Philemon 1:16
Not now as a servant…
That is, not only as a servant,
for a servant he was, and was to be received as such; his call by grace
had not dissolved the civil relation that was between him and his
master, though it had added to it something that was above it, and
greater than it:
but above a servant;
in a higher condition, as the Arabic version
renders it, than a servant; not barely considered in that relation,
but as being in one much preferable to it:
a brother beloved, specially to me;
a brother in Christ, and to be
beloved on that account, as he was especially by the apostle, who
had been the instrument of his conversion; see (Colossians 4:9) .
But how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord?
both in a natural and civil sense, as being of the same nation and
country, and as being part of his family, his servant, and now
become an useful and profitable one; and, in a spiritual sense,
being in the Lord, belonging to the Lord Jesus, to that family which
is named of him, being a fellow citizen with the saints, and of
the household of God, and therefore must be doubly dear to him.
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