The Equality of the Gospel: Romans 16

Not Ashamed of the Gospel - Romans 16
“The Equality and Preaching of the Gospel”

INTRODUCTION:
Of the 19 people our mission team baptized while we lived in Romania, maybe 1/3 of those can be traced directly or indirectly to an invitation Rachel extended to a young mom while they had their kids playing in the park together. Rachel took Jewell to the park and this single mom named Lori took her little boy, named Mark, to the park. Rachel struck up a conversation with her and invited her to Bible study. She came a time or two, but never gave serious attention to Bible study herself. But, she did invite several of her friends to study with us and we did study with several of them and we baptized several. The men who are still strong in the church today can be traced back to Lori.

But the other two women on our mission team were also active in the Lord’s work in Romania. They taught Bible classes, even in Romanian. They helped serve those who needed physical help. Julie was instrumental in leading a young woman named Cristina to obey the gospel. Stephanie was a strong influence on leading a woman named Maria Granic and her husband to obey the gospel.

Many rabbis in the first century did not think it was appropriate for women to learn the word of God. This mentality was not unlike the early days of our own republic when few people thought it was necessary for women to keep up with politics. It’s not that the founding fathers thought women were inadequate mentally or psychologically to get involved in politics. John Adams specifically relied heavily on the advice of Abigail. They just did not see it as necessary. The men would take care of things like that.

So it was in the first century. For Mary to sit at the feet of Jesus (Luke 10:39) would not have been scandalous, but many rabbis would have thought that she was not where she belonged.

It was, therefore, a big deal for Christianity to come along and teach that the gospel made men and women equal in the eyes of God. Paul will write in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Next week is the Lads to Leaders convention and I suppose everyone knows that the kids - along with the church, including both Cody’s Sunday morning class and Jared’s Wednesday night class - have been studying Romans. Tonight, we will look at the last chapter of Romans and feed our spirits on some points Paul makes as he concludes his letter to the church of Christ in Rome.

THE EQUALITY OF THE GOSPEL - 16:1-16:
Paul had written the theme of Romans back in 1:16: - “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Not only is the gospel for male and female, but it is also for Jew and Greek. Paul illustrates that point to us here in this chapter, specifically the first 16 verses…

First, let me point out that there are nine women who were so active in the church that Paul send special greetings to them. A rule of thumb in Greek, as with Romanian incidentally, is that if the name ends in a vowel, it is a female’s name. We have in English a feminine form of the name “Paul:” Paula or Pauline. Romanian has also a feminine form of the name “Peter:” Petronela. We actually studied with a young woman named Petronela.

So here are the women’s names - mark them in your Bible: Phoebe (ver. 1), Prisca (ver. 3), Mary (ver. 6), Junias (ver. 7; a Greek manuscript variant spells it with an ‘a’), Tryphaena and Tryphosa (ver. 12; likely twins and probably had been slaves), Persis (ver. 12; again, in the Greek spelling, the name ends with an ‘a’, she had also probably been a slave), Julia (ver. 15), and Nereus’ sister (ver. 15).

Let me make a point about a few of them… There is a strong movement in Protestantism and in some congregations of the churches of Christ to ignore the limitations on the role of women in the church and in the worship and allow them to do anything they want to do. They often point to Phoebe as an example of a female leader among men. However, as with all false doctrine, if you just read the text, you will see that the case not only is overstated but often distorts God’s word.

“Phoebe” is identified as a “sister” (ver. 1) and a “servant” of the church in Cenchrea. The CEV completely mistranslates the word and has “leader” instead. The Darby translation uses “minister” which is technically correct, but too ambiguous in modern English. Most translations I checked translate the word as “servant,” a few use “helper.” Many of them give a footnote saying that the word could be translated as “deacon” or “deaconess.” The word is the feminine form of the word “deacon” so etymologically, it could be translated “deaconess.” However, this is the only place where the feminine form is used in the Bible and there are no qualifications for deaconesses as there are for deacons. Additionally, the early church did not understand the word to refer to deaconesses because deaconesses are not mentioned in historical documents until about 150 years after the last apostle died. Phoebe is not an example of a woman leading over men in any way. Rather, Paul points out in verse 2 that she has been a helper of many, including himself. We have no idea what she did.

We know something about Prisca or “Priscilla” and Aquila since they are mentioned back in Acts as being leather workers with the apostle Paul (Acts 18:1-4). You recall that they heard Apollos teaching false doctrine at the end of Acts 18 (18:24-28) and they took him aside and taught him the way of the Lord more accurately. That illustrates to us that there are occasions when false teaching can be corrected privately; it doesn’t necessarily have to be corrected publicly. Also, since Priscilla’s name is mentioned first here in Romans 16 and in Acts 18, some scholars suggest that she took the lead in these things. Maybe. You can’t base theology on that. But, it could also be that she was simply more outspoken than her husband. When I was in undergraduate school, I was under the influence of a couple from church named Tom and Martha Bowen and sister Bowen was not a bit behind brother Tom in her knowledge of the Bible. I learned a lot from her as well as Tom.

This married couple, Paul writes, risked their lives for Paul’s sake and Paul was grateful for them and so were the churches among the Gentiles. That shows the wide open hearts Aquila and Priscilla had for the non-Jews. Paul tells the church in Rome to greet the church that was meeting in Priscilla’s and Aquila’s house (ver. 5). They were wealthy enough to have a house large enough, if perhaps only the courtyard, that would allow a congregation of perhaps 50 people to assemble for worship. Speaking of churches meeting in homes, note there are at least five churches implied in our text: 16:5, 10, 11, 14, 15.

What about the Gentiles among the Christians in Rome? Epaenetus (ver. 5) - identified as the first convert from Asia. Andrei Hotusoru was the first convert, among our mission team, in Iasi. The first convert of whom we are familiar in Iasi was Maria Granic, who became our language instructor. This list in Romans 16 contains probably more Gentiles than Jews. Paul indicates specifically that some are Jews - those identified as Paul’s “kinsmen:” verse 7 and 11. We also know that Aquila, Priscilla, Mary, and Rufus and his mother were Jews. Otherwise, these names were Gentile names. “Rufus” (ver. 13) is perhaps mentioned in Mark 15:21 as a son of Simon of Cyrene.

How about those who were slaves in the church of Christ in Rome? As many as 1/5 people in Rome were slaves. It would stand to reason that they were keenly interested in the gospel of God’s grace. Jesus told His compatriots in Nazareth when He began His ministry, reading from Isaiah 61:1-2 that He came to set free those who were captive. Of course, Jesus was interested in people who were captive to sin and Satan more than those who were captive to other humans. However, when you put Christianity into practice, slavery itself is abolished.

Andronicus and Junias (ver. 7) are slaves’ names, Jewish slaves. To say they were “outstanding among the apostles” does not mean they were apostles as the apostles of Christ were. We can read this two different ways. It could be Paul is saying that the apostles had a high regard for these two; they were “outstanding” in the opinion of the apostles. Or, we could interpret the word “apostle” in its more generic form as “one sent,” and the modern translation of that concept would be a “missionary,” someone sent out by the church. One commentator said that “Junias” here shows that “one of the foundation apostles of Christianity was a woman and wife” (Dunn, 895). Again, that is reading too much into the text.

Ampliatus (ver. 9) is a slave name. Urbanus (ver. 9) is also a slave name. Stachys might have been a slave. Apelles (ver. 10) is a common Jewish name. Aristobulus in verse 10 is likely the grandson of Herod the Great and brother of King Agrippa I. “Herodion” in verse 11 is a freedman, a Jew, of the Herod family. Hermes (ver. 14) is probably a slave. Philologus and Julia were slaves in the emperor’s household. Nereus was s slave name (ver. 15). As with the names being predominantly Gentile, so it is with slaves or freedmen or freedwomen. There were a lot of them in the church.

The statement in verse 16 that the “churches of Christ” greet you embraces all of those who have obeyed the Gospel of Christ and been added to the body of Christ. Whenever you meet fellow Christians, you are meeting family whom you do not yet know.

THE PREACHING OF THE GOSPEL:
Speaking of the Gospel, Paul urges the church to be very careful and leery of those who are not teaching the Gospel of Christ: 16:17-18.

Please observe these notes: teaching something contrary to the gospel, causes dissensions. Putting man’s opinions in front of the gospel causes hindrances to the teaching. Paul says to avoid these individuals. Paul had talked about us being slaves of righteousness back in chapter 6; here he says these false teachers are slaves of their own appetites. He also notes that their smooth and flattering speech deceives the hearts of the unsuspecting.

Paul had heard of the Christians’ faith and obedience (ver. 19) and Paul rejoiced at that, but he also wanted them to be careful of false teachers. “To be wise in what is good an innocent of what is evil.” There is only one way to be knowledgeable about false teaching… spend as much time as we can simply studying the word of God itself. It should be the case that the Bible itself should always have more sway over our thinking, more influence over our hearts, than anything man can write, regardless of how eloquent he is.

It is through the preaching and living the Gospel that God can crush Satan under our feet (ver. 20).

Please observe the number of times Paul uses the word “fellow” in this chapter: verses 3, 7, 9, and 21. Paul did not see himself as a “Lone Ranger” in his work for the Lord. He knew that everyone had a contribution to make and that we all work together to bring glory to God.

Archaeologists have found an inscription referring to an Erastus who was a financial officer in Corinth from this time period. It is possible that this Erastus (ver. 23) is the same politician.

In the “doxology” Paul gives in verses 25-27, he summarizes the themes of the letter:

God’s power (1:16)
the Gospel (2:16)
The Message of Christ (1:9)
The mystery has been revealed (11:25)
It is now understood (3:21)
It fulfills the OT prophecies (1:2; 3:21)
It leads to the “obedience of faith” (1:5)

Take home message: The Gospel unites us all into one body, the church of Christ. Let us stay faithful to that Gospel until Christ comes again!