WWUTT 242 Among the Names?

When Paul concludes his letters by listing the names of fellow missionaries, he means to include those that he is writing to in this ministry effort.

They are just as important in the spread of the gospel as any of these recognizable names when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Romans chapter 16, verses 1 through 16 is where we are again today.

This is the section of this chapter that we'll be looking at, entering the home stretch. We'll be finishing up our study of the book of Romans here within the next few weeks.

Now I'm not going to read all of these names that are listed here in these 16 verses because I stumble on them sometimes.

You know, I was talking to a guy that taught Hebrew at a Christian college and there was one time he said something to me in Hebrew that was different than the way

I had heard that word. I didn't want to correct a Hebrew scholar because I'm definitely not one. But when he said the word, it just made me go,

I thought it was pronounced this way. And I was just curious because maybe I had heard it wrong my whole life.

And he said to me, you know, there's a general rule when it comes to pronouncing Hebrew or Greek.

And that's you say the name and you keep right on going. And everybody will sound like everybody will think that you're a professional at saying it.

So that was kind of the way that I approached it yesterday when I was reading the passage. I was just hoping that it sounded right.

And then you would think that I was a Greek scholar or something, knowing all these names and how to pronounce them. So here we go.

Romans chapter 16 will at least get as far as where we concluded yesterday, beginning in verse one. I commend to you, our sister

Phoebe, a servant of the church at Centrae, 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. Greet Prisha and Akilah, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who rest their necks for my life, to whom not only

I give thanks, but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well.

Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Appanidus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners.

They are well known to the apostles and they were in Christ before me. Okay, we'll get at least that far today.

So let's stop there. I want to come back to something that I mentioned yesterday about Phoebe.

So in those first two verses, Paul mentions Phoebe. And we focused mainly on that word servant.

Phoebe, a servant of the church at Centrae, because that's translated from the same Greek word for deaconess, the feminine form of the word deacon.

And so there are people that have used that verse to say that women can be deacons. But then we looked at the scriptures yesterday to see how those officers of the church, elder or deacon, are supposed to be men.

And I would encourage you to go back and listen to that yesterday if you haven't listened to it yet. That was kind of the focus yesterday.

But one of the things that I don't mean to take away from here is the emphasis that Paul puts on naming a woman first in the thanks that he gives to those saints that have been a benefit to him in this ministry.

So I mentioned yesterday that women aren't supposed to be elders and deacons, but that's not to take away from the vital role that they play in the church.

And here, Phoebe very clearly played a very important role in the ministry of the apostle

Paul. It's awesome and very significant that Paul would list a woman first.

He could have gone through all the men's names and then gone, oh, yeah, and there's some women that I have to thank as well. It was a woman that he put forth first, a great servant at the of the church at Centrae or San Criere, as I've also heard it pronounced.

That was a seaport in Corinth, by the way, which was in Greece. It was a pretty significant distance away from Rome.

Yet nonetheless, the way that Paul talks about Phoebe here, she seems to have the intention of going from Corinth to Rome.

And so when she arrives there, she needed to be treated as a great servant in the Lord. Paul speaks of her in the highest terms.

And so the way that they would treat her would be the way that they would show hospitality to even an apostle himself.

So a very important person in the life of Paul. And he speaks of her so favorably among these

Roman Christians who he also holds in such high regard of all the names that he lists of those to show gratitude toward a woman as the one who is listed first.

I think that speaks very highly of how women are regarded in the church, every bit as important as men are, even though they don't serve in a position of elder or deacon.

That does not mean that a woman's service in the church is any less than a man's. Take Paul's example of Phoebe in Romans chapter 16.

Moving on from there, the next person that Paul mentions is another woman, the wife of Aquila.

Greet Priscia and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. Now, this is the same couple that's mentioned in Acts chapter 18 as Priscilla and Aquila.

Priscia is just another spelling or another form of the name Priscilla. Let's look at that story.

Go to Acts chapter 18. We'll begin in verse 24. Apollos is speaking boldly in Ephesus, but he doesn't know the complete gospel until he is corrected by Priscilla and Aquila.

Beginning in verse 24 of Acts chapter 18, now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus.

Now, Apollos was a Jew, but he had a Greek name named after one of the pagan gods, as we talked about yesterday.

Apollos was an eloquent man, competent in the scriptures. In fact, Apollos was a very gifted orator.

And it's Apollos that is one of the men that the Corinthians really gravitated toward because they really loved speech and they really loved knowledge.

Now, Paul was a very knowledgeable, very intelligent apostle. Absolutely. But he was not strong in speech.

He talks about that in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, that he was very weak in speech. And when he came and spoke to the

Corinthians, they were like, this is the guy? I mean, he writes such weighty things in his letters, but he's so meek.

There's really nothing strong about his presence whatsoever. And so some of the Corinthians thought that Apollos was the better teacher because he was the better orator.

And yet some of them thought Cephas was even better because Peter was actually one of the apostles that bummed around with Christ.

So since he knew Jesus personally, then he must be the better of the three.

And of course, the apostle Paul rebuked them saying, were you baptized in the name of any of these men?

And I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except the couple of people that he named so that it would not be that they would boast in whoever it was that they were baptized, but let he who boasts, boast in the

Lord was what Paul was directing them toward. So Apollos here, this is our first encounter with Apollos in the

New Testament. They're speaking at Ephesus, very gifted orator, very competent in the scriptures, it says here.

Then in verse 25, he had been instructed in the way of the Lord and being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.

He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Achilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately.

And when he wished to cross to Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him.

When he arrived, he greatly helped those who through grace had believed, for he powerfully refuted the

Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Christ was Jesus. Apollos didn't know that until Priscilla and Achilla directed him in those things.

He spoke very boldly in his knowledge of the scriptures, but only as far as his knowledge took him.

He had not yet been shared the gospel of Jesus Christ. That had not yet been shared with him.

And so it was it was Priscilla and Achilla really that led Apollos to the Lord. He was not yet a

Christian, for he did not know Christ as the Messiah, the son of God. He only knew the teachings of John the

Baptist. So here we have a story of of of Priscilla and Achilla.

That's the names as we see it in Romans. I'm going back to Romans chapter 16 here and how important they were to the growth of the church as missionaries.

This husband and wife duo who helped to convert one of the most influential speakers in the early church.

So Paul mentions them with the Romans. They would have been known to the Romans and at some point would have visited them as well as Paul is kind of directing among them here to greet them when they come.

Greet Priscilla and Achilla, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, 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.

Their names well known among the early church. And again, the second name Paul mentions is that of a woman who was a very gifted and influential evangelist.

So even though a woman is not to hold a position of pastor or deacon in the church, she can be an evangelist.

She is not supposed to stand in the pulpit and direct authority over a man among the believers.

But when she is in public sharing the gospel with unbelievers, she can have that kind of authority in the gospel over those who do not yet believe because they are not yet part of the church.

So a woman can be an evangelist. And that's the way that Priscilla is spoken about.

Kind of a dynamic duo with her and her husband. Now it mentions here that they risked their necks for my life, but we don't really know what that story would have been.

It doesn't give us anywhere in the New Testament a place where Paul's life was in danger and Priscilla and Aquila stepped in and pulled him out.

Although it's possible that since Priscilla and Aquila were witnessing to Apollos in Ephesus and then in the very next part of the story that starts at the beginning of Acts chapter 19,

Paul is in Ephesus and the mob comes against him and his life was in danger there.

It could be that that was the scenario where Priscilla and Aquila stepped in and kind of rescued Paul in some way, but we don't really know for sure.

Now, since all of these things took place in Ephesus, where Paul says next in Romans 16 verse five, greet also the church in their house, the

Ephesian church may have been meeting there in the home of Priscilla and Aquila. And that church was probably

Paul's favorite church, at least the way that we see how he pours himself out emotionally for this church and and really feels for them in a very special way, even sending his most trusted servant,

Timothy, to them to be a pastor there in that church, all kind of speaks of how fondly he thought of the

Ephesian church and particularly Priscilla and Aquila. Now, as we move on here, we see another dynamic duo that we're going to get to here in just a moment.

But first, as we continue in verse five, greet my beloved Aponitis, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

We don't know who Aponitis was. This is the only place that he is mentioned, but still somebody of great importance to the first century church in the

Romans likely would have known who he was. Then in verse six, greet Mary, who has worked hard for you.

And this was a significant Mary that that the Romans would have recognized.

So it was either Mary, the mother of James, who is also the mother of Jesus, or it would have been

Mary Magdalene. So among now, Mary, the mother of James and Mary Magdalene, were among the women who first saw the empty tomb after Christ rose from the grave.

And so, again, very influential women in the beginning of the church. And Paul mentions several of these women here at the beginning of Acts chapter 16.

The next verse, verse seven, 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 Andronicus and Junia were probably like Priscia and Aquila.

Junia is a is a woman's name. So this may have been another husband and wife evangelism team that were leading others to Christ.

They're also fellow prisoners with Paul. So in their ministry, they had been in prison for preaching the gospel of Christ.

Or it could be that he's speaking of that figuratively, that they consider themselves bondservants to Christ Jesus and therefore are fellow prisoners and have mourned with him when he was in prison.

Could be thought of both ways. But I think that that likely it is it is considered that they have been imprisoned for speaking the gospel of Christ.

They are well known to the apostles and they were in Christ before me. Longtime Christians, very well vetted and and have a significant reputation in there in the first century church.

The next few names are not names that we recognize. Ampliatus, my beloved in the

Lord, greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ and my beloved Stachys. We don't see those names appear anywhere else, but nonetheless, significant enough figures that the

Roman Christians would have known who they are. And whenever Paul lists these names for the churches that he is writing to, he means to include them in this ministry work as if to say to them, you are as vital to this work that is going on, spreading the gospel around the world as any of these names that I have mentioned to you.

You are just as as much a part of this effort. You are just as much my friends as they are and brothers and sisters in Christ in this body as we grow and mature and share the gospel with the world.

And so the Roman Christians would have been greatly encouraged by these names as Paul was including them among some of these heroes of the faith in the eyes of the church at this particular time.

Our Lord God, as we kind of wrap up the lesson here, I pray that that we would consider one another favorably in this calling that is upon us to preach the gospel to the world.

No one stands with a greater importance than anyone else. Even public figures that we look at as names that that we hear often and other people here as well.

They have no greater importance in this ministry work than anybody else because their ministry outreach is only going to go so far.

But it is our responsibility to meet the needs of our neighbors, to reach out to those in our own community and preach the gospel of Christ, where even these more recognizable names would not be able to get to.

So all of us are instrumental and vital, vital to the spread of the gospel of Christ.

We all have an opportunity wherever we are to meet someone with the gospel, the saving news of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for our sins, that we might have fellowship with God.

All who are in Christ have received his righteousness and his eternal life rescued from the depths of hell as a consequence for our sin and brought into the kingdom of God by his righteousness.

And so, Lord, I pray that we would take that gospel to the world, that that they would hear it and be saved and forgiven their sins and have fellowship with God through Jesus Christ, our

Lord, in whose name we pray. Amen. Pastor Gabe keeps a regular blog, sharing personal thoughts, alerting readers to false teachers and offering commentary on the church and social issues.

You can find a link to the blog through our website, www .utt .com. Thank you for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue our study in God's Word when we understand the text.