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"The simple and more obvious meaning is here to be preferred, and we assume as
certain that the forsaking, the giving up St. Paul, took place in Asia itself. Large numbers
of Christians, if not whole churches, repudiated their connection with the great father of
Gentile Christianity, and possibly disobeyed some of his teaching. What, in fact,
absolutely took place in Asia while St. Paul lay bound waiting for death in Rome, had
been often threatened in Corinth and in other centres. Party feeling ran high in those
days, we know, and one of the most sorrowful trials the great-hearted St. Paul had to
endure in the agony of his last witnessing for his Lord, was the knowledge that his name
and teaching no longer was held in honour in some of those Asian churches so dear to
him. The geographical term Asia is rather vague. It may, and indeed strictly speaking
does, include Mysia, Phrygia, Lydia, Caria; but such widespread defection from Pauline
teaching seems improbable and there is no tradition that anything of the kind ever took
place. St. Paul probably wrote the term more in the old Homeric sense and meant the
district in the neighbourhood of the river Cayster."
There are some expositors who deny that there was any large scale apostasy at this
time, but one comes to a different conclusion when one searches for the distinctive truths
of his prison ministry in the early centuries that followed. While there must have been
the faithful who had eyes to see and divine courage to hold fast to the good deposit of
truth, for the most part Paul's witness has made little impression upon history all down
this age. The early believers and leaders did not fully grip this doctrine and gross
spiritual darkness soon followed, coming to its climax in the Middle Ages up to the
Reformation. Even the basic truth of justification by faith was lost, so it is not to be
wondered at that great truth of the Mystery was all but unknown. Since the Reformation,
truth has been in the process of recovery in the inverse order in which it was lost*. If
today we are glorying in the spiritual riches revealed in Paul's prison ministry, let us not
only rejoice and be thankful, but also realize the great responsibility this brings and the
need for absolute faithfulness to witness to this sacred trust.
[* - The first truth to be lost was the Mystery,
then the doctrine of the Second Coming,
followed by Justification by faith.]
The Apostle Paul now refers to the testimony of one who had remained loyal to him
and therefore was an example to Timothy:
"The Lord grant 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 diligently, and
found me (the Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord in that day); and in how
many things he ministered at Ephesus, thou knowest very well" (1: 16-18, R.V.).
Onesiphorus was a brave man, for we have pointed out the danger of anyone linking
himself publicly with Paul. How easily he could have excused himself by saying Paul's
whereabouts were difficult or impossible to find! But instead of this, he searched
`diligently' for him till he discovered where he was imprisoned. Not only this, but the
Apostle declared `he often refreshed me'. The word translated `refreshed' is unique in
the N.T. As a noun it occurs in Acts 3: 19, `the times of refreshing', referring to the
blessed effects of the Lord's Second Advent. Moffatt's translation is `he braced me up'.