“May the Lord show mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, because he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains. On the contrary, when he was in Rome, he searched hard for me until he found me. May the Lord grant that he will find mercy from the Lord on that day! You know very well in how many ways he helped me in Ephesus.” (2 Timothy 1:16-18)
My quiet time reading this morning reminded me of Onesiphorus. Only mentioned twice in the New Testament, and only in the second pastoral letter to Timothy, I wondered who he was. My commentaries suggest (speculate?) that he was one of the 70 (or 72) appointed and sent out by Jesus in Luke 10 to prepare for His coming. They also identify an early church tradition of his martyrdom somewhere close to Ephesus. Though we can be sure of so little about him, nonetheless he is worthy of naming and noting as a faithful Christian who was there when the apostle Paul needed help. And not just once: both in Rome and Ephesus he helped Paul “in many ways.” Yet, apart from the brief mentions here, we know nothing certain about him. In my mind he joins so many other named yet unknown helpers who sustained and strengthened the ministries of others. In these short pastoral epistles for example, just who were Pudens, Linus, Claudia (2 Timothy 4:21)? What, exactly, was their role? And who was Zenas (Titus3:13)? And what was the back-story of Onesimus, the dear brother in the Lord (Philemon 16) who had become so useful? The more closely I look, the more names I see. Individuals worthy of a name-check but otherwise invisible. Yet they will be there, in places of honour, when we get to heaven.
The challenge for us this week is to be the Onesiphorus – or Pudens or Linus or Claudia or Zenas or Onesimus – to one another whether we ever get full and public recognition or not. May it be enough for us to one day to be among those who hear the Lord say, “well done, good and faithful servant.”