Philemon 1:8-9

‘For which reason, though I have all boldness in Christ to enjoin you what is befitting, yet for love’s sake I rather plead with you, being such a one as Paul the aged, and now a prisoner also of Christ Jesus.’

And it is because of his awareness of Philemon’s generous spirit that, although because of his status he could be bold in Christ to call on him to do what is fitting by exerting his authority as an Apostle, he does not intend to do it that way. Rather he intends, because of the love that they have for each other to plead with him, as Paul the aged and now as the prisoner of Jesus Christ. In other words to plead with him as his friend to respond to his grey locks, and to what he is suffering for Christ. Note again how he expects response to the fact that he is Christ’s prisoner, a point emphasised throughout the letter (Philemon 1:1; Philemon 1:9; Philemon 1:13; Philemon 1:23).

‘Paul the aged.’ The word which Paul here uses of himself is presbutes and Hippocrates, the great Greek medical writer, says that a man is presbutes from the age of forty-nine to the age of fifty-six. Thus it does not strictly mean an old man. On the other hand it may well indicate that Paul was feeling his age. It is only after fifty six years of age that a man becomes a geron (an old man).