The New John Gill Exposition of the Entire Bible Philemon 1:13
Whom I would have retained with me…
At Rome, where the
apostle was a prisoner:
that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of
the Gospel;
the apostle was in bonds, not for any crime, for any
immorality he had been guilty of, but for the sake of the Gospel,
for professing and preaching that; for this he was an ambassador in
bonds, as he elsewhere says, (Ephesians 6:20) . Now he would have kept
Onesimus with him, either to have waited upon him, in his bonds, and
to have provided for him the necessaries of life; or to have
assisted him in the ministration of the word, in the room of
Philemon, who, had he been there, would have been employed in such
service; so that if the apostle had retained him, he would have been
acting not for himself, but in the room of his master, and doing
what he should have done, had he been on the spot. This the apostle
observes to prevent an objection that might have been made; that
since Onesimus was become so profitable to him, why did he send him
back? why did he not keep him for his own service? this he obviates
and removes, by signifying he should have done it, but for the
following reason.
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