"Not Ashamed of My Chain"
“The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.” Yes! we sympathize in that benediction too. God bless Onesiphorus and his house with the riches of His love! We know but little of this Ephesian worthy, but that little makes us wish to know more. He was a genuine man — of that most ancient of all orders, “the order of manhood.” He was a faithful friend. He looked above appearances, or rather he regarded appearances in their true aspect. He recognized true nobility wherever he found it.
“not ashamed of my chain.” 137
He knew the image and superscription of his Heavenly Master when stamped upon a soul, and honored it for that Master’s sake.
. — How grateful is the recollection of the old war-worn Apostle! He says that Onesiphorus “oft refreshed” him. As a cup of cold water to the gasping, fainting wayfarer of the desert, came that visit of his Ephesian brother unto Paul. When he arrives in Rome, he searches Paul out. He finds him in a prison! “No man stood with” him. The timid have turned their backs, and left him in the lion’s paw. There he is, — Nero’s captive, but Jehovah’s freedman! There he is, — with an iron chain on that arm that waved over the Acropolis, and awed the philosophers of the Violet City into silence — that arm which made Felix tremble, and from which the viper fell off innocuous into the barbarians’ fire at Melita. That scarred and weather-beaten body is in a cell! Like that modern Paul who wrote the Pilgrim’s Progress, he is under bolts and bars. And thither comes Onesiphorus, with the refreshment of his fervid sympathy. He is not ashamed of the chain. No! He counts that a badge of glory, the livery of his once persecuted Master. It is a decoration. As Napoleon hung the “grand cross of the Legion of Honor” on the breasts of those who had fought the most bravely and suffered the keenest hardships, so ISTero put great distinction on the bold apostle when he bound that chain upon his limbs. He would not have taken so much pains to tie up a coward, A smooth, popularity-hunting preacher is generally safe in “kings’ houses,” but the Luthers find their meed in Wartburg castles. The Latimers and the “not ashamed of my chain.” 189
John Husses have their earnest voices smothered at the crackling stake, amid fire and smoke — and the tongues of the bold John Baptists are only safe to Satan’s tyrants, when “the head is brought in on a charger.”
It was as a badge of honor, therefore, that Onesiphorus greeted the Apostle’s chain. It spoke of holy constancy to Christ, and clanked out a noble eulogy, as Paul drew it o’er the cold prison floor. The treatment which Paul’s Ephesian brother showed towards him and towards his chain, bespeaks our highest emulation. Oh! for more of the spirit of Onesiphorus in the Church of Grod — the spirit that holds men at their true value — that looks more at principles than position — that values and cherishes pure worth even when under obloquy and suffering. Paul in poverty, Paul under the ban of power, and grown unpopular, was as dear to Onesipliorus as if he rode in the second chariot of the empire. Nay, more so. And so to us should poverty be honorable, where it is preferred to knavery or dishonor. It was honorable to that stout-hearted old Pennsylvanian, who, under the offer of a British bribe, replied, “I am a poor man, but, poor as I am. King George is not rich enough to buy me.” An empty purse was preferred to an emptied character. Unpopularity should also be to us a guerdon of praise, where it is visited on a man for conscience’ sake. There is ofttimes more honor in a pillory than a throne; and a Bunyan in Bedford jail sits a loftier monarch than his royal persecutor amid the debaucheries of White-Hall Palace. Dear to us be the suffering victims for God’s truth, who prefer penury to dishonor, and obloquy to a desertion of the right; and when “all men have forsaken them,” be ours the benediction that fell on him who “oft refreshed” the captive Paul, and was not ashamed of his chain I