Romans No.33 Personal Greetings

Let's go to the Word of God and we'll read the final chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans. I wonder how many times when you come across lists in the New Testament or the Old Testament of people's names you give them a miss. Well, I guess some of the begets and begats in the Old Testament are not particularly inspiring, but it would be unfortunate if you didn't read these lists in the New Testament because they do give us some insight into the composition of the local church in Paul's day.

Fascinating. Romans 16, let me read it through to you. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Centuria.

I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me. Greet Priscilla, or Prisca, and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risk their lives for me.

Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. Greet also the church that meets at their house. Greet my dear friend Epinetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.

Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junius, my relatives, who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the Apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

Greet Ampliatus, whom I love in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stichis, or Stachis. Greet Apolles, tested and approved in Christ.

Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus. Greet Herodion, my relative. Greet those in the household of Narcissus, who are in the Lord.

Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord and his mother, who has been a mother to me too.

Greet Assangretus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrabas, Hermas, and the brothers with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nersus, or Nereus, and his sister, and Olympus, and all the saints with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the churches of Christ send greetings. I urge you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites.

By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you. But I want you to be wise about what is good and innocent about what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my relatives.

I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings. Erastus, who is the city's director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.

Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed and made known through the prophetic writings by the command of the eternal God, so that all nations might believe and obey him. To the only wise God be glory forever, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now one of the reasons why I'm grateful to the Lord that this particular chapter was brought by the Holy Spirit into the New Testament, into the writings of Paul, and that he didn't stop at the end of chapter 15 of this marvelous epistle to the Romans, is because, as I say, it gives us an insight into the composition of the church at Rome, tells us a little bit about the people, who they were, where they came from. And the Apostle, of course, when he's writing to the church at Rome, also is obviously based somewhere that he's writing from, and you'll discover that there are a number of people who are part of his team. They likewise send their greetings to the people at Rome, and so you get this lovely insight into what the church situation was like in the New Testament times.

And this chapter, it just draws the curtain across for us to be able to see, or draws a curtain back for us to see what life was like in the early years of the Christian Church, and from that we can measure our own church relationships and the way that we handle things, and see to what degree we have the same spirit and the same goals, the same objectives as these people did. Well, there are 26 individuals referred to, and if I were to go through them all, I would be here a long time, and that wouldn't please you, and it wouldn't give much time for prayer either, so we'll not do that. We'll be selective in our study this evening.

There are five households, or five house churches, that are referred to also, which is rather interesting, isn't it? The concept of the house church was very much in vogue. In fact, it was the only concept really available in the first century, as far as Christian meeting places were concerned. Churches tended to gather together in the large rooms of some of the more wealthy members of the various congregations.

So, we're going to have a look at those to whom the Apostle directed his greetings, and you get the list of those in the first 16 verses. Then, just a little insight into what he has to say, in terms of warning, from the 17th verse through to the 20th verse, and then from verse 21, the Apostle talks about his home team, the people who moved around with him, and the folks who were giving him hospitality, from where he was writing this letter, which was probably Ephesus, and then finally there's a grand doxology for us just to have a look into briefly. Well then, these opening verses which tell us about the sort of people who Paul is looking forward to meeting in Rome.

The first thing that you perhaps ask yourself is, how did he know so much about these people when he'd never been to the church? I mean, he'd never been to Rome before, had he? That's one of the things that we've been looking at in the 15th chapter, and also in the first chapter it tells us this, that he's looking forward to going to the center of the Roman Empire, so that he can impart some spiritual insights to them, and so that he in turn can receive from them. So, how is it that he knows about so many people? Well, the thing is, bear in mind that the early church-like people in our modern society today were always on the move, and you got your commercial travelers, obviously they didn't move quite as quickly, but Rome had come along, the Roman Empire, it had put down roads, and it was much more easy now to get from two points, and so you've got not only the apostles, the disciples of our Lord exploiting this, but obviously you've got the Romans moving around, the Roman military, and you've got the business people, and so forth. And Paul, who's always been moving around, has met up with some very interesting people in certain parts, and many of them have gone to Rome, so he's not been himself, but amongst that large company of people in Rome, there are those who've met up with Paul during his pilgrimages around Asia Minor.

And one of the people that we put the spotlight on immediately, because she's so interesting, is this lady who is called Phoebe, which actually is a pagan name, and it's interesting, isn't it? Particularly bearing in mind some of the criticisms that have been made, and some of them were accurate, though a lot of them were not fair about modern missionary practices, and missionary practices at the turn of the century, when people tended to perhaps try to change things in the culture of the folk where they were evangelizing. She keeps her pagan name, Phoebe, and this lady, who actually had been brought up in the dark yard area of Corinth, Centuria, if you have a look in the Acts of the Apostles, it will make it very plain, in the 18th chapter and the 19th, 1st century, was a little overspill of Corinth, like say, Shoreham is an overspill, if you like, of Brighton or Worthing, whichever way you're going at it, geographically. And it was from this dark yard area that Phoebe came, she'd responded to the Gospel, and from what may have been very uncongenial surroundings, she becomes a great asset in the advance of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, a woman given to hospitality, a woman who has been referred to as someone who carries the description of a servant, or if you like, of a deacon of the church.

Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Centuria. Now, I've gone on record before now, and I repeat it, I've read up books that argue against it, that my mind is still on the same conviction as I've expressed here at the tab in years gone by, that the early church did have women deacons, or deaconesses. If you move to 1 Timothy, in chapter 3, verse 11, reference there is made to the wives of the deacons.

Actually, the Greek word doesn't give the justification for that translation. There were male deacons, and there were lady deacons, or deaconesses. They all had to have the same spiritual gifting, men and women who were skillful, not only in their knowledge of the Word of God, but also in their Christian bearing.

Well, such a woman was Phoebe, and Paul acknowledged all that she had been doing back home in Centuria and in Corinth, the way that she'd ministered to other people, including himself. She was the lady who'd been entrusted with this particular letter. That was the great responsibility that she had, taking this Roman epistle.

We're glad she didn't lose it. She got it to the Christians in the capital city, and the Apostle Paul thanked God for this lady from the dark yard. Not only that, but there were a couple of folk who risked their lives for the Apostle Paul.

Interestingly enough, that when he quotes this couple, he generally does in terms of putting the lady's name first and the man's name afterwards. There could be two reasons for that. Maybe Priscilla was a woman of great standing in terms of maybe a Roman of high birth, or maybe she was someone who was much more gifted in the Scriptures than her husband.

You will recall a reference that was made to this couple in the Acts of the Apostles and how they were able to take others on one side, one man in particular, and impart to him a deeper understanding of the Word of God. When they risked their lives for the Apostle Paul, we don't know, but there was reason for not only Paul, but all the churches of the Gentiles to be grateful to them for their ministry. The Apostle Paul at times was in great difficulty.

You will recall when he was at Ephesus, he makes reference to fighting with wild beasts. Maybe that was a metaphorical reference, maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was on this occasion that this couple, Priscilla and Aquila, came alongside and helped him, and it was at that point that he believed at the human level his life was preserved through their ministrations.

We don't know. It's fascinating, however, to appreciate that when Paul writes his letter to the Romans, of the first three people that he thanks God for, two of them are ladies who have made an outstanding contribution in terms of the evangelization and the support of the work of the Lord. There are even those who somewhat mischievously suggest that Priscilla wrote the epistle to the Hebrews.

The reason why that epistle is anonymous is because they wouldn't have accepted that in the first century if it had come from the pen of a woman. Well, I think you can dispense with the novelty of that idea, but nonetheless, those of you who sometimes maybe feel that women's ministry is looked down on, I'm not too sure that that has, that attitude, has any justification from the New Testament whatsoever. Now, first converts.

I go on to that in my notes and say that the first convert is always very, very precious, and being someone who's very much influenced by the ministry and the life of William Carey, I go back to my thoughts of him having spent many years just some miles away from Calcutta proclaiming the gospel of the Lord Jesus, finding tremendous difficulty in getting the Hindu to recognize just the nature of what Jesus Christ has done, and then the day came when someone committed their lives to the Lord. William Carey went to that River Ganges, which is so important in Hindu mythology, and as he put it in his diary, he desecrated the Ganges as he brought this Hindu into newness of life, having explained the and seeing this dear brother respond publicly, demonstrating his faith. Well, as that man was very precious for Carey, as the first person that you ever lead to the Lord is precious to you, so the Apostle singles out Epinetus, who, though not his first convert in terms of his entire ministry, was the first convert to the Lord in the whole province of Asia, and that again gives us some insight into the mind of Paul, who doesn't forget.

Now he's maybe many, many hundreds of folk who, to his credit, have been one to the Lord. He doesn't forget the first person who responded. It's interesting when you go through this list of so many people, and as I say, I'm only just picking some out in examples in a piecemeal fashion, how many of them were relatives of the Apostle Paul? You find a couple mentioned in verse 7, you find another mentioned in verse 11, and then there were actually some who were present at his base in Corinth who also were relatives.

One sometimes wonders as a pastor, as a preacher, as a full-time Christian worker, about the dangers of being so involved in evangelizing others that you neglect your own family. I say to my shame, I've been having a little trouble these last few days trying to disabuse the local authority of the notion that they should put a big building up almost within three feet of my own home, not looking forward to a 40-foot high building being within three feet and blocking off most of the southern light that I've got. I've been trying to get my neighbors involved in also protesting, and I was thinking to myself, do I really have the same concerns to reach them with the gospel as I have to get their backing for this particular project which we feel will be unfavorable to our area? It's so easy isn't it for people like myself to be preaching on a Sunday and missing responsibilities in the neighborhood, and it's so easy for those of us who call into ministry, and perhaps you'll say yourself in your own situation as a Sunday school teacher, as a pastoral leader, and so on and so forth, to have a legitimate concern for those within our groups, within the church, but what about our own blood relatives? We were praying for our families earlier on today in our opening session of prayer.

Well here's the Apostle, you see, he's always a very good example, isn't he, of what we should be. Not the supreme example, that's our Lord Jesus, but when you look through this list you find that he's been plugging away at the gospel in Asia and in Macedonia, but he still has a concern for his own relatives, and so we're introduced to two of them, Andronychus and Junius, and it's very difficult to work out whether they were male and female. I think that the possibility is, the probability is, that Junius is a lady's name, which again takes us into some very interesting possibilities.

He refers to them, again intriguingly, as apostles. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. Now don't let the word apostle in any sense puzzle you.

There are three different ways in which the word apostle is used in the New Testament. There is the unique example of our Lord Jesus, the great Apostle. There's no one like him, utterly on his own.

And then there are the twelve disciples that he chose, with the one black sheep, Judas, having his place taken, I think, within the will of God by the Apostle Paul, actually. But nonetheless, you remember in Acts 1 how the disciples were very concerned to ensure that there was someone to take his place. Well, there's that level of apostle.

But then that word apostle, apostolos, which really means a sent one, is used in a wider context. There's a lot of debate, sometimes a lot of hot air, as to whether there are apostles today. Of course there are apostles today.

There have always been apostles down this church, down church history. Men who have influenced more than just one local church. They're not men who've gone around saying, I am an apostle.

But they're people whose ministries have been accepted, simply because of the nature of their influence. You take a man like Hudson Taylor, where do you put him? You can't put him as an ordinary Christian. He was far greater than that, wasn't he? He influenced a continent.

I mean, the burgeoning Church of China today owes its origin back to Hudson Taylor, walking on the shingle beach of Brighton, being so disgusted, having gone in a church one Sunday morning, found it full of people, but no concerns. He detected in terms of evangelization, and he went on to the beach at Brighton, and he poured his soul out to the Lord. The following day, he opened a bank book with ten pounds, the China Inland Mission.

Through that bank deposit, many, many thousands of pounds were to go, but more particularly, he was to go to China. Many other men were to be affected, and many churches were to be built as a result of his ministry. Well, there are other men, again, who could be examples from history, who have a wider ministry than the ordinary pastor, and so forth.

Well, I'm suggesting to you that it's in this category, that maybe we have to place Andronicus and Junius, and it's most interesting that the apostle tells us that they're blood relatives of his, come to know the Lord, and have a singular ministry. Well, let's move on a little. There are several more folk amongst this, I say, miscellaneous group, and in one sense, that's not a very good use of the word, because they're more than miscellaneous.

They're special, but miscellaneous in as much as we're putting them all together. Let's take one more out of the pack. Look at Rufus there.

Rufus means red-haired, red-headed, chosen in the Lord and his mother. If you go back into the gospel of Mark, you will recall that the man who carried the cross of Jesus had two sons, and one of his sons was called Rufus, and he was so well known that Simon is identified by Mark by referring to Rufus. Now Mark was writing some 30 years after the death of our Lord, and the probability is that Rufus has now become extremely well known in the church at Rome, and he is indeed the son of Simon who helped carry our Lord's cross.

If you go to the Acts of the Apostles, a little bit of detective work, you will discover that there's a man called Simon who actually is a teacher in the church of Antioch, and the possibility is that when Barnabas brought Saul from his home city of Tarsus, that he stayed with Rufus's mother during all that time, and she became, having given him hospitality, she became a mother to Paul. I can't prove this conclusively, but if you put all the scriptures together it seems to be a reasonable supposition. So here is the Apostle Paul who speaks with a very affectionate heart, doesn't he, about his dear friends, and he talks, as I say, about someone who's become as his own mother.

I've got a lady in India and she always describes herself whenever I've had contact with her, because I generally stay in her home in North India, she always describes herself as my Indian mother. Well, here is Paul, he's got a Gentile mother, he's got brothers and sisters that he's looking forward to greet personally when he gets to Rome, and he sends on his verbal greetings to them in this lovely letter. And then he breaks off by putting in a little warning note in verse 17 through to the 19th verse.

He appreciates that what these people in Rome are enjoying in terms of fellowship is good, and anything that's good always comes under attack. So he wants them to guard the fellowship that they have. And fellowship, as I describe in my notes, is not the cosmetic thing, it's not biscuits and coffee after the Bible study, and incidentally I don't think we've got that this evening, but you're not to think of fellowship in those areas, are you? I mean, that in one sense is an aspect of it, but the way that Paul looks upon these people, the affection that he has, the way that he encourages them to show their affection, verse 16, greet one another with a holy kiss, it shows that the quality of Agapean love that there was.

Now, whenever there's a church that's united like that, you can be assured that the devil will be hostile to this, and he'll try to fracture it. So the Apostle deals with people who might come into the church and try to break open this love relationship that they have with one another. He does this on other occasions, you remember when he's writing to the Philippians, and indeed all the people in the early church, they have to be aware of those who would cause division.

I could give you more information about these people, but time doesn't allow, but here is the warning note, verse 18, for such people are not serving our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and says the Apostle Paul, I want you to be wise about what is good, innocent about what is evil, and the best thing is for you to keep away from these people. Don't allow divisiveness to come into the church at all. He warns them, he pleads with them, and he gives them a promise.

His promise is, verse 20, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet, and then he commits them to the grace of the Lord Jesus, and that gives him the opportunity to refer to his home team, the people who've been moving around with him, and the people who've been providing hospitality for him in the place where he's writing this letter from, or dictating this letter from. He talks about Timothy. Now if you go to Philippians 2, you'll discover that Timothy is spoken of in endearing terms by the Apostle.

He talks about my son in the faith, and I'm reminded of Mike Lyde, the OM leader in Bangladesh, who's an old man in his 40s, and tells me that now he's come to the point in his life where he feels that he really ought to be pouring his life into another, and in one sense that's good. I mean, I think he's a little premature, quite frankly, at cutting the point at the age of 40. I put it to more respectably at 60.

I'm always putting middle-age a little further up the scale for reasons that may be fairly obvious to you, but there is a point in endeavouring to have someone into whom you're pouring your life. I think every mature Christian ought to have two or three younger Christians for whom they have a great affection, and who in one sense they're adopting as sons and daughters in the faith, so that they could carry on the work that you have been doing. I think in one sense the most strategic ministry is not addressing the thousands.

I am much more at home with a group of 12 fellas and girls than ever I am addressing hundreds of people, because I think if you can get a group like that meeting with you regularly, and you can teach them and pass on something of your experience of God, then it means that they're much more likely to take on your particular baton. Well, this is what the Apostle has in mind with Timothy, my fellow worker. He sends his greetings to you, as does Lucius, who might be Dr. Luke.

We can't prove that, but Luke had been with Paul for quite a long time in his ministry, had he not. And then the Apostle, he had the benefit of a secretary, Tertius. Generally, I think it was Timothy who did quite a lot of his writing, but here it looks as though he's got a professional secretary.

I say that because the Greek is, and the whole letter of the Roman Epistle seems to be more professionally done, and it looks as though he's employed Tertius who's a Christian and a professional secretary to take down the thinking and the reasoning of Paul. And I like to think of this man in a sort of mischievous fashion, just incorporating his own name. After all, he's done all this writing, he's had to bear the burden of keeping up with the Apostle Paul, especially when he ruptures the Queens or the Kings Greek in those days.

So he gets in his name, I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord. Thank God for Tertii, for all the people who do these backroom jobs. Thank God for CPO and Challenge and so on and so forth.

Thank God for those who make programs for FIBA, that these people are not generally known, the Tertii, so to speak, of the Christian church, on whom so much depends. And isn't it nice that the Holy Spirit allows this man to have his name incorporated into the Roman epistle. And then Gaius, well, he's a man who has been blessed materially.

Material prosperity can sometimes be a very wonderful and direct gift from God. Some people are given the grace of holding down successful work, successful appointments in the secular realm, and living for Jesus there, and using the benefits of that in the kingdom. Well, Gaius was a man like this, whose hospitality I and the whole church enjoy.

You see, it is true that there were many poor Christians, many who were ignorant people, or seemingly so, many people who were low down on the social scale. The Apostle makes reference to them in Corinthians. Not many mighty, not many wise, and so on and so forth.

But there were those at the opposite end of the scale, too, like Erastus, the city's director of public works, the surveyor. References made to him elsewhere as a treasurer. Either he got promoted or demoted, depending on whether you think that a treasurer has more clout than the surveyor.

And our brother Quartus, it seems as though he too is on the same sort of social scale. They all send greetings to the church at Rome. And then the Apostle, having done with the greetings of the people in the base from which he's writing, gathers the whole thing up together and brings you face to face once more with a God who has directed the gospel to him in the first instance.

Now to him, verse 25, who is able to establish you by my gospel. Remember how the Apostle describes it in the second chapter as being my gospel, because he feels so personally involved in declaring it to others. Now to him who is able to establish you by my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus according to the revelation of the mystery.

Paul often uses the word mystery to describe the gospel. Why? Because, well, the great secret was how God would reconcile the whole world to himself. That God had got an interest in the Jews is obvious through the Old Testament.

But you need to be a bit of a Sherlock Holmes to appreciate from the Old Testament that God too has an interest in the Gentiles. I mean, there is evidence there. You've got Jonah, you've got Ruth, and people like that.

Jonah going to Nineveh and holding an evangelistic campaign. But by and large it looks as though God's supreme and sole interest is in the Jews. No, this is the great mystery.

That God will bring Jew and Gentile to a knowledge of him through Jesus Christ. And that Jew and Gentile, as Paul has made it clear in the third chapter and in the fifth chapter of Romans, are really true Jews. Because a Jew is one who lives his life in praise to God.

Well, this great mystery, hidden for long ages past. You want more information? Read Ephesians 2 and 3. Has now been revealed and made known through the prophetic writings to the command of the eternal God. So that all nations might believe and obey him.

And then this majestic finale. To the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ. Amen.

And you think of the relief of the Apostle as he's discharged his burden. And aren't we grateful that though he spends so much time in great theological reasoning, he also makes room to tell us that not only is he a theologian, he's a pastor's heart for people. All these 26 people whose names he just he just alights on one after another after another.

It amazes us, doesn't it, that he has a concern for individuals. Never gets so taken up with a mass that you forget the individual. And you forget the people that God can can use in some backroom capacity.

And sometimes put the spotlight on the most estranged people like Phoebe, the woman from the dark yards. And use her or take Rufus's mother and make him to be your own mother too. Well, we thank God for this great epistle and for the way that the Apostle rounds it off in this glorious doxology.

Let's just bow our heads in prayer. Loving Father, we again want to thank you for your Word. Lord, there's so much to nourish us, so much to encourage us, so much that's tantalizing information that we don't have, little snippets of inferences that we can draw.

Lord, always keep us looking into your Word, delving into it, discovering fresh truth, revising opinion where necessary. Help us to appreciate, as this chapter makes it very clear, that you can take someone like Starchus, who seems to have been just a labourer in one of the farms, and bring him alongside Urbanus, one of the city officials, and make them such close pals that when Paul thinks of Urbanus, he always thinks also about the farm labourer. Thank you, Lord, that you can take a woman and a man, you can take a Jew and a Gentile, you pull them all together, all within the Christian fellowship.

We praise you that the Apostle speaking for you puts a stamp of approval on everyone, and we just ask that the fellowship that they enjoyed in Rome, and in Corinth, and in Ephesus, may be one that we continue to enjoy ourselves here at the Tab likewise. We praise you for the giftings and for the graces that you grant the local fellowship here. In the name of Jesus our Lord, Amen.