had learned to “suffer need” as well as to “abound”, yet he desired fruit to abound to those among whom he laboured. Hence he rejoiced in the Lord greatly that the care which the Christians at Philippi first showed him had “flourished again”. He called the things they sent “an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God” (Phil 4:10-18).
In how many ways we may serve others and contribute to their comfort, even with slender means! Countless are the kindnesses performed by those who exert themselves after the example of Him who goes before them “with the blessings of goodness”. It is not the cost of gifts that proves the goodness of the donor; it is their timeliness and the considerate way they are given. God’s goodness, in nature and grace, may descend in drops so small as not to be perceived, and with such gentleness as scarcely to be felt. Yet human gifts may be bestowed so as to chill the heart and lacerate the feelings.
What Paul was most desirous to record about Onesiphorus was the kindness he had recently shown him in Rome. It proved him to be a friend indeed. Constancy is the crowning property of friendship; if someone is fickle and changeable in his attachments, he is no real friend; you cannot depend on him. True friendship does not change with circumstances; it views its object through good report and bad report, in the light of honour and under the cloud of disgrace. A man may grow old; he may fall into poverty and under reproach; he may become displeased with his own conduct; but he cannot hate or forget himself. Paul continued to be treated the same by Onesiphorus as he had been on the first day of their acquaintance – the same when deserted as when surrounded by followers, the same when a despised prisoner as when an applauded preacher.
It is not said that he came to Rome to visit the apostle. Christianity does not require works of supererogation; nor are such deeds of generosity necessary to the maintenance of Christian friendship. However much Paul was gratified at seeing his old friend, we think he would have been displeased if he had undertaken such a journey merely to please the Apostle. It was enough that, when in Rome, he did not forget his revered teacher, now the prisoner of the Lord, but sought him out very diligently and visited him often. “I was in prison, and ye came unto Me,” is the climax in that beautiful description which the Saviour gives of those who shall be acknowledged as His friends at the last day. He explains, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me”.
If Onesiphorus had made some inquiries after Paul, but on finding it difficult to find him, had given up and left, with some member of the Roman church, his affectionate greetings to the Apostle together with some money to support him, do you think this would have refreshed the prisoner’s soul? No. Yet we may be sure that Onesiphorus would have withheld nothing necessary to relieve Paul’s temporal needs. But it was refreshing to see his friend before he died, to learn from him what he had heard from others: that he retained all his former love to Christ, to His gospel, to His servant.
Though an apostle, though given such deep insight into gospel mysteries, and though now old in Christian experience, Paul did not think he was above receiving consolation and spiritual benefit from the poorest saint. So he gave this reason for wishing to visit the Christians at Rome: “that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me” (Rom 1:18). We cannot doubt that he was then refreshed by his conversation with Onesiphorus. And what might they have spoken of? Not, perhaps, what we might suppose. When Moses and Elias appeared with the Saviour on the mount, they did not speak of the glories of the celestial city they had just come from, but “of the decease which He should accomplish at Jerusalem”.
Paul and Onesiphorus would not spend precious moments talking of the passing news of the day, nor even in recalling happier external circumstances. They would have dwelt on higher themes: on Him who died for them and rose again, and was now at the right hand of God – and of His love, from which no distance of place, or depth of distress, could separate them; of the triumphs which the cross had gained over the powers of darkness, and the still greater triumphs in its irresistible progress; of the death by which Paul was soon to glorify God, and to seal his preaching; of the comforts which would make him more than a conqueror in that closing conflict; and of the joy of his Lord, into which he would immediately enter.
What conveyed the liveliest joy to Paul’s heart was his friend’s testimony of his love to the gospel, by “despising the shame” which the imprisoned Apostle was then loaded with. He “refreshed me”, for he “was not ashamed of my chain”. In reality, shame was the gall of the bitterness. Hence Paul’s exhortation to Timothy: “Be not thou ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel”, for it was then more disgraceful to suffer as a Christian than as a thief or a murderer. Christianity had fallen under extreme odium at Rome, the most diabolical calumnies against it were energetically circulated; the multitude and the magistrates regarded them with a mixture of hatred and contempt.
During his first imprisonment, Paul lived in his own hired house guarded by a soldier, received his friends and preached the gospel freely. It was otherwise during his second imprisonment. He was thrown into chains, and looked every day for his doom to be pronounced. Accordingly all his brethren had left him to his fate. It was only after a long search that Onesiphorus could discover the dungeon where he was confined.
Look on infant Christianity. Her cradle is a cell, her clothing rags, her nurse a jailer, her mates the vilest of the malefactors! Here let us humble ourselves and ask whether we are Christians indeed. How little we know of suffering shame for the name of the Lord Jesus! Which of us would be able to bear the proof of it if it was necessary, to testify our attachment to Him, for us to submit to be made a gazing-stock by reproaches and afflictions, or become companions of them that were so used? It was this proof of Onesiphorus’ love to the gospel, and of his inextinguishable affection for himself that filled Paul’s heart with exultation. “He was not ashamed of my chain.” Indeed he gloried in it, embraced it, called it the chain of his blessed Saviour, and protested that for His sake he would willingly wear it as a badge of distinction more honourable than the diadem of Caesar.
2. Paul’s response to the kindness of Onesiphorus.
What return could he make for such disinterested goodness? His feet were bound in the stocks; he could not even testify his gratitude as the meanest pauper might, in accompanying his benefactor to the door of his hovel. All his friends had deserted him; there was no one in the crowded city whom he could ask to show hospitality to the friendly stranger. He could not follow Onesiphorus to the door of his cell, but he could follow him with his prayers wherever he went. He could not help him in the secular business that had brought him to Rome, but he could advance his understanding through his prayers.
Paul could not ask him, as the Prophet did his Shunammite hostess, “Wouldst thou be spoken for to the king or the captain of the host?” (2 Ki 4:13). But he could speak for Onesiphorus to the Captain of Salvation. True, he was in bonds; but he was “an ambassador in bonds”; and those who had dared to throw into prison this ambassador and interrupted him in carrying out his embassy could not prevent him from holding communion with the court of heaven by prayer. Paul did not have it in his power to testify his gratitude to Onesiphorus, as David did to Barzillai, by receiving his son into his family (2 Sam 19:31-38); but he recommended his whole household to the mercy of the bountiful Master whom he served.
“The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus.” It appears from the close of the Epistle, where Paul greets “the household of Onesiphorus”, that the head of the family had not yet returned to Ephesus. Like every good man, he would feel anxious about the safety of his family in his absence, and would pray much on their behalf. These things Paul also sought for them in this brief but comprehensive petition. He asked the Lord to be a Father to them during the absence of Onesiphorus. He asked such petitions as these: Because he hath made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, his habitation, let no plague come nigh his dwelling; above all, preserve them in the paths of righteousness, in which they have been trained to walk; supply all their need out of Thy riches in glory by Jesus Christ.
Do not wonder that I consider Paul’s petition as applying to the effects of mercy in time. How much it would have added to the weight of his chain if anything distressing had happened to his friend’s family during this journey! Yet doubtless his petition also included what we find him next asking for Onesiphorus: “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day!” What could Paul say more? What could the most liberal soul devise more liberally than this? Could he ask anything greater for his Christian friend than that when he would stand before the universal Judge, and await the sentence fixing his eternal condition, he should “find mercy of the Lord” – be mercifully acquitted, accepted and rewarded?
Onesiphorus had shown mercy to the Apostle in his day of trial, and he prays that mercy may be shown him in his day of trial. Paul had just expressed to Timothy his persuasion that He to whom he had committed his own soul was “able to keep [it] against that day”. What higher testimony of his regard could he give Onesiphorus than commit him to the all-sufficient and faithful Redeemer? He did not expect to see him again until they would appear at the judgement seat; he therefore commends him, as he had done the elders of Ephesus, to which he belonged, “to God and to the word of His grace, which was able to build [him] up, and to give [him] an inheritance among all them which are sanctified” (Acts 20:32). This is Christian gratitude.
The application is twofold.
We have here exemplified the power of Christianity on two individuals in very different situations – the one a private member of the Church, the other an apostle; the one affluent, the other most destitute; the one at liberty, the other in chains and about to be led out to an ignominious death. The grace of God shines in both with a beautiful variety; yet they are children of the same family. In the charity and constancy of the one, in the piety and gratitude of the other, and in the faith and fortitude of both, you may see what the gospel can effect. Thus is your confidence in its truth confirmed. But let Christians, in widely-differing circumstances also benefit from the subject by way of imitation. I shall point out a few lessons.
- Look more on the bright than on the dark side of your situation. The mind is easily impressed by what it habitually sees; if that is dark, the mind will be gloomy; if that is bright, it will be cheerful. Who so uniformly experienced affliction as Paul, and yet who was so uniformly joyous? One secret of this is in the passage before us. He had been deserted by friends; but Onesiphorus had diligently sought him out. And he dwelt on the last until the memory of the first was completely obliterated. Christian, go and do likewise; then, though sorrowful, you will be always rejoicing.
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Christianity does not extinguish innocent human feelings. It is natural to be dejected when left alone, and to be cheered by the visits, conversation and sympathy of friends. Our weakness is such that we are easily dejected and elevated. God can support the heart by the consolations of His Spirit, but such is His respect for our frame that He often seasonably provides external help. When Paul was in great distress, “God, who comforteth them that are cast down”, comforted him by the coming of Titus. Beware of sullenly rejecting anything of this kind when it is offered, because it falls short of gospel consolations. Such refreshing is from God; it may lead to spiritual joy; both may help you to glorify Him. When the Redeemer went to the Garden, He took three disciples with him to watch with Him while He prayed; when they fell asleep, an angel appeared to Him, strengthening Him.
Christianity also improves right feelings. Instead of weakening parental affection, it strengthens it, stimulates it when it is dormant, checks its excess, and expands it into an active concern for the spiritual welfare of others. This is true also of friendship and gratitude. They are purified and exalted by an infusion of Christian principle. Onesiphorus had doubtless performed acts of kindness to many besides Paul. Why are only the latter mentioned? To give you an example of Christian gratitude.
3. Kindness is a native fruit of Christianity, a leading test of Christian character, especially among the affluent. The gospel is a revelation of God’s kindness to man. Will sincere belief of it not produce this disposition: “as we have . . . opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith?” Who can resist the divine logic: “If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another,” not in word, but in deed, as He “gave His only begotten Son”? Do they “know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” who will give nothing or what for them is next to nothing, to relieve their fellow-creatures and fellow-Christians from temporal distress? True Christianity supplants an inordinate affection for the things of the world through the love of God; it banishes the selfish disposition to retain what one possesses and, by enlarging hearts, makes them give without grudging, and feel the Lord Jesus’ words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.Such was the influence of Christianity on the early believers, when none of them said “that ought of the things which he possessed was his own”. Such was its influence on the Macedonians, who contributed for the relief of their brethren in Judea “to their power, yea, and beyond their power”. Such was its influence on the Hebrews, whose labour of love in ministering to the saints the Apostle commends. Such will be its influence in every age on all who savingly know it. Without this, no attainment in religious knowledge, no orthodoxy on any point, no correctness of moral conduct, no warmth of religious affections, no lack of conformity to the world in its sinful fashions or vain amusements, will be a sure mark of Christian character.
4. The best expression of gratitude. It is proper to acknowledge those who show us kindness, but Paul shows us “a more excellent way” while he pours out fervent supplications to God on behalf of Onesiphorus and his family. Those who offer help to others should beware of giving it in a cold, listless way. But if you suffer hardships from which richer brethren are exempt, they are exposed to temptations from which you are exempt. Pray that their table, instead of becoming a snare to them, may be sanctified and that they may not have all their good things in their lifetime. If you cannot pay your debts of gratitude you can, through prayer, transfer them to One who can discharge them. Access to “the throne of grace” is a precious privilege to all saints, but it may be more so to the poor.
5. Those who are able are encouraged by this subject to be kind to needy, afflicted Christians. Christians pray for everyone, including their enemies, but they cannot pray for all with the same confidence. When mentioning being deserted by his brethren when he appeared before Nero, Paul says, “I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge”. But there is a marked difference between that prayer and the one in our text. The prayer “of a righteous man availeth much” when it is “fervent”. Your acts of kindness will make them remember you when they pray to their heavenly Father, and provide new arguments to use in their petitions. Their prayers will be to your alms what the oil and frankincense was to the meat offering under the law; both will ascend as “a sweet savour unto the Lord” (Lev 2; Phil 4:18).In summary, deeds of kindness have no merit in God’s sight. Those who teach the merit of good works did not learn it from Paul. When his heart felt most deeply the kindness of Onesiphorus, and when he prayed most fervently that he might be rewarded for it, he uses the plea of mercy. Guard against legalism as well as antinomianism; beware lest your soul hits the rock which has proved fatal to so many. Put on, “as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness,” but also “humbleness of mind”. When you have done all, say, “We are unprofitable servants, we have done that which was our duty to do.” “God is not unrighteous to forget your labour of love.” You will have a reward, but it will be of grace, not of debt.
Those who deserve most from their fellow creatures are most impressed that they deserve nothing from God. His most faithful servants do not claim eternal life as wages due to them; they wish to receive it as “the gift of God . . . through Jesus Christ”. Cherish this attitude; it will make you follow them diligently who, “through faith and patience, inherit the promises”. Thus you will make your calling and election sure. “Beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”
Abridged from Sermons by Eminent Preachers, Edinburgh, 1853. M’Crie (1772-1835) is best known for his Life of John Knox (reprinted by Free Presbyterian Publications).