One Last Word
One Last Word by Rev. L. John Gable
July 29, 2018
We have come to the end of our study of Paul’s letter to the Romans, a study we began last January. And while we have covered a lot of ground and gone deep in many places, I still feel as if there is so much more awaiting us here; such is the joy and privilege of reading Scripture.
I asked Sharon/John to read the beautiful benediction that Paul uses to close his letter, but that does not mean I intend to skip over the list of the individuals he names in the opening part of this chapter, I just didn’t think it was fair to ask her/him to read them. I value our friendship too much to ask them to do that.
As I am sure you recall my mentioning last January 14th when we started our study, Paul writes this letter to the gathering of believers in Rome in the traditional style of a first century letter in the Greco-Roman world, that being in the reverse order of how we write a letter today, if in fact anyone actually does still write letters today. While we begin with the name of the recipient (Dear John…), in the ancient world a letter begins by identifying the sender, such as we read in Romans 1:1, “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle” and so on. The letter then ends with greetings extended to the recipients of the letter, such as we’ll read this morning.
Typically when we come to a list of names like this we have the tendency to simply skip over them as not having much meaning to us. But I think hearing this list of names is important for us today, even as it was for Paul to write them then. In part it is a good reminder to us that Paul was part of a larger community of believers. He had friends he was anxious to greet and see again. As we will see many of these were folks with whom he had worked previously in spreading the Gospel, think of them perhaps as being members of his small group. Doing this might also help us with another tendency we often have, that of reading Scripture like it is Scripture, which of course it is, but in doing so we often fail to acknowledge that before this letter was considered Scripture it was first written and received as being a “letter” from a particular person (Paul) to particular individuals (as we will read) or groups of individuals (the Church gathered in Rome). Of course those first believers saw the benefit of his teachings so they distributed copies of his letters to other believers and centuries later they became part of the canon we know as the New Testament, but before all of that, let’s not forget that this was a letter written at a particular time, to a particular people, by a particular person, so reading this list of names helps us personalize this teaching.
If you have your Bible or want to open a pew Bible to page 164 in the New Testament section, let’s begin at verse 1. While we don’t know who many of these people were, some we do; and certainly Paul knew each of them very well, well enough to call them to mind as he was writing, which is another good insight we can gain from reading this list of names. Too often we think of the great leaders in the Church – Paul, Peter, James, John – those now famous individuals who were out preaching and teaching and evangelizing, but there were also countless, often nameless, men and women, then, and then through the ages who have named the name of Jesus and done the work of the Gospel. Behind every one of these names is a story of witness and service and in some cases likely martyrdom for the sake of Christ. Paul names 26 of them here, and certainly there have been countless others through the centuries. Think in your own life, of those whose names would you write down who have most influenced you in your walk of faith? That is what Paul is doing here.
He begins, 1I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, 2so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well. Cenchreae is a port city near Corinth. Paul must have met and worked with Phoebe there, and did you notice he calls her a “deacon”? She must have been an important part of the ministry there, and now apparently she is moving to Rome, so he is asking the Church there to welcome her and help take care of her, just as she has done for so many, including Paul himself.
In the first church we served in Mansfield, Ohio, we got a call from a man who said he was moving to town and needed a room to stay in and wondered if we could help him. I thought to myself, “Who on earth is going to want a stranger living in their back bedroom?” But I put the word out and John and Kay said they would welcome him, and they did. George stayed with them for several months until he got back on his feet. Welcome George…welcome Phoebe.
Reading on, 3Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, 4and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. 5Greet also the church in their house. Priscilla and Aquila may be familiar names to us. They were originally from Rome but were expelled when the Emperor Claudius banned all Jews from the city, and with them all the new Christians. Like Paul, they were tentmakers, and they met up together in Corinth; Paul even stayed with them; then when he moved on to Ephesus, they went with him. Apparently Priscilla and Aquila have moved back to Rome, so surely Paul was anxious to catch up with them again. And note, he also greets “the church in their home”. When we speak of “the Church” in the first century we are not talking about large granite structures with stained glass windows and monument signs out front. The early Church met in believers’ homes, and often not in the same homes too often, for fear of the authorities. We often think of our homes as places of retreat, where we can close our doors and draw our drapes, but not in the early Church. The open door, the open hand, the open heart, the open home are all characteristics of the Christian life.
Greet my beloved Epaenetus, (he must have been a man of some notoriety because he) was the first convert in Asia for Christ. 6Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you. 7Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives, who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. (Like Epaenetus, these are names of some of the very first Christian converts, and notice, Andronicus and Junia are called “apostles”, like the 12, messengers of the Gospel, and Junia was a woman. Paul often gets a bad rap regarding the status of women, but not so here. 6 of the 26 prominent people he names are women, including Junia, an apostle.)
8Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. 9Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. 10Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. 11Greet my relative Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Interestingly, many of these names are slave names. It was often slaves and other lower-class citizens who were drawn to the Gospel message, even as they were to Jesus Himself. So here they are named alongside those who have reached some prominence in society. Again, this is a characteristic of the Church, and I see it still today, people of very different social classes and backgrounds sitting next to one another in worship, praying together, studying together, serving and enjoying fellowship together. The Gospel is a great equalizer where social distinctions do not matter.
12Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. There is a cute little story here. Tryphaena and Tryphosa were likely twin sisters and the Greek word Paul uses to describe them meant that they “toiled to the point of exhaustion”, their names however are translated “dainty” and “delicate” respectively. Dainty and Delicate are tireless workers for the Lord. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.
13Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother—a mother to me also. Rufus is another name we need to pause on for a moment. Do you recall the story in Mark’s Gospel when a man named Simon, from Cyrene, was called out of the crowd to help carry the cross for Jesus on the way to the crucifixion? Simon is described there (Mark 15:21) as “Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus.” We don’t know much about Rufus, but we do know that that experience must have had a profound effect not only on Simon, but also on his wife, who Paul names here as being “like a mother to me”, and his two sons, Alexander and Rufus, who by the time Mark wrote his Gospel was prominent enough to be mentioned by name, without explanation, as Paul has done here. This is a good reminder to us, as parents and grandparents, as a church family, that we need to be sharing our faith experiences with our children and grandchildren, so that they too will come to believe.
14Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who are with them. 15Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister (Oh, what was her name? I can picture her. What was her name? Oh well, leave it, “Nereus and his sister”), and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.
16Greet one another with a holy kiss. This is a first century practice that has fallen out of favor in most churches today, little wonder given that some folks don’t even care much for the passing of the peace. But put this instruction in context in the early church. With whom do you feel comfortable enough giving a kiss on the cheek when you greet them? A family member or close friend, right? Someone you know well and love and trust, and they you. The “holy kiss” was an expression of affection, a demonstration of the unity of the early Church. When they gathered, in one another’s homes, for worship and fellowship, they were like family coming together. All the churches of Christ greet you.
As we’ve seen on and off during the past seven months this was clearly a difficult letter for Paul to write, and so it was a difficult letter for him to close. Here we see that he wants to add one last word to underscore what became one of the central teachings in this letter: the unity of believers under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So in these next verses he summarizes what he has been writing about since chapter 12. We read, “17I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them. 18For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded. 19For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil. 20The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. (A reference to Genesis 3:15 where God curses the serpent in the garden.) Then appropriately Paul ends his final greetings with, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”
Or so we thought, he continues, 21Timothy, my co-worker, greets you (remember he refers to Timothy as being his son in the faith. There is perhaps no one closer to Paul than Timothy); so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my relatives.
If you’ve ever wondered how Paul would have written these letters we are given an answer here. He had a secretary, an amanuensis, who wrote for him as he dictated. So, I assume with Paul’s knowledge, Tertius adds his brief two cents worth. 22I, Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord. And during that momentary pause Paul must have thought of some others he wanted to name by name, 23Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you.
And with that Paul ends his letter, as we will this study, with this beautiful doxology and benediction. As we listen to it and receive it, listen to the way Paul revisits the great themes he has written about in this letter: God’s great plan of salvation, announced by the prophets, fulfilled in the grace of Christ, which is open to all people in every time and place, including you and me today in this place.
25Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages 26but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith—27to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! And with Paul we say, Amen.