ST. PAUL'S DUNGEON-PRAYER FOR ONESIPHORUS
ST. PAUL’S DUNGEON-PRAYER FOR ONESIPHORUS
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
June 30, 2015, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom, a Preacher
Paul’s last recorded prayer is for mercy for his friend, Onesiphorus. If we might listen to their joint-song, the dungeon-prayer for mercy has been caught up in Paradise: It is the song of Eternity---“O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever.”(1 Ch. 16:34- repeated nine times in the Holy Scripture)
Ps. 103:17: “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children.”
When Paul prayed for Onesiphorus, it was for mercy. “The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy in that day…” Mercy is a sinner’s word. It is the pity which God shows to the undeserving. Goodness is the term we use when we speak of His kindness as displayed in the fruit of the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. Mercy is His kindness in its manifestations to the miserable and lost.
Mercy is the highest type and expression of the Divine Goodness.
“God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins” (Eph. 2: 4-5). God’s mercy stooping over us, and His love loving us, when we were morally and spiritually dead.
It is this “mercy of the Lord” which Apostle Paul here invokes for his sympathizing visitor.
The Apostle knew the great grace of this wondrous mercy: “Less than the least of all saints” (Eph. 3:8) ---“to save sinners of whom I am the chief (1 T. 1:15)” “before a blasphemer and persecutor and injurious, but I obtained MERCY.” (1 Ti. 1:13; 1:16).
Who is this saint, Onesiphorus?
2 Tim. 1: 16-18: “The Lord give mercy unto 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, you know very well.”
2 Tim. 4:19: “Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus.”
Like a transient meteor, Onesiphorus shoots across the Apostle’s evening sky and then vanishes from sight in sacred story. But this one entry has embalmed his name amid the heroes of the apostolic age, and given him an abiding place in the Holy Bible’s constellation of the great and good. So that wherever this Gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, here is a memorial to this man.
(Orthodox tradition identifies him as one of the seventy disciples chosen and sent by Jesus to preach. They were chosen some time after the twelve apostles (Lk. 10: 1-24). Onesiphorus was a bishop at Colophon, Asia Minor, and later at Corinth. Orthodox and Roman Catholic tradition hold that he died a martyr in the city of Parium (not far from Ephesus).)
At the time when Paul wrote the words of the text, he was undergoing his second imprisonment. In his previous detention when occupying his own “hired house”, he was “much more bold to speak the word without fear” (Phil. 1:14). Not so, in his second imprisonment.
During the intervening two years of his first imprisonment (62 A.D. – 64-65 A.D.), the burning of Rome caused by the wanton act of Nero, had taken place. The conflagration started July 8, 64 A.D. and burned for 6 days and 7 nights. Seventy percent of the city was in smoldering ruins.
Nero laid it to the charge of the innocent Christians. Paul of Tarsus was the acknowledged leader of the Nazarene sect. One historian believes Paul was arrested at Nicopolis, Greece shortly after the fire and sent by the authorities of that city to be tried at Rome.
No longer treated as an honorable state prisoner, but as a common criminal, he was subjected to strict military custody in the Roman Mamertime dungeon in the worst possible conditions.
(Today below a small Church in Rome (S. Guseppe dei Falegnami) are two chambers which are believed to be the dungeons where Peter and Paul were bound for the space of their last nine months---and the fountain which miraculously burst forth to supply water for the baptism of the two jailers, Processus and Martianus, with forty-seven other converted fellow captives. There is an impression of a head on the wall, believed to have been made by the head of Peter.)
Now the occasional visits of former friends and associates was made only under severe restrictions, and at imminent personal risk. Onesiphorus was probably one of a few of these visitors.
Paul is writing to Timothy a brief time before his own martyrdom and pours forth the language of a grateful heart, “The Lord give mercy unto 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.”
This also could indicate that Peter had not yet been imprisoned with him at the time of this writing. (Others believe Peter was crucified in 65 A.D).
There is much implied in this strong expression of the Apostle’s condition. It denotes alike the difficulty and danger which Onesiphorus’ risked to minister to Paul as well as the assiduous pains and perseverance the affectionate diciple displayed in accomplishing it. “Sought me out with extraordinary diligence.” (Alford).
How many by the strong hand of Christian friendship and sympathy have been helped up their “Hill Difficulty! (Pilgrim’s Progress)” when a brave heart in the hour of loneliness would have given up---those who have felt themselves driven from their old moorings, and drifting unpiloted on a midnight sea. Blessed is every such Barnabas; blessed every “son of consolation”.
The Lord Jesus Christ Himself manifest again and again his yearning for human sympathy. What was the Mount of Transfiguration, but a scene of exalted sympathetic communion with representatives alike from the Church militant and the Church triumphant gathered to comfort and strength Him in anticipation of His hour of trial.
To the disciples he said: “With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you, before I suffer”. “Tarry ye here and watch with Me.” The sheep scattered as the Shepherd was smitten, and the blood-stained warrior of Edom was left to “tread the winepress alone.” (Isa. 63:3)
As with his Lord before him, others had grown faithless to the aging Apostle. A Demas-throng---his “summer friends,”---smiling on him in his prosperity, when as a missionary he was sailing the summer seas and in the power of the Holy Ghost have turned cowards in his adversity. In the face of the horrific persecution of Christians in Rome, one after another, they left the sinking ship to its fate as the storm clouds gathered. Not all, however:
Onesiphorus refreshed Paul. We don’t know how he refreshed him, but he was willing, if need be to go down with him in the waters.
What a glorious meeting with the two of them in that Roman prison. What glorious themes warmed their hearts, raised their prayers and praise to the Lord Jesus Christ, His cause, His kingdom, His matchless love, His upholding grace, His Glory, the Church on earth, the Church in heaven! Their common trials!
When the Apostle writes to his beloved Timothy asking for him to come to his side, in one short parenthesis, he shares of this rare act of kindness that had shot across his darkened sky.
All they of Asia had turned from him, with the exception of one of its citizens.
Paul could not recompense Onesiphorus. But, oh, he carried him before the great Recompenser. He breathes his last recorded prayer, “The Lord give mercy to the house of Onesiphorus. The Lord grant that he may find mercy of the Lord on that day.”
We must note that it is “the house of Onesiphorus” (not Onesiphorus personally), for which the prayer is offered. He could be declaring to the house of Onesiphorus the promised blessing to all those who show mercy to the poor.
Ps. 103:17: “The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness to children’s children.”
Ps. 41:1: “Blessed is he that considers the poor, the Lord shall deliver him in the time of trouble.”
It may be no more than the Apostle’s large heart embraced the whole household of his friend; that as the house of Obededom was blessed on account of the Ark, or as the family of Saul were dealt with kindly for Jonathan’s sake, so does he pray, regarding small and great in that distant Ephesus home.
The name of Onesiphorus is mentioned by St. Paul once more, in the close of the Epistle. But again, it is “the household of Onesiphorus”. Some have considered that he may have predeceased Paul.
There is no distance in prayer. Prayer can whisper a father blessing. Prayer can sprinkle a child better than a mother’s tears. Prayer can fetch the angels of God around loved ones as a guard. Prayer is still the golden key by which can unlock for others as well as for ourselves the treasury of heaven and “move the arm of Omnipotence.”
The Apostles prayers and thoughts are centered on the Great day of recompense. “the Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day”. Timothy would need no interpretation as he read this letter. The Apostle is speaking of the Great Day of the Lord; that luminous, radiant day, when Christ will appear in the glory of His Father, and of the holy angels, as the Judge both of quick and dead.
2 Tim 1:12: “ I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.”
2 Tim. 4:8: “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge shall give me at that day.”
It is striking, these occurring in his last letter as if the Great White Throne was in view.
It was a glorious beacon-light in the heaven of Eternity, which had gladdened his spirit during many a midnight on earth’s tempestuous sea; but it was shining clearer and brighter as he was nearing the heavenly shore.
“In that day” in the Advent of Christ on His Throne of Judgment all wrongs of the earth will be righted. Sin will be expelled. Satan bound. Our living Lord will be crowned with many crowns. “That day”---the chained, lonely captive in his gloomy dungeon, with the tear of gratitude in his eye, could picture Onesiphorus among the crowd who receive the reward, “When we saw you in prison, and came unto you.”
Oh! when that day shall come, when the Lord shall arise in the glory of His majesty; when that throne shall be set, before whose sapphire brightness sun and moon will grow pale; when the whirlwind of His wrath will be sweeping down every refuge of lies; when the heavens shall be folded together as a scroll,---passing away with a noise, compared with which the loudest thunder would be but as an infant’s cry; when the earth shall be the sport of devouring flames, it forests charred into blackness, and its hills become as chaff; when the gathering of millions marching to the “Great Assize” (C. H. Spurgeon).
The Lord grant unto us, that we may find mercy of the Lord “ON THAT DAY”.
Yes, His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting on them that fear Him. But it must be mercy sought now, to be mercy found ON THAT DAY.
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
I entered into the labors of John Ross MacDuff (1818-1895)-– Saint Paul In Rome. Comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of Rev. MacDuff.