I beseech you for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds:
All Commentaries on Philemon 1:10 Go To Philemon 1
John Chrysostom
AD 407
For I would not have called him my son, Paul says, if he were not of great use and importance to me. What I called Timothy, that I also call Onesimus. Paul repeatedly shows his affection for Onesimus, reminding Philemon of Onesimus’s recent birth in Christ. “I have begotten him in my bonds,” he says, so that also on this account Onesimus was worthy to obtain much honor, because he was begotten in Paul’s very conflicts, in his trials in the cause of Christ.
