SPEAKER_00: As Pastor Erica said, my name is Jeff Fisher.
SPEAKER_00: I'm uh chair of All Site Elders, and our family attends the North Campus.
SPEAKER_00: It's again so good to be with you worshiping here together this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Uh you might be in first surprise here.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know what you were coming to hear.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be looking at Romans 16.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a unique chapter.
SPEAKER_00: It's one of those sections where there's a whole list of names of people who are sending greetings and receiving greetings.
SPEAKER_00: But it totally fits with this theme that we've been hearing throughout of belonging.
SPEAKER_00: Who belongs and why do they belong?
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to see how important this sometimes overlooked section of the New Testament is, how important it is for Paul, the Apostle Paul, showing us the lived reality of the early New Testament church.
SPEAKER_00: There's going to be a whole bunch of names, a whole bunch of people that we maybe don't even know a whole lot about, but I want us to see from this, this lived embedded theology, that in today's language, we might hear the Apostle Paul saying, I see you.
SPEAKER_00: I see you.
SPEAKER_00: And I want the church to see you.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to feel seen because sometimes you go overlooked and underappreciated.
SPEAKER_00: So I want us to look at not only who he addresses and sends greetings to, but how he commends them and how he reinforces and describes their contributions to the church.
SPEAKER_00: These greeting sections have significance in letter writing in the first century.
SPEAKER_00: They're more than just Rufus says hi or pass on my greetings to Mary when you see her.
SPEAKER_00: There's theology embedded in this.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to see that from this passage here.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to read a good chunk of Romans 16.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to skip what some people might feel like is the good stuff and only focus on the names.
SPEAKER_00: So if you would rise in body or in spirit, we're going to read Romans 16.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to read the first 15 verses, and then I'm going to skip down to verse 21 and read the next few verses there.
SPEAKER_00: The reading of the word will be online.
SPEAKER_00: Online, on the screen for those of you online.
SPEAKER_00: Romans 16, beginning in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Centria.
SPEAKER_00: I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people, and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Apostle Paul saying these things.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: They risked their lives for me.
SPEAKER_00: Not only I, but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
SPEAKER_00: Greet also the church that meets at their house.
SPEAKER_00: Greet my dear friend Epineetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me, they are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Staccus.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Apellus, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test.
SPEAKER_00: Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Herodian, my fellow Jew.
SPEAKER_00: Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Triphana and Triphosa, those women who work hard in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Greet my dear friend Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother, who has been a mother to me too.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Asyncretus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobus, Hermas, and the other brothers and sisters with them.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympus and all the Lord's people who are with them.
SPEAKER_00: And then we'll jump down to verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the greetings to the people there.
SPEAKER_00: Now these are the greetings from the people with Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sosapater, my fellow Jews.
SPEAKER_00: I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.
SPEAKER_00: Erastus, who is the city's director of public works, and our brother Quartus, send you their greetings.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: As many of you likely know, I, along with Pastor Joy Bonima and Elder Ryan Vanderkamp, were delegates at this year's synod.
SPEAKER_00: And I also was a delegate at last year's synod.
SPEAKER_00: And I know some of you have followed this very closely, and some of you have no idea what the word synod even means.
SPEAKER_00: And that's fine.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll hear much more about all of that in the coming weeks after our council has spent time fasting and praying and reflecting, and we'll meet beginning in August.
SPEAKER_00: You'll hear much more about that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: For our purposes this morning, I want to acknowledge that many people, not just here at Madison, but in other churches as well, have felt on the outside overlooked, maybe not included, underrepresented, unseen.
SPEAKER_00: Already two years ago, after that synod, this passage from Romans 16 came to mind.
SPEAKER_00: Because of what the apostle does in this passage, what he's doing in giving all of these greetings and having all of these names.
SPEAKER_00: This is not unintentional.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not just who's come into the top of my mind, who do I know out there that I'm going to send these greetings to?
SPEAKER_00: He has a purpose, a very intentional purpose of naming this eclectic grouping of people with varying degrees of status in the Roman Empire.
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying they are all valuable.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, I see you, and I want the church to see you too.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to see from this passage that God brings together the faithful, mutual labor of radically diverse, often overlooked believers to build his church.
SPEAKER_00: God brings them together, faithful, mutual laborers in radically diverse ways.
SPEAKER_00: What's going on here in the first century might even be more radically diverse and more radically undermining and subversive to the Roman Empire than anything we could even possibly do today.
SPEAKER_00: So that you don't have to listen to me just go through all these names one by one.
SPEAKER_00: I've broken these into three categories.
SPEAKER_00: Three categories that I think Paul himself is even intending to communicate with this radical diversity that I want us to see here.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to spend the most time on the first one because it is most complex, most controversial.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I don't know that necessarily everyone here holds the same view on this, and its contentiousness has risen, again, in recent days, not just in our denomination, in our area, but in other Christian American Christianity, and that is women in church leadership.
SPEAKER_00: Female leadership.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Leave these people unseen who are described here in Romans 16.
SPEAKER_00: The first few verses here, just the first couple of verses, have a lot to say about it.
SPEAKER_00: Some, I'm sure, are a bit concerned that at this year's synod for the CRC, the number of female delegates declined again, to the point that the ratio of male to female was 15 to 1.
SPEAKER_00: And whether that matter might get taken up again in the future or not within our denomination of whether the CRC will continue to allow for female pastors, elders, and even deacons, it's an important issue for us.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to have this look at this is what scripture shows us.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the New Testament says.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't time that out right.
SPEAKER_00: What the Apostle Paul, who sometimes gets criticized as being patriarchical or undermining women, this is what the Apostle Paul is doing at the end of this hugely important theological letter, one of the most important writings in the history of the world.
SPEAKER_00: So, this first category, this first group of faithful diversity that needs to be seen is that the church is at its best when gifted female and male leaders mutually labor together.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty significant that over a third of the names listed here are women, and that there's an equal number of men and women who get the commendations, who get the labels, even though there would have been a disproportionate number of male leaders as there is today.
SPEAKER_00: It's really significant.
SPEAKER_00: And I want us to also see that Paul uses some of the same language to refer to what the women are doing as he does to what men do in other passages.
SPEAKER_00: So the first person is especially significant, extremely important.
SPEAKER_00: Phoebe, verse one.
SPEAKER_00: I commend to you our sister Phoebe.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we can throw the verses back up on the screen, but I commend to you our sister Phoebe.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot here, just in these first couple of verses, about Phoebe, that we might not necessarily see if we just read these words.
SPEAKER_00: So the her greeting or her description here is different than all the rest.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, because note that it says, I commend to you, Phoebe, that they would receive her in the Lord, or as many English translations have it, welcome her.
SPEAKER_00: This means that Phoebe has traveled from where Paul is to Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And why did she travel from where Paul is in Corinth to Rome?
SPEAKER_00: Because she carried the letter of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: She's the letter carrier.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the verb indicates here, and that's what this welcome her indicates here.
SPEAKER_00: And in the earliest Bibles, as they were being written down, there is even a superscription at the end, or sometimes at the beginning, that would identify that the letter of Romans was written by Paul in Corinth, sent through Phoebe, a deacon at Centria.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout history, it has been well received and well documented that this is how the Church of Rome got this letter through Phoebe, a female who carried that letter.
SPEAKER_00: But don't think that she's like the Roman postal system that goes to the mailbox at 323 Romans Road and sticks the letter in there and then moves on to the next one to deliver the package.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it worked.
SPEAKER_00: She would be the one who delivers the letter, and she would then deliver the letter, as in read it aloud to the people.
SPEAKER_00: And even carry the tone of voice, the language, the expectations that Paul would be using, because again, some of the earliest writings of this, there's not punctuation, there's not paragraph markers, there's not even spaces between the words.
SPEAKER_00: So whoever carried the letter would also have spent time with the writer of the letter so that they would know, here's what I mean as you read this, and be prepared to be able to deliver this letter, perhaps even perform this letter, so that the people would catch what it is that the author of that letter was saying.
SPEAKER_00: Now, from this, certain scholars, like N.T.
SPEAKER_00: Wright, have even attempted to deduce that Phoebe might have even had to explain portions of this letter.
SPEAKER_00: Like somebody raises their hand and is like, so that whole thing about predestination and what will a thousand years later be called Romans chapter 9, could you explain that to us?
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't know for sure that anything like that would have happened, but N.
SPEAKER_00: T.
SPEAKER_00: Wright and other scholars have deduced that it could be that Phoebe was actually entrusted with explaining portions of this letter.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to overstate what Phoebe actually would have done because there's not a ton of evidence one way or the other, but we don't need to because it's already massively significant that the Apostle Paul entrusted a female with this degree of responsibility to be the first to communicate the most theologically dense and rich letter in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: That in and of itself is already radically subversive and often overlooked.
SPEAKER_00: But there's actually more.
SPEAKER_00: In addition to referring to her as our sister, Phoebe also is specified as the letter or deliverer, a deacon.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your translations will say servant.
SPEAKER_00: The word there is diaconin, where we get the word deacon from.
SPEAKER_00: It's also sometimes translated minister when applied to men.
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever, again, that particular sense of the term is, Phoebe definitely had an official ministry position of some kind in the church of Centria.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Paul makes it even clearer that her influence is very significant.
SPEAKER_00: In the NIV, it's translated, she's been the benefactor of many people, including me.
SPEAKER_00: Some translations used helper, but that's not, that doesn't really capture what the word means there.
SPEAKER_00: This is the benefactor, or in the Roman world, what would be called a patron, which the ESV uses, is a person of serious wealth and status and influence and social advocacy, providing financial backing and legal protection.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, Paul says that that patronage, that benefactor, was for the church, including Paul's own missionary ministry.
SPEAKER_00: She is definitely not just a helper in some kind of sense of like administrative assistant or subordinate.
SPEAKER_00: She's a leader.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is saying, see her as a leader.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God inspired him to write that.
SPEAKER_00: And there's actually an amazing way that he puts this, which is hard to capture when translating it for our English Bibles, but three of the key words used here to refer to Phoebe all are built on the verb stand.
SPEAKER_00: So when it has, I commend you and give her any help, and she has been the benefactor, all three of those words are built on the verb stand.
SPEAKER_00: And so we could actually translate it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying, I stand with, that's commend, I stand with our sister Phoebe before you, so that you would stand beside her in whatever pragmatic need she has, because she is the one who stands before all kinds of people, including me, and now you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is saying, I stand with Phoebe, and I want her, because she stood before me, for you to stand beside her.
SPEAKER_00: I stand with her.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul's saying.
SPEAKER_00: And when he says that the church in Rome should receive or welcome her in the Lord in a way that is worthy of his people, this is not just again like take her in and give her a place to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Phoebe is worthy of you welcoming and receiving her.
SPEAKER_00: She is my very own representative.
SPEAKER_00: She is my voice when I can't be there.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Apostle Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't want her to go unseen by them or centuries later by us.
SPEAKER_00: And if you think what I'm saying is a novel or recent idea of some kind of progressive theology or Christian feminism or anything, as I noted, that's already there in the Bibles and the earliest church and the ancient church to preserve that historical information that it was sent by Phoebe.
SPEAKER_00: But also ancient Christian preachers like Origen and Chrysostom emphasized Phoebe's significance.
SPEAKER_00: This is a fifth-century Greek-speaking preacher named Chrysostom that says, notice, he doesn't just vaguely call her a servant of the church or a worker.
SPEAKER_00: If he had meant it in a general sense, he would have used the same word as he does a bit later for Trifina and Persis.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, he recognizes her as holding the office of deacon and as a patron.
SPEAKER_00: Even during the Reformation, both Luther and Calvin and many others commented how remarkable it was that this highly theological letter was sent through Phoebe, a woman.
SPEAKER_00: This is Calvin, a most honorable and holy ministry in the church she must have had, who had always devoted herself to be helpful toward all as a minister of the Church of Centria.
SPEAKER_00: That's John Calvin, 16th century.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, Calvin, in fairness, worked hard to deduce that this public office must have been a widow ministry that managed charity and care for the vulnerable, but still he could not overlook the fact, the reality that the Apostle Paul highly commends a woman holding a public ecclesiastical office and entrusted her with delivering Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Greet Priscilla and Aquila.
SPEAKER_00: My co-workers.
SPEAKER_00: Again, another key term.
SPEAKER_00: They risk their lives.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, really, it's they risk their necks.
SPEAKER_00: They put their necks on the line for me.
SPEAKER_00: Not only I, but all of the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a church that meets in their house.
SPEAKER_00: Priscilla and Aquiller is this wife and husband ministry team that we read about in Acts 18.
SPEAKER_00: They also have greetings in 2 Timothy 4 and 1 Corinthians 16.
SPEAKER_00: And it's again notable and cannot be unintentional that Priscilla's name almost always comes first.
SPEAKER_00: That is very rare, unless there's some reason why you would put the woman's name, the wife's name, first.
SPEAKER_00: And Aquila is never identified alone.
SPEAKER_00: They're always doing this together.
SPEAKER_00: So she is actually more likely the head teacher when in Acts 18, 24 to 28, we read about that they run into this guy, Apollos, who is a learned Alexandrian Jew, they're in Ephesus, and they, probably Priscilla taking the lead, had to explain to him the way of God more accurately, even though he He was a learned man, Jewish man, familiar with the scriptures, and had a thorough knowledge of Jesus and taught about him.
SPEAKER_00: Priscilla in Acts 18, so both Luke and Paul identify Priscilla and Aquila as those who are teaching and helping other people understand the scriptures more accurately.
SPEAKER_00: And here in Romans 16, Paul refers to them as co-workers or co-laborers who have a church in their house.
SPEAKER_00: Paul does not want this couple to go unseen or unappreciated, but highlights that all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.
SPEAKER_00: And now they're in Rome ministering among the people in Rome, and Rome should see how blessed they are to have this ministry team couple among them.
SPEAKER_00: Now again, I wanted to see what John Calvin have to say about this.
SPEAKER_00: However, he does make the observation that I think gives us an insight for today: the observation that Aquila is an example of a humble and holy man who did not disdain having his own wife as an equal companion and co-worker in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So he's praising Aquila for his attitude.
SPEAKER_00: That's at least something.
SPEAKER_00: But here's where I think we can draw some insight from this that the Spirit of God wants us to hear for our application.
SPEAKER_00: The church must have male leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Aquilla's an example.
SPEAKER_00: The church needs male leaders who joyfully and securely work alongside gifted female leaders without needing to dominate, over shadow, or silence.
SPEAKER_00: This is not like female-only leadership.
SPEAKER_00: The church also needs male leaders who joyfully and securely work alongside gifted female leaders without needing to overshadow, dominate, or silence.
SPEAKER_00: And the same applies.
SPEAKER_00: There's another pair that does the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: After Paul greets a very hardworking Mary, who we don't, there's so many Marys, we can't narrow down which Mary this is, but they must have known.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 7, he sends greetings to Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews and fellow prisoners.
SPEAKER_00: They are outstanding among the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: And they were in Christ before I was.
SPEAKER_00: This again is likely a married couple.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, for generations until recently, scholars all deduced this was a married couple.
SPEAKER_00: Until some people didn't like that idea that a Junia, a female, could be among the apostles and try to change the name from Junia, a female name, to Junius, a male name.
SPEAKER_00: So that this was just two guys that were among the apostles that got named.
SPEAKER_00: That's very problematic.
SPEAKER_00: But now the move is okay, it must not mean outstanding among the apostles, it must mean well known to the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: So that way they're not Junia isn't actually belonging among the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: The apostles are a separate group that know about her in Andronicus.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way the ESV will translate it.
SPEAKER_00: And depending on the updated NIV, might even have a footnote in your Bible about that of it could be well known to the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: All of this is based on the assumption that I think is very problematic and wrong, that females could not be apostles, therefore, it can't mean among the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: But then that's just the circular reasoning to say, well, Junia wasn't an apostle because females can't be an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: She's a female, therefore, she can't be a female apostle.
SPEAKER_00: But the text itself, and again, I'm going to quote Chrysostom, who taught, learned, knew, preached in Greek.
SPEAKER_00: And he, along with all kinds of people throughout history, definitely read this as Junia is among the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Huh, to now to be an apostle at all is an incredible thing.
SPEAKER_00: But to be outstanding among them, this is Christostom, just think about what a massive compliment that is.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how profound was the devotion of this woman that she was counted worthy of the title of apostle.
SPEAKER_00: Greek speaking, 5th century Chrysostom saying, Yep, Junior was definitely an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that Paul specifies that Andronicus and Junia were in Christ before me also gives weight to the likelihood that this is about meeting the criteria of being an apostle, that they actually saw Jesus, and so have been a part of that apostolic group.
SPEAKER_00: And like Priscilla and Aquila, this couple was an early church ministry team of Jewish Christians so devoted to the gospel that at some point they were imprisoned with the Apostle Paul and were part of that ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And when Paul writes this, Junia the Apostle is there in Rome serving the church.
SPEAKER_00: Now a few more sisters get named with a little less uh development.
SPEAKER_00: Greek Trifhenna and Triphosa in verses 12 and 13, women who worked hard in the Lord, Persis, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord, Rufus' mother, who's been a mother to me, Julia and the sister of Nerseus.
SPEAKER_00: Each of these gets identified with several being described as doing the same kind of work or labor as what in other passages Paul uses it to refer to his own working in the Lord or laboring in the Lord, and to those whose working or laboring is in the word and in teaching.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same wording there.
SPEAKER_00: So all of these greetings combine to give us a much fuller portrait of the early church ministry of women working and serving faithfully alongside men, and they should not go unseen.
SPEAKER_00: So again, Chrysostom, his sermons on this are great.
SPEAKER_00: The women of that time were fiercer than lions, sharing with the apostles in their grueling labor for the proclamation of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, they also traveled with them and engaged in every other kind of ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Fiercer than lions, Chrysostom says, ministering with the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Just these handful of end-of-the-letter overlooked greetings powerfully portrays that Jesus uses the gifts of men and women, both men and women, to further the preaching of his message and the building of his church.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the second and third categories won't be as in-depth, though they're not any less important.
SPEAKER_00: The second category of faithful diversity is that the church is the church at best when it values the marginalized and the wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, everyone in between.
SPEAKER_00: Throughout these greetings, Paul is ensuring that the Christians in Rome embrace the theology that he has developed throughout this entire letter and in other letters that the rigid class structure of hierarchy in the Roman Empire has been overtaken by the reality of Jesus, the crucified Messiah, who brings an upside-down kingdom that overturns all of that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And the church should and must reflect that.
SPEAKER_00: So throughout verses 8 through 16, and again in the greetings in 22 and 23, the original recipients of this letter would powerfully feel the impact of what Paul is doing when he says, See these people?
SPEAKER_00: Ampliatus, Urbanus, Staccus, Apellus, Hermes, Hermas, Patrobus, these are beloved.
SPEAKER_00: These are dear friends, these are co-workers in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They are faithful to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the people in Rome would also know that men who have these names are still, or at one point were, enslaved people.
SPEAKER_00: Those who have these names are those who were likely enslaved.
SPEAKER_00: That's most evident from the two identified in verses 22 and 23, where we get greetings from two faithful followers, faithful brothers, Tertius and Cordis.
SPEAKER_00: If you know any Latin, that means third and fourth.
SPEAKER_00: As in their family names, their given names, were thrown out, and they were labeled your number three, your number four, five, six, seven, and eight among our enslaved people.
SPEAKER_00: Dehumanized to just be a number.
SPEAKER_00: Tertius and Cordus, Paul identifies as brothers.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Tertius, number three year, gets the very rare opportunity as the aminuasis, the scribe or secretary, to identify himself in this, in verse 22, he says, I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This does not happen in the ancient Roman world unless the author really wants it to happen, to make some kind of point.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss the fact that the inspired word of God by the work of the Holy Spirit that you and I have in writing here was by at one point was written by someone who was very likely an enslaved but person, but had his dignity elevated and redeemed through the life-changing and world-altering grace of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit guided the writing of the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Not a typewriter, not a machine, not someone who just had his the actual humanity of Tertius to give us the book of Romans.
SPEAKER_00: The church is not the church at its best without people like Tertius.
SPEAKER_00: And then here's the crazier part.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, Paul greets those who were among the lowest in society and on the margins.
SPEAKER_00: He also sends greetings and receives greetings to some of the wealthiest and most powerful.
SPEAKER_00: So in verses 10 and 11, you read about those of Aristobulus and those of Narcissus.
SPEAKER_00: These are names associated with people of significant wealth and influence.
SPEAKER_00: And then later down in verse 23, we also see the greetings that come from Gaius.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV translates it as who's shown hospitality.
SPEAKER_00: The language there is he's the host.
SPEAKER_00: He hosts Paul and the whole church.
SPEAKER_00: That means he's got a pretty big place to hold everybody and engage the whole church there in Corinth.
SPEAKER_00: And then Erastus, who's the city's director of public works, meaning he's the overseer.
SPEAKER_00: He's responsible for the construction and the city's finances.
SPEAKER_00: These guys would have serious wealth, fortune, and clout.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul, along with number three, intersperses the names of the wealthy and the well-known with those who are on the margins of society, those who might have been considered as random and faceless to the Romans as they are to many of us today.
SPEAKER_00: Each time Paul names one of them, he's saying, I see you.
SPEAKER_00: And church, I want you to see them too.
SPEAKER_00: You're all brothers, you're all equal, you're all in this together.
SPEAKER_00: Both the elite and the marginalized get greeted and get to send their greetings just as much as the other.
SPEAKER_00: Ethnic, cultural, and political diversity is represented.
SPEAKER_00: And that's most evident among the earliest Christians in this combining together of Jew and Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: But don't just think that's about religious beliefs only or religious practices.
SPEAKER_00: Jews and Gentiles had very different postures and ways of even being able to live in terms of government, how they're related to the empire, in terms of food, in terms of money, and a whole host of other things.
SPEAKER_00: And in this list of greetings, we see both intentionally intermixed together.
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't have a lot of information about the exact names of these people and who they are, but when you're named after Roman or Greek gods, the odds are pretty likely that you're not of Jewish heritage.
SPEAKER_00: So Hermes and Hermos and Olympus are very likely Gentile names.
SPEAKER_00: And we also see in verses 14 and 15 those who are with them.
SPEAKER_00: And then back in verse 5, Paul even specifies Epinnetus, who is the first convert in the province of Asia, which would also mean he was a Gentile who became a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And then once again comes this radical impact of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: At the same time, he's greeting these Gentiles among the church in Rome, he and Tertius also interspersed these greetings with my fellow kin, which the NIV helpfully tells us are Jews, my fellow Jews.
SPEAKER_00: So Andronicus and Junia, Herodian are all Jewish believers.
SPEAKER_00: Lucius, Jason, Sosopater, my fellow Jews, those among who the greetings are being sent to the Christians in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: And then Timothy, also himself, is a really great example of this because in Timothy himself is this merging together of Jew and Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: He has a Jewish mother and a Gentile Greek father.
SPEAKER_00: And all of these names are here for Paul to reinforce the theology that he's developed in the book of Romans and other letters that in Christ Jesus, Jews and Gentiles are brought together.
SPEAKER_00: So the what?
SPEAKER_00: Last thing I want to do here.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just an afterthought inserted between these sections of greetings to the people in Rome and from the people with Paul that in these verses 17 to 19, ending in 20, addresses divisions and obstacles and ends with this memorable and powerful statement in verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: The God of peace, shalom, reconciliation, the way things ought to be.
SPEAKER_00: The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.
SPEAKER_00: One of the ways that God already, in this already not yet upside-down kingdom, that God already crushes the work of Satan and brings peace is by bringing together people of radically diverse backgrounds to mutually work together for the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And from these names in Romans 16, I want us to see that.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to see them.
SPEAKER_00: I want us to see the people who are different from you in gender and economic or social status and ethnicity and political leaning.
SPEAKER_00: See them, see them as God sees them, be thankful for them.
SPEAKER_00: Greet them.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, what matters is our faithfulness to Jesus and the particular areas of ministry and care that He has entrusted to us.
SPEAKER_00: That's what gets commended.
SPEAKER_00: That's the snapshot of the kingdom of God that Paul is giving us here from these list of names in the end of the letter.
SPEAKER_00: And the church is the church at its best when the diverse community of people mutually labor together, and their labor is seen and embraced.
SPEAKER_00: That you did not come to be one who was exalted like those in power in Rome, but that you came to serve, to live among us, to die for us, the crucified Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And that you have promised that you will build your church.
SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for the myriad of people and types of people and kinds of people who you call and raise up as those to fulfill your ministry of the good news that you have defeated death and have provided the way for eternal life for each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: So we pray for your blessing on us, that you would shine your face on us and give us this peace, this promised peace that we know one day will come when you fully crush Satan under our feet.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all this in your name, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.