Paul's Greetings and the Early Church Community

You ready? Romans chapter 16, verses 3 through 16. A list of long names like this are difficult for us to find a reason or purpose for it. But when you believe that the Bible is given to us for a reason and God doesn't waste time or pages, you know there's something to learn from all the things that we find in Scripture. Some of them are easy for us to figure out the Holy Spirit gives us that insight. Some of them we need to find out a little bit about the background about events and things like this because it helps us to be able to see them and to see the perspective that we find from a different point of view. What's found in this long list is Paul's greetings of people in the church at Rome. Greetings to them because he intends to go there. He intends to go and his hope is to be able to raise some help for work that he wants to do when he goes to Spain. So Paul is probably preparing them for his coming as well as recognizing the strength that they have and the life in their congregations. In this passage Paul lists 26 different names. One of them is a person that might have already died because it's talking about his household and we know that when his death occurred and the writing of Paul may have been three or four years after that but the household of his family he was asking prayer for so that name might eliminate one of them. Of this list there's a long collection of people who Paul knows. Many of them he's had relationships with. There are a number of these people that he asks them to pray for or brings greetings to are women. It's an unusual thing because Paul's references to women and their role in the church in Timothy he tells that he doesn't give them a place or position in the church of leadership. But here in this list he lists a lot of them. There are nine women in this list. Well it could be eight or nine. One of the names it's kind of hard to tell if it's a woman or a man. One of the characteristics of most cultures is the names the way they named them their children. In the Roman culture it was very common for them to have names that represented the class of people that they were reflecting. Now we don't necessarily have that although there are some names whenever you see them in the paper you think you know something about them. For example if you read that Bubba Jones was in a car accident where would you think Bubba was from? The South. You'd say okay that guy's from the South. So you do read names and you recognize that that name sometimes will tell us something about people. In the Roman culture the elite class had certain kinds of names that were reflective of them. And the slavery class had certain names that were reflected of their social status. So they were different. Now most of these names in the list that he has here are people who are slaves or have the name of slaves. They're freed people not necessarily slaves. And when we use the words slavery in our culture we think of the Civil War times whenever they would take people and beat them and treat them with terrible under terrible circumstances. But the slavery in the biblical days was quite different than that. Oftentimes slaves were slaves because they got in financial difficulty couldn't pay their debt and so they would sell themselves into slavery for their debt. They work like 10 15 years to pay off their debt or five years whatever the length of it was. And some of them might be well educated people and their job might be to teach the children of their slave owners of their owners that teach their child like a teacher educator would do. And every year they would pay some of the debt that they had. And oftentimes whenever the slaves were actually freed they would choose to stay with that person and they would have responsibilities in the home like they would if they were a hired person. So slavery wasn't necessarily such an offensive thing as we see it today. So as we go through this list and I'm in Romans chapter 16 verse 3 beginning verse 3. So in Romans chapter when we go through the names we see something about Paul. We see something about the early church and we see something about the nature of the way the church operated when we take the Bible as the pattern for our own Christian lives. Is there something here that lets us understand how the church really should operate. What is it like. Paul is writing this letter and he's bringing up the names of people he wants to affirm at the end of it. In the beginning he greets Priscilla verse 3 Priscilla and Aquila my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. You'll notice that the woman's name is listed first here. This is an unusual thing. Usually the man's name would be listed first. In the story of their life Priscilla seems to be the more aggressive and leader of that family. That's an unusual thing for that culture. So she seems to have been a very personable and powerful figure in the life of the early church. Paul met her at Corinth. He found her there as a very faithful worker for the Lord. He took her then to Ephesus with him where he was there for a while. If you remember the story of Paul in Ephesus he got in great trouble because he was preaching and the conversions were so many that people had quit going to the temples that were there and quit buying the idols that were made by the craftsmen there. They were going to kill Paul in Ephesus because he had upset the entire economy by his preaching and he escaped by the very skin of his teeth we might say. It may be in that circumstances that he says to her that they both Priscilla and Aquila risked their lives for him. It's amazing how often Paul finds himself in circumstances where he depends on other people to be a part of the ministry that we have. Now what we see in Paul's life is the story of places that he went and the things that he did. But one of the things we don't see until we see a list like this are the people who he was indebted to. We read his story in Ephesus and then when he tells us this we understand that there were a lot of things going on that we didn't even know about. His life was in danger and these two people because of their influence or wealth or whatever it was he feels really saved his life. He was indebted to them in a way far beyond what we might even see. So Paul is writing a letter and he's talking to this church about the people he sees who he is deeply indebted to for what he did. Many of the things that went on in the life of the early church we know nothing about. We only know what we read in the books that are written. And the books that are written don't tell us the whole story they tell us just little pictures of what took place. You'll see all the way through Paul's affirmation of these people how dependent he was on other people for the completion and fulfillment of his ministry. When you think of Paul you think of a courageous man. When you think of Paul you think about a man who's ready to do whatever God wants him to do. You think about a man who's always a leader and always in charge. But when you go through this list of people to whom he feels indebted like Priscilla and Aquila you see that he had great help from many other people to be able to do the work that he did. We do not even know now this couple is in Rome. They started out in Rome. They were asked to leave Rome whenever the emperor ran all the Jews out of Rome. They settled in Corinth had a ministry there a house church there. They went with Paul to Ephesus where they helped establish a church there. And now they're back in Rome. Here's a family a couple of people with the wealth to be able to travel and everywhere that we know they went they were sponsoring churches. They didn't have the kind of system that we're talking about in our structure where you get a group of people together. They said we're going to start a church but we need to find a preacher somewhere. They just took over the responsibilities themselves and they led the study of the Bible which was the Old Testament for them and the stories about Jesus in their homes with people who were ready to receive and follow Christ. They met in homes of the people who were members of the congregation homes that would carry would have 40 to 60 to 80 people most in them. When they got bigger they would start another church in somebody's house usually wealthy people in the congregation. This was one of the couples who were church planters not ordained preachers never been to school never had any training. They just followed the direction of the Holy Spirit. You will find in the New Testament if you look carefully that the great secret of the New Testament churches was not the preachers that they had nor was it the educational system that they had nor was it the tradition that they had but they were completely and totally dependent on the Spirit of God. So two people moved from one place to another wherever they went they told about Christ gathered a group of people began to teach them how to live and follow Christ until the group grew big enough that another house was started and another church was started. In this list Paul is going to list this is the first one of them Paul is going to list five different churches or three maybe five different groups of house churches in Rome. So these churches we don't even know how they were organized we don't know who preached in them we don't know who taught in them but they were multiplying over and over again by the guidance and presence of the Holy Spirit. We have so many resources money people training that it's very difficult for us to see and experience the power of the Spirit as he does the things that the Spirit alone can do. Here's a family powerful for they are so he greets them because they have saved his life and been a friend to him and then he says greet also the church that meets in their house. This is the first of the house churches he identifies. Greet my dear friend Eponetus who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. Paul remembers his beginning of his missionary journey. I don't suppose you ever forget when you start your first work the first church I ever started preaching at I always remember it because it's such a powerful experience and remember the people that were the first converts he started out not anybody a follower of Christ and this is the very first man that he met and now the man is in Rome the church that he's going to be visiting. Greet Mary who worked very hard for you. Paul is identified one woman who is a very hard worker in the church. Now whenever we talk about this if we were to say someone in our church was a hard worker a lady what would you think that she might be doing? Cleaning but it was in somebody else's house the church was you couldn't clean the person's house unless they picked up after they left. We might think she was teaching preschoolers or children or youth but there's not any evidence that they had preschoolers or children or youth in these house churches just adults and yet Paul talks about women and their usefulness in the church as if he had no place for them to be able to speak or to speak up in the church in the meetings but here we have a lady who's identified as a very hard worker in the church we don't know exactly what she did but she was a person that they depended on for the work that they had to do. Next greet Andronicus and Junius this is probably a husband and wife team and they're relatives of Paul we don't know what their relationship with him is but here he has relatives who have been in prison with me they are outstanding among the apostles and they were in Christ before I was we don't know very much about Paul's life but here's a little window we see he had relatives that became Christians before he did now remember he was a man setting out to find the believers and kill them or put them in jail but he had relatives already who were followers of Christ we look at the Bible and we see the influence that Stephen had on Paul he was there when Stephen was stoned but what kind of influence did this family have on him relatives who'd become followers of Christ when he was out to destroy them and now he becomes not only a relative of them physically but spiritually also maybe guides to Paul maybe the first evidence of someone who's converted that caused him to begin to think maybe there's something to this Paul identifies them clearly as people who are relatives of his for a long time Junius who's listed here and I said maybe a husband and wife team during the early years of the church this person was identified as a woman from about the 13th century up to about the 19th century Bible scholars said no it was a man it was two men because there was a great interest in making sure women had no part in the life of the church and identifying as few women as they could seem to be a likely and good thing for them to be able to do now since about the last 200 years people look at this and say well it was a woman a man and a woman who were part of this family of Paul greed and plot and be alive and and the lies and politis whom I love in the Lord it's all we know the name that he has is one of those names that is common to slaves so he would have been a freeman served his term as a slave now he's free but of the lower class greater banis our fellow worker in Christ and my dear friend stake us we don't know anything at all about stake us not any word at all about who he is or banis was one of those it was more I think he's mentioned again in the Bible so that he was a worker that was more well known great a palace tested and approved of Christ this is also a slave name very common name among people in that time and he's a worker in the church greet those who belong to the household of Aristotle us Aristotle us was the name of a relative of Herod the Great and he died a little bit before people think the book of Romans was written so he doesn't list the household members of this family but what it does give us an insight into Herod the Great was a powerful person and there were believers in the family in the household of one of the powerful political figures of the biblical period Herod the Great the gospel had spread from slaves to the most powerful people in the world we don't know how all this took place we see in the story of Paul how he went to these towns and started work but there were so many other places that work was started and so many other people who were part of the kingdom of God and we don't know the strategy that they used we don't know the way that it was done but the gospel spread in a powerful way all over the world and here we have a picture of a family of a very prominent political figure who has become a follower Herodian my relative we don't know anything about this one except named after Herod the slaves often times took the names of their owners their slave owners so he would have been Herod the Great and there were several Herod's that he could have been a part of but now he identifies him as a relative of Paul's himself greet those in the household of Narcissus greet those in the household of Herod and greet those in the household of Paul and greet those in the household of Herod himself greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord and usually when he is talking about the household of someone he is talking about a church where people meet so this could have been another house church greet Tryphena and Tryphosa these two women that he has listed here are given unusual names names that would not be maybe common for us do you know what I mean? Delicate and dainty were the meaning of the two names sort of like ladies that were of the same family but their names mean delicate and dainty these were women who work hard for the Lord again another reference that we saw with Mary my dear friend Persis another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord Rufus chosen in the Lord and his mother who has been a mother to me too we don't know anything about Rufus's mother and his relationship to Paul but again a little bit of a picture Paul had someone Rufus's mother who took him maybe even traveled with him to care for him during his ministry and lifetime and her name does not appear anywhere except in this listing Rufus himself in Mark chapter 21 is listed in chapter 15 he is listed in Mark's story and many people think that Mark wrote his gospel when he was in Rome and here in Mark chapter 15 verse 21 he is telling the story of Christ's crucifixion a certain man from Cyrene Simon the father of Alexander and Rufus was passing by on his way from the country and they forced him to carry the cross now in Rome the son of Simon is now referenced as a follower and believer of Christ wouldn't we like to know that story the man who was chosen to carry the cross of Christ and now we find in the book of Romans that his son is a follower of Jesus and is identified with Paul by Paul as one of those that he wants to give attention to now Rufus's mother would have been Simon's wife he calls Simon he calls Rufus chosen in the Lord as if he has some particular calling that sets him apart from other believers it could be just referencing the fact he's been called to be a follower of Christ but the way he sets it here apart from all the others seems to imply that Rufus has a position of influence in the spiritual community what kind of evangelist could you have who could travel around the country and say my dad was the one that carried the cross I mean he could be drawing crowds everywhere in the world because of his connection in that way and here we see Paul connected with Rufus how they must have discussed the things that went on and how this experience in Simon's life touched him and all of his family just a little glimpse of the community of believers they weren't large and they knew each other and they knew what was going on so Paul is greeting him giving us an indication that there is something more to all of this story than we've ever been able to receive now he lists a group of brothers I don't know if I can pronounce the names as syncretus Philegon Hermes and then he lists a group of brothers called the brothers of Christ Petrobras Hermanus and the brothers with them again probably a reference to a house church greet Philegus Julia Nereus and his sister and Olympus and all the saints with them probably another house church greet one another with a holy kiss all the churches of Christ send their greetings Paul ends this list of people and the greetings that he gives to them with the instructions greet one another with the holy kiss it seems as if this was a common means whereby congregations when they met together would express their love and care for one another you see in the churches that we find in the New Testament they are somewhat different than what we have almost any church that you'd find here in this part of the world if you ask for the members of the church they would give you a list and if you ask who they were probably twenty five percent of them nobody would know they join the church moved off somewhere else and you go to any congregation you'll find people who gather in the congregation if it's very large at all they know just a few of the people in the church the churches that you see here were individual groups of people in small clusters no more than 60 to 80 people at a time they all knew each other they had relationships with each other because they met together regularly and they were very close to each other they met regularly and their commitment to Christ was such that their relationships were open to one another they watched each other's lives they corrected each other's errors they confronted each other when they needed to be confronted they supported each other and they became family to one another he ends this by saying greet one another as you would greet your family with a holy kiss now the holy part of this means the way you would greet someone because they're set aside as God's child and when you greet them to kiss them your kiss is not a kiss of brotherhood or a family but it's a kiss of holiness the Bible sees every follower of Christ as a saint a holy person a person given to Christ and the kiss that's to be given is not a kiss a kiss only a friendship or a fellowship but of holy connection so much of the time in churches because of our sizes we don't know how many people we know the other people who are part of even the fellowship that we're in we see them we smile at them we shake their hands and they're gone these people had relationships with each other that caused them to be closer than even family with each other and so he uses this ending to be able to say the common way by which we are to greet each other is as if we are all set apart from God for by grace of God to belong to him and our proper greeting is to be with each other close intimate and caring the communities of faith that they had depended on each other they were connected to each other they were all in this together because their culture around them did not accept them very well and there was danger for almost all of these small communities of believers the community didn't accept them their families rejected them often for making this move to follow be followers of Christ and so there was a powerful sense of belonging to one another these are my family these people belong to me and I belong to them and so the churches were to have a place in which there was a closeness and dependence that we don't experience in our own spiritual life and what we call churches today you can see that the power is shown in this list of people the power of friendships the power of people who depend on each other the power of people who trust each other the power of people who found in each other something that encourages them and supports them you see in this list of people people who have given themselves in great energy and service to God now this list of people if you were to take any church would be a very small group in a big church even a church our size and we're not very big but in this list 26 different names five churches maybe 60 to 80 people maximum and all of those some of them maybe 20 25 or 30 people this is a significant number of people in those churches and they're powerful leaders Paul who'd never been to Rome had never been to Rome had never been to Rome had never been to Rome had never been to Rome had never been to Rome knew them because the community of believers was so small that they knew people by reputation even though they weren't in the same town with them because of their commitment to Christ they were bound together in a powerful force to be servants of God I think you see in this list of names of people and something about them what caused the church to grow with such power there were people devoted to what God wanted prepared to give themselves in obedience and service to him and Paul finds in them the family of support that he has God's intention for us is to be a family of people who love care and support each other I think it's important for us to remember that God's intention is to give us the strength to be able to do what God wants us to do and I think in the core of most churches that's where you find the similarity between our churches and this one people that you know who've given themselves to Christ people you know that have put Christ first in their life people that you can understand who've given everything that they can to the church most churches find as its power most churches find as its force for spiritual strength and value Paul found in this group people who have meant so much to him encouraged him saved his life nurtured him and that's what the church is supposed to be a place where that takes place so Paul's listing is really something that we need to remember as sort of a way by which we see inside the church what God intended it to be I'd like us to pray what does it take to make a church like this it takes people devoted to Christ a willingness to depend on what Christ wants us to do to be led by the Holy Spirit not our own desires or to copy people around us but a church that's courageous enough to do whatever God wants not dependent on human ideas but on the guidance of the Spirit we do not live father in the culture about which we read we don't know what it would have been like to live then but we have to believe that the same power that made that church so forceful in its day is available to us help us to depend not on our own wisdom nor on our own training nor the resources that we have but teach us to depend on your spirit to tell us what to do to tell us how to do it and to empower everything we do that it might touch the minds hearts and lives of those who are in need of the Holy Spirit and the lives of the people around us the churches that Paul started had a powerful influence in their world I think that churches today can still have that but it has to be this kind of church take away our dependence on anything other than your spirit take away our reliance on our human wisdom and teach us to rely on your wisdom give us the power that you alone have that our world might be changed by our service to you as the world in which Paul lived all of us would like some day to live in a world where we are not dependent on anything other than your spirit for our names to be written as people who have worked hard for you who have made a difference in the world that we find ourselves and have been faithful to you in the name of Christ we ask that you might use us in this way amen amen amen