Romans 16
New Hope Daily SOAP: Romans 16
Pastor Vicki Harrison
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Romans 16:1-7, I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.
Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.
The final chapter of Romans has this beautiful section of greetings to the people that Paul has worked with and encountered in his ministry. I only included a portion of the greetings because they are quite long but I love how this was obviously a letter for regular people. This was not a letter intended for religious scholars. Rather, Paul sent it to people he cared about in an effort to help them in their own lives and ministries.
Another interesting note is that out of twenty-six people who are listed as special workers in ministry, nine are women. This is especially impressive because Rome was a male-dominated society and women had little, if any, social and legal standing. But in the church, things were different. There is also a variety when it comes to the names: some of Jewish, some are Latin, and many are Greek. While I'm sure the early church had its issues, it appears to be a diverse mix of men and women, from different cultural and religious backgrounds. Essentially, it was a great picture of the Kingdom of God.
God's Kingdom is universal, with people from all races, cultures, and stations in life. In God's Kingdom, men and women serve alongside each other. It's a place in which every single human life has value and no one is better than another. God's values are actively at work: love, justice, mercy, righteousness, hope, and freedom for the oppressed. Somewhere in the history of the church, it got off track. The church became less Kingdom-focused and more about growing the institution. It began to resemble the culture around it. Certain people were excluded, corruption crept in, sin invaded. It's hard to read a church history text because it seems so far from the church Paul was trying to establish.
But all is not lost. God's mercies are new every day! As a church, we can pray and strive to be a better picture of God's Kingdom. In fact, my on-going prayer for New Hope is that we will become a multiplying congregation - multicultural, multiracial, and multigenerational. I pray that we will be the kind of place where people from all walks of life find a place of belonging, a place to be nurtured and loved. I hope you will join me in this prayer.
Let's pray...Lord Jesus, we are grateful for the apostle Paul and his amazing work and writings. Thank you especially for the book of Romans and the many things we have learned over the past two weeks. As we close our study of this letter to the church at Rome, we lift up our own church, New Hope. We pray that you will instill a burden within us for those who don't yet know Jesus in our community. I pray that you will open doors for us to be stretched and grow. Lord, we seek to be a church who reaches new people for you, a multiplying church, that looks more like your Kingdom. We pray all this in the name of Jesus, Amen.