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Think of who the most important person in your church is and then realize you are just as important to the growth of the body of Christ and the spread of the gospel as they are, as we're being built together into a spiritual house when we understand the text.
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Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.
Thank you, Becky. Romans chapter 16 verses 1 through 16 is where we are again today. If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there. At the very beginning of this letter to the Christians there in Rome, the Apostle Paul said, first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world because of the persecution that these Christians there in Rome were undergoing and yet they were steadfast in the faith yet they continued to proclaim the gospel even though some of them had been put to death.
Their faith had become famous in all of the churches and it had encouraged many other Christians to stand fast in the faith as well. So when we get to Romans chapter 16 and the Apostle Paul is mentioning many other well-known Christians who had been out advancing the gospel, preaching among the churches, leading others to Christ and so much more.
Apostle means to include these Roman Christians among those well-known names that had been missionaries for the cause of Christ as well. So this is a very honoring section for those Roman Christians that Paul would say of these missionaries to the Christians.
These are the people that you are among. You are just as important and instrumental as they are in the advancement of the gospel. So this would have been a very flattering thing for them to be included among these names and to also be told here's who you should greet and welcome among you as these names.
All of these people who are mentioned here will either come and visit you or they send their greetings to you. So we continue reading here and I'm going to pick up in verse 6 instead of starting at the very beginning of the chapter.
But Paul says greet Mary who has worked hard for you and that would have been Mary, either Mary Magdalene or Mary the mother of Jesus among those women who had appeared at the tomb who had first come to the tomb when Jesus has had resurrected from the grave.
Both Marys are mentioned. Mary mother of James who would have been the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. So it was one of those Marys, very famous Marys. Okay, let's read through the rest of this section and then we'll go back through.
Greet Andronicus and Junia my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus our fellow worker in Christ and my beloved Stachys.
Greet Apelles who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsmen Herodian. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord Trophania and Trophosa.
Greet the beloved Persis who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus chosen in the Lord. Also his mother who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asencretus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobus, Hermas and the brothers who are with them.
Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister and Olympus and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. So Paul mentions these specific names and how these Roman Christians are included among them in the mission of the gospel to the world and also all of the churches.
All of the churches in Christ greet you. I had said at the beginning I think it was somewhere in chapter 15 sometime last week we were in chapter 15 I mentioned that all of these things are beginning to come full circle.
So all of what Paul had said at the beginning of the letter is starting to come back around at the end of the letter and we're seeing this here. As he concludes this section with all the churches of Christ greet you.
This goes back to what we read in chapter 1 verse 8 where Paul said that the testimony of what you are enduring for the cause of Christ is going out through all the world. And so they are just as important to the advancement of this gospel.
Now I had mentioned yesterday that we get to a point where many of the names become unrecognizable. So we've kind of had a lot of familiar names that have appeared in other places in the New Testament but then and we get to the kind of the last half of the list and we start to lose who these people are.
But again verse 6 Mary is mentioned there and then in verse 7 Andronicus and Junia my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners they are well known to the apostles and they were in Christ before me. Though we don't see these names appear anywhere else in the New Testament we know they were famous.
As Paul mentions them that they are well known to the apostles of great service to the apostles and their ministry and they likely were also a husband and wife duo just as Priscia and Aquila were or Priscilla and Aquila.
Priscilla as she's mentioned in the book of Acts Priscia is the way that her name is spelled here but it would have been the same person. So we have two husband wife duos that are mentioned there and my wife and I who greet you every day on this particular program.
We're kind of a husband and wife duo in this way. Now my wife does not want to get in front of people and speak which is why you only hear the greeting and the conclusion on this podcast is her but she doesn't come anywhere in between and I've talked to her about that.
I've said hey babe what do you think about coming on the program with me sometime and she goes I don't know you know gives me that grin like sounds fun. I would love to but she doesn't know that she has the confidence to do that so pray for her.
Maybe a day will come where the Lord would so impress her to want to join me on the program and be able to share something with the women who listen to this broadcast and we thank you so much for your attendance.
It is so wonderful the women that Paul mentions here in this particular list. We have Mary of course that we started with today and Junia which is mentioned here and as we go on Paul mentions one who was like a mother to him.
He says in verse 13 greet Rufus chosen in the Lord and also his mother who has been a mother to me as well and so these women who have been of great service to apostolic ministry at the very beginning of the church and the women are so influential in the church where would the church be without the women what we get so hung up on when it comes to controversy related to men and women in the church is that men are called to be the pastors and the deacons and women are not.
They're supposed to be submissive to those roles and so in our culture women today and many men as well will get up in arms about those kinds of passages. First Timothy chapter 2 verse 12 Paul mentions it to the Corinthians as well and they will get very upset about those things and they will try to make excuses for them.
Oh that was in that culture in that particular time but that's not for our culture today. We'll look at the way that Paul talks about the women here very favorably in fact more favorably than we even think of some of the women in church today where would the church be without the service of the women our church would be nowhere.
I the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City. I am not the church the church has done well for 60 years without me and they can last 60 more years without me. I don't have anything to do with the success of that church but rather it is all the parts of the body working together.
I apply myself in the role of ministry that God has called me to and the people who do the janitorial work apply themselves to the roles that God has called them to and they are just as important to the function of our church.
If you go back to Acts chapter 7 and you look at the appointment of the first deacons why were they appointed so that they could do the service work with hands and feet so that the teachers could continue to teach.
So I am able to teach because of the servants in the church who do some of the some of the legwork as a matter of fact, I just made a comment the other day. This was at our family breakfast at church, which we have on the first Saturday of every month.
So on Saturday, I made the comment. This is probably the first summer in the years that I've been at the church. I've never had to mow the grass. So I was reflecting on the months of spring and summer and this is the first year I've never had to mow the grass at the church.
Somebody has always been there stepping up and mowing the grass. I didn't do it a whole lot last year three or four times, but years before that it was there were sometimes it felt like it was almost every weekend at one point.
I was living in the parsonage right next door to the church. So it was always more convenient for me to do it. I'm living right there next door. I'm kind of keeping the grounds anyway was serving more in the associate pastor position at that particular time.
But there are servants who work those roles so that the teachers can teach and they are important to those roles that they serve in so that the teachers can apply themselves to the spiritual needs of the church in teaching the word of God to the members and also reaching out with the gospel to members of the community as well.
So whether you're talking about a person in a teaching role or a person in a servant role, they are both important to the function of the church. We all have respective calling. Some have greater responsibilities than others.
Now myself as a teacher, it says in James three, one that not all of you should aspire to be teachers because you know that teachers will be judged more strictly. So I stand before God in fear in such a way that a person who is who's doing some of the hands and feet work, you know, working in the kitchen or cleaning the hallways and the bathrooms or organizing volunteer lists.
They probably don't have to worry about the things that they are teaching to others as much as I would have to. For I stand before God in fear in teaching his word accurately from the pulpit, which sets the tone for the teaching for the entire church.
There are Sunday school classes that are being taught apart from what's happening in the sermons. But the pulpit is where the tone of the teaching of the church is being set. The foundation of the teaching starts first in the pulpit.
That's my responsibility. It is a great calling. But I am not the church. I am only a part of the church, this spiritual house. First Peter chapter two, the apostle Peter says, put away all malice and deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk that by it, you may grow up into salvation.
If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good as you come to him. A living stone rejected by men, but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ for it stands in scripture.
Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame. So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.
They stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do. I read that section to you so that you would know that the cornerstone is Christ Jesus, but that you who are in Christ are a living stone being built up into a spiritual house.
You are one of the stones among the other members of the church that you fellowship with who are also stones being built up into this house of God. You are not the church. I am not the church, but together we are growing up into that spiritual house, the church, the bride of Christ being made pure for that day that Christ returns to receive his bride and we will be with him forever in glory.
Those who are in Christ Jesus. Amen. Hallelujah. You are just as instrumental in the spread of the gospel as any of the names that we have mentioned in Romans chapter 16 of any of the people that you attend church with.
You are important to the spread of the gospel of Christ and the maturity of the body of Christ. Know your role, attend church, grow with the believers, spread the gospel. Our great God, we thank you for these words that were written down for us by the apostles so that we might learn and grow in maturity and spiritual understanding in Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Grow us in our understanding of these things as we apply ourselves to the word and submit to its authority. In the name of Jesus, we pray.
Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study. Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book.
On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers. Tomorrow, we'll pick up on an Old Testament study, When We Understand the Text.