Romans 16.1-16

I love this picture. It was taken during our church retreat last June. We’ll look at it in a few years, and what will we see? A moment frozen in time: a picture of a particular church (ours), at a particular moment in our life together.

In a lot of ways, Romans 16 is the same type of picture.

Last week Joe described the book of Romans as a monumental defense of God’s mission on this earth, and he’s absolutely right. Last Sunday’s text was the climax of this entire letter—it’s the inevitable, final application of his gospel. If you’ve understood and embraced the gospel, you will be mobilized for the mission of the gospel.

But here’s what I love about the Bible, that we can see particularly in Paul’s letters: although Paul can write with such force and eloquence about these huge, earth-shattering truths, he never forgets the very real individuals, the real men and women, to whom he is writing: in Paul’s writing, as throughout the entire Bible, truth is never divorced from love.

So we’re going to do something a little unusual today. We’re going to just go through the text all at once, to try and simply get a grasp of who these people were and why Paul is addressing them like this—to get a kind of picture in our minds, like the picture of our church at the retreat. And then we’ll take a step back and talk about some things God wants us to take away from that picture, because this is a lot more than it looks like on the surface; it’s a lot more than a list of names.

Before we read though, let’s remember the context a little—I know we’ve talked a lot about this over the last year and a half, but it’s really important for this text, and for next week’s as well.

Remember, the church in Rome was a church comprised of Jewish and Gentile Christians who are trying to figure out what it looks like to be followers of Christ together. And we have multiple passages in Romans in which Paul warns one group or the other—Jews or Gentiles—against judging the other group, or entertaining the idea that one group is more favorable in God’s eyes than the other because of what they do or don’t do. These passages show that while there may not have been any open conflict over these issues, there was at least a good deal tension there.

Now, more than one person came to me this past week after hearing Joe’s sermon last Sunday, going, “Didn’t he sort of contradict you?” Joe said that Paul’s goal in writing this letter was not to correct the church in any way, because he says they were doing very well—full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct each other (15.14). Rather, he was writing to mobilize the church for the mission. I was expecting some questions on this, because after thinking about it I realized I probably haven’t been clear enough in past sermons.

I want to go on the record as giving a hearty amen to what Joe said: Paul wasn’t writing to correct the church, and throughout this series I never meant to suggest otherwise.

Here’s what I mean when I talk about tension. Tension is not division; it’s actually inevitable in any healthy relationship, and it is often a sign that things are going well—there is no tension if you’re not working hard. How many healthy marriages are there that have to work through points of tension between husband and wife? The answer is, all of them. Tension is something that stretches you, that needs to be worked out, in order to make you stronger.

Paul didn’t write everything he wrote about salvation and the Law of Moses in order to correct the church in Rome; they didn’t need correction, they were doing well. But this tension between Jew and Gentile was indeed present in the church, because there were Jews and Gentiles there, who were coming at their deep-seated understanding of how God works from very different angles. So Paul said in 15.15, You’re doing very well… “But on some points I have written to you very boldly by way of reminder”.

Why were these reminders necessary? Because given their particular makeup, the church in Rome was a church that, from a human point of view, could have been incredibly easy to divide. There was so much natural separation between the different members of this particular body that no one would have been surprised if this church ended up splitting into two different groups—a Jewish church on one side, and a Gentile church on the other, with maybe even more subgroups after that. Such a division over these secondary issues would have been completely unsurprising, but it would have been detrimental to the mission of the gospel.

Greetings (v. 1-16)

And that is why chapter 16 is so beautiful: despite all of the numerous reasons why this church could have been divided amongst itself, in this seemingly uninteresting list of greetings Paul shows us the beauty of the sort of church he describes in chapter 12: one body, with many members.

So let’s look at the greetings together, starting in v. 1:

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, 2 that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

We’ve mentioned Phoebe once or twice before in this series. She was a deaconess of the church in Cenchreae (a port town just east of Corinth). Paul was likely writing from Corinth, and sent Phoebe from there to Rome in order for her to deliver this letter to the church. He goes out of his way to commend her to them, saying, she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

This more than likely means that Phoebe was a woman of means and of a particular social standing, who put her wealth and her resources and her time at the services of ministers like Paul, who needed support. The missionaries in our church, I think without exception, are living off of the generosity of people back in their home countries, who give them money every month in order for them to fulfill their ministry.

Same thing here: Paul and the apostles were traveling around, bringing the gospel to places that hadn’t yet heard it, and they needed money to do so. Phoebe was one of these people funding their ministries. This service is invaluable to gospel ministry; the mission of the church is impossible to maintain without it.

And as was usual when someone would transmit a communication in this way at the time, since Phoebe had delivered the letter to Rome, she was likely reading the letter out loud to them as well. Which might have made for an awkward moment for her, when she got to this part, because Paul commends her to the Romans and asks them to give her whatever she needed. (“I promise, Paul’s saying this, not me!”)

Next, he says (v. 3):

3 Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, 4 who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.

Now if you’ve read the Bible, you’ve seen these two before. We see them in Acts 18, where they meet Paul for the first time. Remember, we talked about how this particular context in Rome likely started: the Jews were exiled from Rome by the emperor Claudius and had only recently returned home to this church which was now being run by the Gentile Christians who’d been left behind. Prisca (or Priscilla, as we see her called sometimes) and Aquila were among those Jews exiled, and now they’ve come back home.

They worked in the same trade as Paul (they were tentmakers), so that’s how they got to know him, but Paul also calls them “fellow workers”. We see them doing not just manual labor, but gospel labor; they’re the ones who sort of tutored another important gospel minister at the time, Apollos. They pulled him aside, recognizing his wisdom and his gifts, but also his need for further instruction in the gospel; so they taught him.

Paul says that they “risked their necks for my life”. We don’t know the exact circumstances of this event, but it’s an example of what we saw last week. The church does not need attendees, but Christians who devote themselves entirely to the work of the gospel. This couple devoted themselves to the gospel to such an extent that they risked their own lives to make sure Paul was able to continue his ministry.

He also says at the beginning of v. 5,

Greet also the church in their house.

So here we can see a bit of the organization of the church in Rome: it wasn’t one church that met in one big building, like we do, but several small churches that met in homes, and that likely congregated occasionally and worked together. (That’s the way things were done at the time, and it’s similar to what we try to do today in our community groups—this was one church which usually met in several houses.)

Next we see (v. 5b—we’ll go a little more quickly through these):

Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. 6 Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. 7 Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.

So we have several people: Epaenetus, the first convert in Asia (likely a more recent convert than many others in the church); Mary, whose work may have gone unnoticed, as service in the church often does; and Andronicus and Junia, probably another Jewish couple, who were apparently in prison with Paul for their faith, whom the other apostles know, and who have been Christians longer than Paul himself.

V. 8:

8 Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9 Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. 10 Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. 11 Greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. 12 Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. 13 Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. 14 Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. 15 Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.

Paul sends greetings to various people whom he knows, or at least knows by reputation. I’m terrible at remembering names—if you know me at all, you know it’s true. Paul has never visited the church in Rome, but he’s met several of the people there, and he remembers them. For others, he knows of them, and approves of them. He talks about the work they’ve done, how they’ve helped the cause of the gospel, and how they’ve helped him (he even mentions the mother of Rufus, “who has been a mother to me as well”—what a precious gift to have older men and women in the church who can act as surrogate mothers and fathers to those younger than them, even ministers of the gospel like Paul).

These greetings are slightly less personal than the earlier ones (and we’ll see why in a minute), but the overwhelming feeling that comes from these greetings is genuine affection. He’s not just saying, “Say hi to these folks.” These greetings were expressions of unity and affection from Paul and the other churches around him.

In other words, the church in Rome wasn’t anonymous for Paul. He wrote earlier in the letter about how the Romans should view the other Christians in their community as members of one body. These greetings indicate that on a wider scale, Paul sees all of them of members of the body he belongs to as well.

A Real Church

There are several reasons why this list of greetings is remarkable, and worth reflecting upon. But if I had to sum them all up under one heading, I’d say that the list is worth remembering because it helps us remember that this entire letter to the Romans is not a theological treatise. It wasn’t a book that Paul intended for publication, at least not first and foremost. It was a letter that he wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to a real church.

A Real Family

We have to remember that Paul is greeting real people. Paul uses real names to designate individual he knows, whom he has heard of, with whom he has spent time, who each have their own distinct characteristics and gifts.

One of the things that helps us see these are real people—and not just a list of names Paul pulled out of a hat—is the remarkable diversity on display here. It’s a diversity that would have been shocking in any other context.

First of all, we see a great amount of ethnic diversity. We have Jews mentioned—Prisca and Aquila, Andronicus and Junia, Mary (probably), Herodion (these are Jewish names). The rest are names that are not of Jewish origin; they were Gentiles, people like many of us who were “grafted in to” the family of God, as Paul explained in chapter 11.

We also see a great diversity of gender here. Among the names Paul lists, there are nine women, which already would have been surprising in that cultural context. But what makes it even more shocking is that five of these women—Prisca, Junia, Tryphaena and Tryphosa, and Persis—are commended for their labor. And that’s if you’re not counting Phoebe. (Only two men, Aquila and Urbanus, receive a similar commendation.)

Ministry in the early church was never restricted to men; women played a vastly important role in almost every single aspect of the life of the church, and Paul wants the women in Rome to know that he knows how important they are.

In this list is something else that is probably not immediately evident, because you’d need to be familiar with Greek names and phrases (and to be clear, my Greek is not good enough for me to have discovered this on my own). We’ll see this again next week too, but we see in this list an incredible socioeconomic diversity—notably between slaves (or former slaves) and free men and women.

“Those who belong to the family of Aristobulus” are probably slaves belonging to the household of a man of that name (who may not be a Christian himself). Similarly, Ampilatus, Urbanus, Narcissus (and those in his household), Tryphaena and Tryphosa, Persis and Hermes were likely all slaves or former slaves. So these slaves would have been members of the same church as all of these other free men and women, and Paul has taken great pains in this letter to display why they should consider themselves, not as two different classes of people—slaves and free men and women—but as brothers and sisters. It’s an incredible leveling of the playing field.

We also see prominence given to people in different social situations, notably singles and families. Several married couples are mentioned, as well as individuals whose families are never mentioned. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul makes a case for the importance of singleness in the life of the church, and in Ephesians 5, he makes a case for the value of marriage in gospel ministry. Both are good, both are blessings, and both are necessary.

Lastly, we see a diversity of ages here, or at the very least, ages in the faith. He mentions at least one elderly person—the mother of Rufus—as well as someone who would have been at least a comparatively recent convert: Epaenetus, the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Here’s the point of all of this: outside of the grace and work of Jesus Christ, there is no realistic reason why these people should ever have been in the same room together. In Rome at the time, all of these people hanging out together would have been unthinkable. But here we see it: the church is gathered, listening to Phoebe read the letter, and as they look around, they see it. Jews sitting next to Gentiles, slaves sitting next to free men and women, old people sitting next to young people, men sitting next to women.

They should not have been together. But through what Christ has done, these people with nothing in common suddenly find themselves side by side, working together and living together, not just as acquaintances or colleagues, but as family.

The next thing we see is that life in the church is never less than real work. Paul mentions a number of co-laborers in this list, and there is a good deal of variety to their work. We see deacons, prisoners for the faith, itinerant missionaries, and ordinary Christians working hard alongside ordinary Christians.

The Christian church is not filled with acquaintances, and it is not filled with mere friendships. On top of those things, the church is a place of meaningful partnerships. We cannot accept the idea that church is less than partnership, less than work, for the sake of the gospel. It’s much more, but not less.

Thomas Schreiner, in his commentary on this section, says this: “Paul was not a ‘lone ranger’ kind of missionary. At every point in his ministry, Paul depended on a significant number of others who were working along with him. And if Paul needed such help, how much more do we. There is no room in modern ministry for the lone ranger approach either.”

These people did not come to church to have a good time. They didn’t come to church to be entertained. They came to church even though they knew it would likely soon cost them everything (and already had cost some of them a great deal), because God chooses to send the gospel forward through the diligent labor of his children, and this work is good.

The Romans’ work is finished; now it’s our time. We have to get rid of the idea that church is just a community. Church is work: not mainly for one another, but for the sake of the gospel. God has given us a mission, to bring the gospel of Christ to our families, to our neighborhoods, to our city, and to the ends of the earth.

And we are called to be all in—totally committed and given over to the work before us. Like Phoebe, like Prisca and Aquila, like all of these people who gave themselves over (their time, their resources, and themselves) to the work of the gospel, we are called to work sacrificially, in the same way.

But of course Paul isn’t reducing everything down to a kind of business transaction, as if they were all simply colleagues working together for a common goal. He’s not just saying, “Greet these people because they worked hard.”

He’s asking to greet these people because he feels real love for them.

We cannot accept the idea that real, fruitful partnership can be present in the church without real brotherly love.

Multiple times, he specifically calls out this love: “my beloved Epaenetus,” “Ampliatus, my beloved”, “my beloved Stachys”, “the beloved Persis.” He expresses genuine affection for these people, and lest we imagine that he was only singling out his love for these people, he says this in v. 16:

Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.

In other words, your affection for one another should be visible. It should be plain and easy to spot. So make visible signs of affection—I would add, in culturally appropriate ways. A kiss was a common way of greeting someone at the time; at least since Covid, it’s become slightly less common to kiss people. And that might actually be a good thing: for the longest time, the “bise” wasn’t actually a sign of love, but just of salutation. At least with members of the opposite sex, when you meet someone—a friend of a friend—you give them a kiss. (Between men, you’d shake hands.) That’s not necessarily a sign of love.

Paul is saying to greet one another with a holy kiss—that is, express your affection in a way that reflects the real and holy love that exists between you as brothers and sisters in Christ. What that looks like may vary wildly, but it should be visible.

For example: How often do we simply say “I love you” to a brother or sister in Christ? Not in an ambiguous or a romantic way, but in a familial way? If I say it to my wife and kids, if I say it to my parents and brothers and aunts and uncles, why wouldn’t I say it to you?

We mustn’t neglect our love for one another, and we must find ways to express that love, to make our love for one another clear and visible.

And this affection shouldn’t just be for the Christians in our church—as he says at the end of v. 16,  ALL the churches of Christ greet you. You are united to one another, but you are united to these other churches as well. They love you, and you should love them.

Paul is speaking to real people, in a real church, with real concerns just like we have, with real differences just like we have. But in this letter Paul has presented a case for believing that it isn’t just possible, but necessary, that these people, and we, see ourselves as one body: essential members of the family of God.

The question is, why? How can these disparate people, with so little in common, consider themselves one body, with a common mission, united by a genuine love for one another?

It is because their very real unity is found in Christ. Look at how many times Paul repeats the same words.

• V. 2: Welcome Phoebe in the Lord.

• V. 3: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.

• V. 8: Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.

• V. 9: Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ.

• V. 10: Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ.

• V. 11: Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.

• V. 12: Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa.

• V. 12: Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.

• V. 13 : Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord.

This reality that these diverse people are “in Christ” is what makes all the difference; it’s why these people can be in the same room with one another, and actually love and depend on one another.

Think all the way back to chapter 5, which we saw around this time last year. In chapter 5 Paul reminds us that the separation that defines the human race is not fundamentally a geographical or ethnic separation. There is one separation that truly matters: every human being who has ever lived or who will ever live is either “in Adam,” or “in Christ.”

We remember that Adam, the first man, sinned against God and plunged humanity into sin and death. Left to our own devices, we are all naturally “in Adam”—we suffer from the same weakness, the same sickness, the same sin. And, in the end, left to our own devices, every human being is naturally going in the same direction: towards condemnation, and eternal separation from God.

But now, because of God’s grace, we have been transported into a new register. If God has given us faith in the work of his Son, we are no longer “in Adam”; now we are in Christ. His victory is our victory. His obedience is our obedience. His righteousness is our righteousness.

Despite our many differences, we are in Christ. This is what defines us now, and this is what unites us to one another. If you look around this room you’ll see a remarkable diversity—not so much of age (we’re still working on that), but of origin and background and gender and, perhaps, socioeconomic status. Yet we are all in Christ. We are many members of one body.

That is what defines us now, and that is what defined these men and women to whom Paul was writing. Think of it: they were in Christ, and we are in Christ. We will see these people in heaven. We will get to talk to Phoebe, and ask her if it was weird to read Paul’s commendation of her to the church in Rome. We’ll get to see Ampilatus and Epaenetus and Andronicus and Asyncritus and Phlegon, and laugh together at how many churches throughout history had a really hard time reading their names aloud during church. We’ll get to rejoice together in the presence of God, forever.

What a gift to see that what we’ve been praying for Connexion since before we planted the church, God has been doing in real, individual churches for two thousand years. These greetings to the Romans are the proof of this. So let us live as who we are: real people, with real diversity, forming real partnerships for the mission of the gospel, supported by real love for one another—and all of this, on the foundation of the real unity that we have with one another, and with our brothers and sisters, all over the world, in Christ.