Romans 16

Chapter 16. Object Lessons of Christian ServiceRomans 16A scroll of remembrance was written in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.“They will be mine,” says the Lord Almighty, “in the day when I make up my treasured possession.” (Malachi 3:16-17)This chapter is a page from the book of life, and it gives us an idea of how the records of our lives will appear when the books shall be opened. The long genealogical tables which we sometimes pass over in reading our Bibles are by no means dry and uninteresting. To the divinely taught mind they are chapters from the book of remembrance, and some day others may read our names, as we are reading theirs. They tell us how God appreciates and remembers the lives and services of His children, and discriminates, with loving fidelity, between the better and the best. This chapter forms the climax to the principles which have just been unfolded in the previous pages, and we see them here in action and practice. The Ministry of Women

1. We have a glimpse of women in the Apostolic Church. The majority of the Christians here named and noted are women, and they receive the highest rank and recognition. Surely if, in that day, when the restrictions of social life and the public opinion of society made woman’s public services so difficult, she had attained so high a place, how much more should she accomplish in this day of freedom and equality, when the gospel has freed her from every fetter and given her the place of honor and preeminence she now enjoys. There is no doubt that the apostle limits woman’s sphere in the Church of God; but only within the restraints required by her nature and her distinct place in the social economy. Like a great river which when it flows within its channels is a blessing, but when it overflows its banks it becomes a desolation, so woman can only reach her highest mission when she moves in her true sphere. In the First Epistle to the Corinthians (chapter 12), Paul gives her the right to prophesy, and he tells us that prophesying means to “speak… for… strengthening, encouragement and comfort” (1 Corinthians 14:3). This includes about all that any Christian woman ever wants to say. The only limitation there required is, that she shall have her head covered, which is a symbol of modesty. The woman, therefore, who will keep in the modest place that both nature and the Bible require, may speak about anything that is unto “strengthening, encouragement and comfort.” Later he seems to limit this by requiring the women to “remain silent in the churches” (1 Corinthians 14:34). In another passage he adds, “I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man;… For Adam was formed first, then Eve” (1 Timothy 2:12-13). It is quite certain that the apostle placed women under certain limitations. We believe that these had only to do with the exercise of authority in the churches. God did not mean woman to rule, but to love, suffer, and help. Her heart, and not her head, should be put in the ascendant. Her yieldedness is strength; her gentleness is her scepter. She is not called to exercise ecclesiastical authority, or take her place in the ordained ministry and government of the church; but in the ministry of testimony and teaching, both in public and in private, and in every office of holy love consistent with the principles of Christianity, she has boundless right and freedom. There was one special ecclesiastical office given to women in the early church, and it is beginning to be revived in our own time. It is the office of deaconess. This was the position of Phoebe, first mentioned in this passage (Romans 16:1). The word “servant” here means, literally, deaconess. The office of deaconess was very much the same as that of our city and foreign missionary. It was to teach, testify, and especially to minister to the sick and suffering in the primitive churches. It was recognized then as distinctively as the office of deacon, elder, or bishop; and while it gave woman no ecclesiastical authority, yet it recognized her proper ministry in an official way, and opened the widest doors of usefulness. In our own day, the ministry of woman has been greatly honored of God, and while few women are called to leadership and it is doubtful if they are adapted to it, yet their ministry of help has been most blessed, and our missionary boards are more and more indebted to them than to any other source for the resources that have enabled them to extend their operations in all lands. Indeed, it is sometimes said with reference to the bequests of men and the living offerings of consecrated women, that the missionary operations of some societies have been largely sustained by dead men and live women! May God more and more extend, honor and bless the ministry of women! The Church in the House
2. We have next a glimpse of “the church in [the] house” (Romans 16:5). We read of several “churches in the house” in the New Testament, the most prominent of which was the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla. Indeed, for the first two or three centuries there were no ecclesiastical buildings as we understand them now. All their meetings were in private houses or upper rooms. The first churches used for the preaching of the gospel and the worship of Christians were heathen temples transformed into Christian assembly rooms. It is probable that the Church was much more pure before it had church buildings than it has ever been since. It has been by no means certain that the addition of ecclesiastical buildings increased the purity and power of the Church. When the apostle speaks of the Church he does not mean the church building, but the ecclesiastical society. When he asks women to keep silent in the churches he does not mean the building, but the assembly of the Ecclesia. There is no doubt that the assembling of God’s people in private houses and upper rooms had very much to do with the sweet and simple spirit of primitive Christianity. It was not only the church in the house, but it was also the house in the church. It would be well if our modern ecclesiasticism had more of this simple fellowship. There is no sweeter picture in apostolic Christianity than good Aquila and Priscilla, the simple pair who entertained and helped Paul so kindly, and who were used of God to bring Apollos, the greatest intellect of the early Church, to know the fullness of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. In the single instance we see the power of the Christian home. Aquila and Priscilla could not preach like Apollos, but they could very lovingly bring Apollos to see the truth as it was in Jesus, and to become a great instrument in God’s hands for preaching the gospel with power from on high. Beloved, how is it with your house? Has it the church in the house? Beloved, how is it with your church? Is it the house of the church, filled with the spirit of unity, love and devotion to the common interest? The Ministry of Helpers
3. This chapter gives us a beautiful picture of helpers in Christ. All the names mentioned in this chapter were simply helpers. There were no leaders, but again and again we read such expressions as these: “my fellow workers [helpers] in Christ Jesus” (Romans 16:3), “who worked very hard for you” (Romans 16:6), etc. The Church of God is overrun with captains. She is in great need of a few more privates. A few rivers run into the sea, but a far larger number run into other rivers. We cannot all be pioneers, but we can all be helpers, and no man is fitted to go in the front until he has learned well how to go second. A spirit of self-importance is fatal to all work for Christ. The biggest enemy of true spiritual power is spiritual self-consciousness. Joshua must die before Jericho can fall. God often has to test His chosen servants by putting them in a subordinate place before He can bring them to the front. Joseph must learn to serve in the kitchen and suffer in prison before he can rise to the throne, and as soon as Joseph is ready for the throne, the throne is always waiting for Joseph. God has more palaces than accepted candidates. Let us not be afraid to go into the training class, and even take the lowest place, for we shall soon go up, if we really deserve to. A Page From the Book of Life
4. We have a very touching picture here of the lowly members in the church of Rome. A great many of those named in this chapter are slaves. In the records of the catacombs almost all these names have been found registered as slaves belonging to some Roman family. But here we find them side by side with the most distinguished names. The chamberlain [director of public works] of Corinth and Quartus, the brother—who was doubtless a slave—send their greetings in the same sentence. The various households here mentioned are all remembered by Paul with a recognition as kindly as their masters are remembered. It may have often seemed strange to us that the New Testament did not condemn slavery. Of course, the whole spirit of its teaching is fatal to the cruel institution of serfdom, but Christ and His apostles uttered no definite and explicit denunciation of the system of human slavery—and yet the world was full of it and every important Roman family had its bondmen, and still the Bible is silent about it. Why? The answer brings out a most beautiful fact, viz.: that the spirit and power of the gospel, when it reached the slave in his fetters, lifted him above his bondage and made him a free man in Christ and the brother of his master in the heavenly family. This toleration of existing social conditions made the miracle of grace more marked and brought out some of the most beautiful features of primitive Christian love. There is no more touching picture than that of Philemon and Onesimus, his slave, and the fine points of Christian consideration which the Apostle Paul was able to emphasize in his letter to his friend. The gospel does not come to declare against the rich or force the poor into a higher social position apart from the natural conditions of human life, but it comes to so exalt the spirit of the lowly and give them such new power in their personal life and character that they will rise above their social restrictions and disadvantages and claim an equal place in the brotherhood of Christianity and the family of God. No one is too lowly to be remembered in the Book of Life, or too lowly to be used of God and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit. The Ministry of Suffering
5. The ministry of suffering is beautifully recognized in this chapter. Paul speaks of his “relatives who have been in prison with me” (Romans 16:7). This is one way we have of winning a crown and working for our Master. We can suffer with Him, and if need be, we can suffer with His suffering ones. Paul often speaks of those who are “not ashamed of my chains” (2 Timothy 1:16). There is a very beautiful passage in Hebrews, where the Christians are asked to “remember those earlier days… when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated” (Hebrews 10:32-33). In a work like this it is very certain that, as we stand for God and for present truths, we shall be often misunderstood and perhaps even persecuted; and God recognizes with great tenderness and love the loyal devotion which stands true to the principles and leaders of such a movement until the day of probation is over and the hour of triumph comes—as it always comes to the truth and the right. If you can do nothing else, my brother, you can at least be true, and there is nothing more dishonorable and sad than to prove a traitor to the trust committed to you and to the brethren with whom God has called you to stand and serve. None of us are anything in ourselves, nor should we wish to draw persons to ourselves. But if God has permitted us to represent these great truths, principles and aims which the Spirit of God has inspired, which the full development of Christian life requires, and which a perishing world needs in this crisis age, then he is an enemy of God and must become his own enemy who opposes or weakens such a movement; and he who can do nothing more than simply stand true and give his loyal love, sympathy and prayers, is a partner in the work, a comrade in the great campaign, and shall share the recompense in the day when God shall remember our works and give us our crowns. The Ministry of Letter Writing
6. We see in this chapter the ministry of correspondence. It is a remarkable fact that Paul had so many friends in Rome, and had so many personal greetings to send to them all, although he had never even visited this city. How did he get acquainted with them? Chiefly by correspondence. True, he had met some of them in other places; but most of them were friends to whom he had written, and who had written to him. What are you doing with your pen? Is your private correspondence dedicated to God—or to idle gossip? God Remembers
7. This chapter reminds us of God’s personal remembrance of each of His children, and the recompense He has in store for them in the final day. It will not always be the day of toil and trial. Some day we will hear our names announced before the universe and the record read of things that we have long forgotten. How our hearts will thrill and our heads will bow as we hear our own names called, and then the Master recounts the triumph and the services which we had ourselves forgotten! And perhaps from the ranks of the saved He will call forward the souls that we have won for Christ and the souls that they in turn had won, and as we see the issue of things that have perhaps seemed but trifling at the time, we will fall before the throne and say, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory!” (Psalms 115:1). There was once an English preacher on his way to a little country church to fulfill an engagement to preach, and as he stopped and tied his pony at a little country inn on the way, he went in and lay down to rest. He was much discouraged. He was a target for abuse and misrepresentation. He was unpopular and the gospel that he preached was despised. As he lay down he felt so weary that he wished his work was ended. He fell asleep and dreamed that he had been going to a little village church to preach and had stopped at a little inn to rest; and had lain down upon a couch in his chamber, wishing that he might die—and that he did die. In his dream he was borne up by the angels in the air to the land of glory, and as they lifted him up he was ushered in and seated in a waiting room resplendent like a palace, where he was told to wait a few moments until the Master Himself should come to meet him. As he waited there for his Lord to appear, he began to look around the temple upon the tapestries that so richly hung upon the walls, and as he gazed upon them he thought he recognized in the beautiful surroundings a picture of his own life. He could see his birth, his infancy, his childhood, his early manhood, his conversion, his fallings and restorations, his toils and services for Christ, the souls he had won, the sermons he had preached, all the places he had visited and all the wonderful outcomings of these things, reaching away into issues that he had never dreamed of. And as the meaning of his life opened out in all this glorious blessing, his heart was thrilled with wonder, until at last he came to the close, and he saw the chamber, the little pony by the door, the dead man lying on the couch and the congregation waiting in the little village church for the preacher; and then the great unfinished work and the wonderful possibilities that might have been. Then his heart became filled with sorrow and he wished that he had not died, and he longed to be back again on the little pony, on the way to the little country church; and as he wept, he suddenly awoke. And lo! He was lying on the little sofa and the pony was standing at the door. He got down on his knees and thanked God that he was still alive. He went on to labor and to wait, with new courage and hope, until the work was all finished and the hour at last came when he, the blessed Richard Baxter, entered into “the saints’ everlasting rest” of which he had so often spoken. Beloved, the pages are going up every day for the record of our life. We are setting the type ourselves by every moment’s action. Hands unseen are stereotyping the plates, and soon the record will be registered and read before the audience of the universe and amid the issues of eternity.