Unity in Christ: Breaking Barriers of Race and Gender

I want to turn to Romans chapter 16. You guys started the recording? Okay, I guess that's what it's done. Chapter 16 beginning with verse 1. Romans, excuse me, Romans chapter 16 verse 1. In this story, sort of the end of Paul's personal discussion of all these doctrines that he's talking about, now he's beginning to sort of end his discussion with the Roman people, the Roman church. And he's talking about the relationships that he's built, and all the people who've been a part in helping him and who have been a part in the church. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Sancreia. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people, including me. When he identifies the lady that's coming to them, probably she is the one who's taking the letter to the Roman church. So he's kind of giving an introduction to her. In those days, they weren't to mail the letters like this that they would send. They would send them by a personal courier, someone who was traveling to that place. So probably his introduction to her is a way of letting them know who she is and what she's doing. And in those days, when they traveled, you had to stay oftentimes in the homes of people, or it wasn't necessarily a good thing for people to stay in inns, because inns were oftentimes very unseemly places. In fact, they were the location for prostitutes, and so it wasn't a very pleasant place for someone to stay unless they were in that sort of lifestyle. So what would often happen is that someone would write a letter, and if you were going to a town and you say, for example, you were going to Texas, and you said to someone who's making that travel, it would take a long trip, you're going to have to go through Wichita. If I know somebody, I know a pastor in Wichita, I'll write you a letter and say, here's Gary and he's coming through your town, would you let him stay with you? I vouch for him. So you'd go to that person's house and you'd show them the letter, and then that would mean that they would have confidence that you're not a crook and would allow you to stay with them. So it was common means for people traveling through the country to carry a letter of recommendation from someone so in the towns that they went to, they could show that letter and they would know that that person was reliable. Now, the letter that she would receive was not simply for her when she got to Rome, but she would also use it in whatever town she went where Paul was ministering and she could show the end of the letter and say, I'm on a mission for Paul and here is the instructions he's given me and he told me if I would stay here in Cyprus that I could come to your house and you might take care of me and help me. So the introduction here of Phoebe is a way by which he's probably describing her in a way that would allow people to receive her and give her sort of a way by which she could travel on this mission for Paul. Her name is a pagan name, so it would indicate that her name was a name that was common among Greek deities. So she would have there a name like that would indicate she was a Gentile. So she was going to the church at Rome as a Gentile lady and Paul is introducing her to help her have a way by which she could have a place to stay where the places that she went. So he introduces her and commends to her as Sister Phoebe. Now the language that she uses is common language that they would use in the biblical times to describe people who were followers of Christ. Brother Paul and Sister Phoebe was a common kind of instruction. In the years that I grew up it was common to call the pastor brother so and so, but they didn't necessarily call each other brother and sister in the church. And some people still like to do that. I've never introduced myself in that way because it sets the pastor aside as if he was a brother and everybody else isn't. If everybody called, if I call you brother and you brother and all of us brother, that would seem to fit. But now sort of it's a name for the pastor like he's on a special status or standing. So I've always kind of resisted that. But what they were doing was identifying the reality of what Christian life is. We have one common father, not physically, but spiritually. And so because of that common father we have a connection with each other that binds us together stronger than personal, than just strangers. And even for most of us, if we have family that are not walking with the Lord, we feel closer to people who walk with God than we do even our family that stands straight away from God. It's not that we don't love our family because they're not following Christ, but because we know that the spiritual thing inside of us that's so important to us is also important to them. And we know that there's some connection that allows us to say we are part of each other's lives in a way that other people simply aren't. Now you talked about here about how the experience you had that transformed you. And there was one day you were one way and one day you were the next. And you look around and know that there are other people who've had that same experience. And it binds you together in a way that all people who have common experiences, a common vocation, lived in the same place as other people live, those things sort of bind us together knowing we have this common experience in Christ. And even if it doesn't come like for myself where you had a personal experience as an adult that grew up as a child, I know what it's like to follow God like all of you do. And so he uses this language, a way of connecting himself to Phoebe, letting them know that this Gentile is a brother of Paul who's a Jew. You remember the story all throughout the book of Romans. It's this kind of battle between the Gentile believers and the Jewish believers. And he's been trying to say all the way through that there is a common bond that holds us together. We're followers of Christ. And in this faith of Abraham that draws us together, it makes us more a part of each other's lives than even the physical bonds in our family. So he introduces Phoebe, the Gentile, as a Jewish man, introducing her as a way of breaking this entry, as sort of continuing to discuss this connection that they should have together as a spiritual family. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church. If you'll note, if you have a NIV Bible, the word that's used there for servant is the word for a deacon. It's a female word for a deacon. In the Greek language, words are male or female in Greek language. Or they can also be neuter, neither one. But they always have one of those three endings on it. And so you have a deaconess, and it's the word deacon with a feminine ending on it. Now this is some kind of a touchy subject here. Because a lot of churches don't allow any women to be deacons in their church. The word deacon in the Greek language is simply a word for a servant. Someone who's a waiter. He can be a servant of almost any kind. It's used of a waiter most often because that's sort of a common type servant. So when Paul is writing, he uses this word for a servant. Now the difficulty comes for us in the Bible in the sense that this word is used for service. It's used word for Jesus when he's a servant. The same word is used for him. It's used for any person who is a servant. It's used for people in the church who are servant. And now in Timothy, when Paul is writing one of the later books in the New Testament, it's used there to describe not a function, a service. For example, a servant is a function. They have a function. They do servant work. They do serving. They serve your table, or they clean the house, or they do other kind of servant work. And this word describes that. But also the word is used in the book of Timothy to describe an office in the church. And there is no way to tell the difference between when the word is used for an office in the church and when it's used for a function. Now we can do that because we have capitalization. So when you see the word capitalize, deacon, you know it's an office in the church. But the Greek language didn't have capitalization like that. So when we read it, you just have to pick up from the context exactly what it is. So many people see this word, Phoebe, as being an office in the church, that she was someone who had a position of authority or leadership in the church. And others see it as simply saying she was a very good servant. She took care of all of us. She cooked for us or fed for us or provided a place for us. So it's hard to tell exactly what this is. You'll find some translations that identify her as a deaconess here. Phoebe, the deaconess. Some will identify her as holding an office in the church because of this word that's found here. Others, where they don't have women deacons in the church and don't allow that position of leadership, will simply have it as a small letter, no capital, deaconess. And others will simply translate it to the meaning of the word. And so you have all kinds of different descriptions about this. And Paul doesn't help us any. I mean, if he would take a stand one way or the other, it'd sure help us to know exactly what he meant. For example, in Galatians chapter 3, when Paul is writing there to the church, he discusses the relationship between men and women there in a very common way focused on the value or importance of women and the barrier that has been broken down in Christ. Galatians 3, 28. In this writing, Paul is talking about the promise of God and that we are children of God and that we are all children of God through faith in Christ. Everybody, Jews and Gentiles alike, are gathered together as children of Christ. I'll just start reading verse 26. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ. He's talking about the common salvation experience. There is neither Jew nor Greek. So, he's trying to break down the racial barrier that divides people so powerfully in that world. A world we don't even have a concept of how strong that was. Slave nor free. Now, when he talks about slave and free, he's not talking about slavery in the South. He's talking about a different kind of slavery. Slavery in the Bible times was the most common means whereby you had common labor. If you had somebody working at a job like at your company, for example, and you hired people just to do common work or labor, most of the ancient world, the people who did that were slaves. They got in financial difficulty and they sold themselves to somebody to work off the debt. Whoever it was they owed the money to. And so, they would work at that job and their pay would be accumulated so you'd be responsible for feeding them, giving them a place to stay, and then whatever was over and above that you could take it off the debt. And that's how common labor was done in the ancient world. A large percentage of the normal population were slaves. They weren't always common laborers. Many of them were teachers. Many of them were business people. The story that Jesus tells about going off on a long trip and he had somebody who was managing his estate, telling about him coming back and asking if they'd be faithful in what they did. Oftentimes these people who ran these estates were business people who had gotten in financial trouble and they had to sell themselves as slaves. So, he's saying the difference between them is not a lower grade of humanity or a higher grade but people who were free to do what they wanted and people who were sold or controlled by someone else. So, there's a great difference. The racial difference makes no difference. The economic status makes no difference. That's what he's saying. So, there's neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female. So, he comes now to talk about the racial difference makes no difference to God. Your financial status makes no difference to God. And your gender makes no difference to God. For all of you are one in Christ and if you belong to Christ then you're Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. See, that's what he's trying to say. Having the faith that Abraham had breaks down the barriers that all of us have between each other. Racial and economic and then gender. So, it seems when you read this in Paul that he's talking about the equality of women and men in the kingdom of God. And then when you turn to 1 Timothy chapter 3 Paul has a whole different story by what he talks about here. He's talking about in that setting the difference between male and female. But here in Timothy chapter 2 verse 11 he's talking about here an entirely different picture of the male-female relationship. He's talking about women here. Maybe I shouldn't start with verse 9. I want women to dress modestly and decently in propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes. You may want to take this home to your wise men and get them to straighten up a little bit so they won't do all that. What he's talking about is I want the women to focus on their character instead of the externals, but with good deeds appropriate for women who profess to worship God. And then he says this, A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit women to teach or to have authority over a man. She must be silent. For Adam was born first in Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived. It was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner. But women will be kept safe through childbirth if they continue in faith, love, and holiness with propriety. Now here oftentimes people hold this passage to say that women should have no opportunity in the church to have any kind of public setting. For example, a lot of churches won't have women, won't allow women to stand in the pulpit and speak. We have missionaries that come back from overseas that go to some of our Southern Baptist churches and they go in to speak, and the pastor won't let them stand behind the pulpit. And some of them, they won't even let them speak publicly and openly in the congregation. They can speak to the women's group, but not to the men. And they base this on Paul's discussion here of women. And then whenever the church is in furor over that, the women all quote what Paul said earlier that I read about there being no difference between male and female. So Paul gives us both the most generous picture of women and their relationship in the community that you can imagine, and then he turns around in the Timothy passage and gives us a very restrictive role for women in the church. And so you can take your pick as to which one you want to guide you in talking about the role of women. But when you come to the book of Romans, and Paul is writing this letter, he does not indicate in talking about Phoebe that she is a shrinking violet in the congregation. He indicates that she had a role of significance. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church. A servant. A deacon. One who is a position, it sounds like, of leadership in the church. It's not uncommon for Paul in the Bible to describe the leaders in the church as servants. For this role of Christ as the servant is a model for us. For as Christ served, so are we in that same position to be servants to the congregation and to others that are around us. So Paul here appears to be giving Phoebe a special place of significance. She's not only a person who's coming to you, she's a servant of the church. It was true that many women in the ancient church were significant contributors to the support of the work. Jesus' primary means of financial support were women who were with him. They provided the financial support for Jesus' work. He didn't take offerings. He didn't work. His disciples didn't work. Their families may have sent them money. But there were women who were significant supporters and contributors to the work of Christ, and this appears to have given them a special place. Mary Magdalene, all the ladies that were there at the resurrection, they were a part of these people who followed Jesus. Women who did so. So Paul seems to give her a picture of a servant of the church in Sincrea. One who is a leader in the church, who has a significant picture. It's true in the ancient world that women oftentimes had a role of less significance, but there's also another picture to it. If you look back in the Old Testament, there were often women who had significant roles. Moses' sister was a leader among the nation of Israel. She saw herself as a role of a leader, and the people seemed to accept her in that way. Deborah was a leader in the nation of Israel. So when you look back at the Bible, it's true that women had a less significant place in many ways, but it's also true that there are positions and places in which they had significance. Now in this long list of people that he greets, he greets Priscilla and Aquila. It goes on and starts at verse 3 and ends with verse 16. There are 28 different names on that list of people he greeted. Nine of them are women's names. That's a significant number of women who are listed here that he greets personally and specifically. Nine of them are women. Seven he lists by name, calls them by name. This gives us some idea of the value that women had in the ministry of the church. Maybe they didn't have the public standing that maybe the men had because they couldn't travel like the men could, but it seems as if in the early church women had a significant role. Paul wouldn't even have written in Timothy about the role of women if it hadn't been an issue. And apparently there were some people who were giving them more freedom than Paul thought they really should have to speak openly and publicly. But it was also true that they held significant roles. Now the words that are used to describe Phoebe, he says, I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and give her any help she may need from you, for she has been a great help to many people including me. Now the two words that are translated in the NIV, a great help, is a word that we would say, what is the word we use if there's somebody who contributes a lot of money to a cause? All of a sudden it's flipped my mind. What? A benefactor. Benefactor, yeah. There's another word we use too that describes that person who's a significant contributor to a cause. A patron, that's it. A patron. A patron of the arts. You hear people talk about the patron of the arts. Now that's the word that's literally used here. This woman is a patron of the church. That implies significant financial support for the church. So Paul describes her as a servant of the church earlier, and now in this later section he describes her as a patron of the church. So she is both a significant financial contributor to the church and its mission and ministry, as well as a servant. And the fact that this word servant is often used for an office, and it's often used to describe the leadership of a church. We talk about servant leadership in the role of a pastor or people who are working in staff. It gives a picture of a woman that has a place of value and authority and significance in the life of the community of faith. So when it comes to the word servant, because of the way he uses it, describes her later on, it causes us to look at this word and say, does he mean she was simply a worker in the church? Like we would say we have somebody who's a good worker in the children's area. We don't let them stand up and teach men or preach anywhere, but they can work with the children or they can work with the preschoolers. Or is he describing someone who's like a leader in the church, a staff member in the church, who when it comes to the business meeting has a voice because she's a major contributor to the work of the church. So we don't know exactly what this is, except that obviously he's placed Phoebe in a position where we would see her as a person of great value. Now, I ask you, I commend you, our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church in Sincrea. I ask you to receive her in the Lord. And now this harks back to Paul's talking about the male and female role. Now that we're in Christ, we're neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, neither Jew nor Gentile. Instead, we all have the common faith in Christ. So receive her in the Lord. Your reception is not simply because of her gender, but because she has been made, remember what Paul said there, there is neither male nor female. There is neither Jew nor Gentile. He's saying when we're in Christ, we are in Him. And all of these classes that humans use to distinguish between one person and another now are invalid. When you receive her, don't receive her as a woman who's come to you. Receive her as someone who's in Christ. For she has been given, she has given her life to Him, and Christ controls her life. So receive her as a spiritual equal to yourself. She is in Christ as you are in Christ. And receive her in a way worthy of the saints. Now, when the Bible talks about saints, of course, it simply means saved people. The word saint has been so distorted in our culture because of the Catholic tradition that we're around, so that a saint has to be someone that you've proven has done so many miracles and has these extraordinary spiritual lives. But what the word saint means in the Bible, it's really the word for holy. And when it talks about being holy, that's a characteristic of a person's life. But when it says a person is holy, the word for it is a holy one or a saint. How do you get made holy? You get made holy by giving your life to Christ and that means you belong to Him. And the word holy, simply in the Scripture, means anything that is set apart exclusively for the use of God. In the Bible, you can have money that's holy because you give it to God and it's used for the kingdom of God. And when you write a check and you give it to the church, your money is holy. From the moment you write it, it's holy because it's God's money. Now He uses it only for His purpose. Now, if you have a salary, all the money we have in the world, I guess you could say, is God's. But what's different about the money you write as a check for some kind of a kingdom purpose means that it now is used only for that. I can't go back to the church and say, you know, I wrote you a check yesterday but I'd like $10 back so I could buy me a hamburger. That money's gone. It's now God's. It's not yours anymore. It's holy. And a building like this, if it's used only for spiritual things, becomes a holy building. That's what makes something holy. It's exclusively for the use of God. So what Paul is calling here, he's talking about her being a saint, he means that her life is exclusively used for the purpose of God. Does that mean that none of us can say we are saints if we do other things other than church work? No, that's not it. Because even in our lifestyle, whether it's home raising your children, whether it's your work working, if your life is devoted primarily to Christ, He is the Lord of your life and you're serving Him, then you are a saint. You are holy. So he identifies her in two ways here. She is in the Lord and in a way worthy of the saints. She is now considered holy. And to give her any help she may need from you. For she has been a patron. So she is now a patron and because of that she has been a patron to many people in any age, including me. It seems as if Phoebe had supported the work of Paul. You know, Paul worked as a kit maker and made much of his way, but there were times and places in which he didn't do that, but there were people who gave him financial support. So he had a special interest in Phoebe because she had funded apparently some of the things that Paul had been doing. In this passage, Paul describes this woman and the ministry that she's given and gives us an insight into the way the early church operated. And so you see that there's a much bigger picture about both the work of Paul, his relationship with women, and the standing of women in the church. Here was a woman who had money. Here's a woman who had abilities to serve God. She had surrendered herself to God and she was now chosen by Paul, now get this, to take the letter Paul wrote and travel. Very dangerous thing to travel in that world from where he was to Rome. As a business person, she may have had contacts in business in Rome herself, but Paul trusted her to carry the letter that we have as a messenger of his because she was a faithful leader in the church, because she faithfully contributed financially to the support of the church, and because she gave herself in ministry and service to others. What Paul shows here is not only the inner workings of what took place in the life of the church and the dependence on people and individuals for himself even, but he shows us that there were people who devoted themselves faithfully to God that we never ever know exactly what they did. The Bible didn't tell us all the story. Wouldn't it be nice to know what Phoebe did? Wouldn't it be nice to know what the names of all these people he lists and asks them to greet really did? There are unknown people everywhere in the world serving God faithfully. We don't know their names. We don't know what they did. Paul tells them, take this woman. I can commend her. I can say she's the real deal because of her service to God, because she's genuinely been converted, she's in Christ, and because she's separated her life so that she belongs to God. And I can say firsthand she's helped a lot of people, myself included. I think all of us would want to have that kind of affirmation for ourselves, to know that someone could say that about us. And even though there may be many, many others who had the same kind of role, they're never lost to God. We don't know her life and her story, but everything she did, the Lord knows it. She appears in just a small fraction of the Bible, but all the work that she did that Paul hints at here, the Lord knew, he remembered, and she will receive a reward for it. So we never do anything for God when we're in him and when we're obedient to him that's not significant in his kingdom. We don't all get written up in the Bible, but we are all written up in God's records. A life that made a difference, Phoebe. Let's pray. I know you, many of you, all of you, can look at your own life and see a life of service to other people. You can look at your life and see people that you've invested your life in, as Phoebe had done. You spent your time, your energy, your effort, your money, to try to advance the kingdom of God. Paul describes this kind of work as making a person worthy and describing that person as a saint. Don't back away from the sainthood that God has given you. Help us to always be servants to you and to your church. Help us to always be generous with our life, our time, and willing to give whatever of our time, energy, and money you ask for. We're thankful for the faithful people in Paul's day who helped him and participated in the great events that he was doing. And we ask that our lives might be just as faithful. In the name of Christ, we ask this. Amen. Now, I don't want you to go away from here saying, We made the women sit at one table and the men sit at another because we read it out of the Bible.