We’ve seen Paul’s final greeting and final caution. Next week, we’ll be looking at the doxology at the end of chapter 16. We’ll be finishing out our series in the Book of Romans. We look through the reading of God’s word. If you would please join me in prayer. Blessed, trying Lord in your great and kind providence, all holy scriptures were written and preserved for our instruction. And so we ask that you give us grace to hear them proclaim this day. Strengthen our souls with the fullness of their divine teaching. Keep us from pride and irreverence, and may it please you to guide us in the deep things of your heavenly wisdom. And from your great mercy, lead us by your word into an everlasting life through Jesus Christ, our Lord and savior, in whose name we now pray. Amen. Looking at verse one, I commend you, our sister Phoebi, a servant of the church of Saint Crea, 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. Greek 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 Pippinettus, 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. ‘ Verse 16, ‘Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. I appealed you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you’ve been taught, avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetite. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you. But I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you. So do Lucius and Jason, and Sassafater, my kinsmen. I, Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord. ‘ ‘Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greet you, harass us the city’s treasure, and our brother Quartus, greet you.
The word of the Lord. Peace be seated. In the fourth century, Christian preacher and Bishop John Chrysostom, he cautioned those who would hastily run by the end of Romans thinking there’s not much to be gleaned from it. And last week, we sought to evaluate what are timeless principles and what are passing historical situations. We see that again here in chapter 16. Here we see the many different people of the churches in Rome. Paul sends greeting to 26 different people. He names them by 24. He also mentions eight people from Korinth. And in between, we have a final warning. What we see is the people of the church at work. Paul’s letters are not abstract philosophical treatises. They are personal letters to the churches who are filled with people that Paul knows and he cares for. Real names of people who are experiencing the highs and the lows of their life of faith in the church. And we see there’s nothing new under the sun, and that’s a comfort to us. We see that there’s nothing new under the sun, and that’s discouraging to us. Because we have been called by name to belong to the body of Christ, there are no insignificant and little people in the kingdom, and we are to care and to watch over one another.
Paul recognizes and commends those who are laboring with him in the spreading of the good news of Jesus. He also warns and cautions them of those who would try to get them off mission and to disrupt the church. We see first here this commendation that is given. He starts, I commend you, our sister Phoebi, a servant of the church of Sancreia. Now, Paul He was likely writing his letter from Corunth. St. Cree is about five miles away. And Phoebi is the one who’s probably actually sent with the letter of the Romans to the churches. In the ancient world, letters of commendation were sent to introduce people one another as a security system, too. It’s like this person is legit. Treat them well. We see this in Acts 18 with Apollos, his letter of accommodation, Demetrius in third John. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3, he speaks of these letters of recommendations that are often sent. Paul goes on, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints. All right. Switching. And to help her in whatever way she may need of you, for she’s been a patron of many and of myself as well.
Phoebe was a great help to Paul and to the church. She’s called a servant. That word used here is deaconess. The Greek word deaconos is where we get the word deacon from. It just simply means to minister to someone, to serve someone, to be a servant. Now, there’s some debate. Is this an official role or not? The office of deacon, deaconess. In the third and the fourth century, those designating as deaconess were responsible for the care of women in the church, the poor and the needy. And it might be that Phoebe had this official role or that she simply noted for her great care in serving other people. But Paul is asking these Roman Christians to show her hospitality, to welcome her. Now, But another debate, verse 7, was with Junia. Is this a female name or a male name? Grammatically, it could go either way. And most think Junia is the wife of Andronicus. But what does it mean to be well known among the Apostles? Is this the 12, capital A, Apostles? Or is it referred to missionaries of various churches, like a lowercase A, Apostle? And that word, Apostle, again, in Greek, it just means a messenger, one who’s sent.
So It could be that her and her husband are well-known missionaries like Prisca and Aquila, or it could mean that their service was deeply appreciated by the Apostles. Now, the modern church has questions about the roles of women in the church that really are just not fully addressed here. But to be very careful not to say too much or too little. In this list of 24 names, about 10 of them are female. Prisca, Mary, Trifina, Julia, the mother of and so forth. Also in this long list of names, there are those in Jewish origin. Others are Gentile. Some are likely slave names, verse 8, Ampliatus, Urbanus. Others from higher classes, those in the household of Aristopulus, Narcissus. In Paul, he greets different homes where the churches are gathering. Rome is a huge city, and likely, there are not only these five, but many more that were also there as well. Some were, Well, how could Paul know 26 people of churches that he’s never, ever been to? Well, there were a number of Christians that traveled back and forth, that were working in the various churches. And Roman historian, Sittonia, as he tells us that Emperor Claudius had expelled the Jews in Rome at the last part of his reign.
And it’s interesting, he said, Over the disturbances made about one Christus. Christus, likely, is a reference to Christ, that there are these great disturbances happening in the city of Rome between Jewish Christians and Jews who weren’t holding to Jesus as the Messiah, so much that they were expelled. And Acts 18 also speaks of this expulsion by Claudius. But they were allowed back. Nero let them come back. And Paul is writing in the time of Nero. Paul would know a lot of these people who had moved back and forth. And not only that, he He prayed for all the churches. No doubt he had mentioned them by name, these men and women, in his prayers for years. If you struggle knowing the names of people around you, start praying for them. When you pray for people, you get to know them. You get to care for them. You can also get to ask them, Hey, how can I pray for you specifically? And we engage in that way. Paul is praying for people by name, and he’s able then to commend them, to greet them. And these meetings are really a type of commendation for all of them.
He’s recognizing these men and women are doing the work of the church. Prisca and Aquila, in Acts, she’s referred to as Priscilla, says, They risked their lives for me. Five out of six times when this couple is mentioned, her name is first, we don’t really know why, but likely she was a very prominent person. He says, Mary worked very hard for you. Urbanus, my fellow worker, Stachus, my dear friend, Appellus, tested and approved, Triphina and Trifosa, these women who worked hard in the Lord, Perseus, another woman who has worked very hard in the Lord. And notice of all those that Paul commends for working very hard, they’re all women who have shouldered the work of the gospel with him and the churches. Now, you think about these His list of names and how very encouraging it would be to have been personally named by Paul. I’m sure he’s probably going to go in his mind, I don’t want to forget anybody. I don’t want to forget anybody. And this is great care that he would know them. He would be praying and caring for them. What an encouragement. And in the very closing remarks of verse 21 to 24, it’s now going the other way.
Readings are sent by those working with him in the church in Corinthians. Paul is dictating to Tertius, who’s writing this down. These churches, as he’s naming them, they are shared in their faith. They are shared in their ministry. Surely some of these have gone back and forth to some degree, but even if they haven’t, they’re brothers and sisters who share in the gospel. He says, greet one another with a kiss. Many countries still do this type of greeting, and it’s common. I appreciate J. B. Phillips’s paraphrase, probably a little more British and American, give one another a hearty handshake all around. Paul, he was just saying, show affection for one another. Extend yourself in warmth and greeting to brothers and sisters in the faith. In this, we see the gospel is multi-ethnic, it’s multi-social, it’s multi-gender. Of this, Paul has already spoken of in Galatians 3:28. He says of the gospel, There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, there’s neither male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus. He’s bringing it all back to the centrality of being in Christ. Different gifts, different roles in a church, the same Lord, the same spirit, the same baptism.
All parts are needed. And all these parts are people, people who have names, people who have histories. So Some are more visible and some serve in less noticeable ways, but all are to serve. The church is the body of Christ. It’s made up of men, women, and children who all belong to Jesus. This Jesus who knows all of his sheep by name. And this shared affection and accommodation has to be a part of the life of the church. Just to thank those who serve you, to encourage one another by name, to extend hospitality to one another, to open up your lives to people with names who love Jesus like you love Jesus. There’s no facelessness to be in the church. That’s always a challenge, even as churches grow and large churches, small churches, to be able to connect with one another. There are different strategies for doing that, to be sure, to making a big group and to learn a smaller groups. But how important that is that we actually have people who we rub shoulders with, who we know, we know their needs, we know that we can ask them for prayer. We don’t just come in and slide out.
That we come in and we slide next to and support one another. That we could be able to give thanks and commendation for the work of brothers and sisters who are sharing this load with us with joy in our hearts. Because of this love that Paul has for these Christians, he also gives them a final caution and a final warning. Verses 17 to 20 can almost seem a little out of place. But this final caution is showing them for good measure because Paul loves the churches. He is concerned about them. I appealed you, brothers, watch out for those who cause division, Create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you’ve been taught. Avoid them. While he mentions many who have been a great benefit to the church, he also says there are those who are destructive, and the churches need to keep watch for these. He says in verse 18, For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive. From the start, there have been false teachers in the church. There have been, from the start, those who are divisive, sinful people make up the church.
The church has also had nonbelievers in her midst, those who profess faith but do not have Anyone faith in Christ, religious but no real relationship. That has always been the case. It is always mixed and will be until Jesus returns. Now, this can seem discouraging. This struggles. Will we ever be free of this? Yes, one day. One day we will. But in the midst of that, we are called to maintain the unity of the church and the purity of the church. And that is difficult. How do you stay united? And how do you know when we actually do need to divide? And Paul goes on to commend them. He said, For your obedience is known to all. I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. Likely, he’s paraphrasing Jesus’s command to be innocent as doves and shrewd as serpents. Wisdom is needed. There are many warnings given in the New Testament about divisive people, about false teachers, about malcontent. Not every divisive person is a heretic, and not all heretics try to be divisive, but both are a poison in the church.
And The question is, what are the major issues that strike at the heart of the gospel? And what are just differences? Relatively small matters. What do you go to the mat over and what do you just extend loving forbearance to? What are vital things and what are secondary things? That’s very difficult to know. Now, if you’re visiting, you’re going to get a little laundry from those of us on our end of the world. Here’s a little laundry. If you have been in the conservative Presbyterian circles, some of this will be new to you, some of it won’t. In our tradition, J. Greshan Machen, he led a revolt from Princeton Seminary, 1929, to form a more conservative one, Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. The original issues were centered on the heart of the gospel, what it means to be a Christian, what is the very heart of the matter. Yes and Amen. 1936, they formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. A year later, there was a split over the beverage use of alcohol and views of the end times. The Bible Presbyterian Church was started. They split in 1956, again in 1970, and then later in the early 2000s.
Along the way, there have been devised over exclusive psalmody, whether we sing only the psalms from the Bible or we can sing other songs. There were splits of how to understand the incomprehensibility of God. A real one, the Clark-Mantill Controversy in the ’40s, arguing how we understanding comprehensibility. The ’70s and ’80s were controversies over what type of biblical counseling was the most biblical. Still arguing about that. Controversies over the best way of doing apologetics. Controversies over theonomy. How do we apply the law of God into modern judicial systems? The great worship wars of the ’80s and ’90s. Contemporary versus traditional. Controversies over the charismatic issues. Controversies around John Murdi, Maritha Klein on the covenant and justification by faith. The Norman Shepherd controversy, the sonship controversy. How we understand the days of creation in Genesis. That was another controversy. How we understand the Sabbath, views of roles of women in the church, redemptive historical preaching, the federal vision controversy in the early 2000s, Side A and Side B, sexuality controversy. Two Kingdom’s theology, republication of the gospel, strict subscription to the confession. Most of those of you are like, What in the world is all of this?
Most of this comes from John Frames’ article, The Theology And it was called Matian’s Warrior Children. Matian, we started with saying this is the children of Matian. And that was published in 2012. I can tell you, since the last 12 years, I could give another few paragraphs of the current things that we’re fighting about. It’s also a long list. I’m not going to mention because I really don’t want to have these conversations at the end. And that’s just our little group. Every denomination or group has their own version of this. Men and women who are convinced that their issue is the rising and the falling of the church. Church’s splittings over some things that would be hard to even explain the different positions. No doubt we have differing groups because we do come down on different issues, and that’s not all bad. We have denominations that align with us more than others. It’s not a bad thing. Good people differ on how we understand certain things, to be sure. But Paul’s desire is for wisdom. It’s certainly understandable. Because how do we bring these things together to know which vital, which things aren’t? In 30 years of being a pastor, I think I’ve mentioned before, I’ve had many people who have been convinced that one or more of these issues, you plant a flag in and you hold your ground and you die for this.
It’s a hold your position and take one for the team because this is the thing. This is it. Those who are convinced that they’re Martin Luther, Here I stand, I can do no other. And there are those who controvers This is like a full contact sport. Lies filled up with taking up the latest thing to fight about. And it’s not really so much the issue. It’s just like a good fight. Along the way, I know this is true of you. If you’ve been a Christian long enough, I’ve been called a fundamentalist and I’ve been called woke. I’ve been called a conservative and a liberal, an egalitarian, a complementarian, a bibelist and unbibical, patriarchal and a feminist, a legalist and libertine. That’s just me. You’ve We experience this, too. There are these issues that strike at the vitals of our faith, and there are issues that just strike. It takes discernment and wisdom. One of the things I do appreciate about our form of government is that these matters are given careful thought by our denomination nationally, by our regional presbyteries, by our local leadership discussion. We’re not trying to chart our own path by ourselves.
We have other people who also are coming alongside that we had the courts of the church as they were to really take these issues seriously where they need to be. But we also recognize it’s a matter of the heart to discern whether a person is an encourager of the faith or one who just wants to fight in any issue will do. Dessernment. Now, it can be that you could be like, I’m one who believes I feel like I’ve been given the gift of discernment. Great. But do you have the character to carry that forward into conflict? Discern that as well. Because sometimes it may be that you’re like, I see this issue and I need to bring it forward, but I’m not the person who should take it all the way because that part of my character is just not developed enough. And to be able to see that, to know what things should come forward and what things should receive to the background. And am I the one that can do this? Some self-assessment. Of who I am and how I approach the conflicts that surround me. Paul then gives us this final encouragement in this.
He says, The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. It’s surprising to have these two thoughts brought together. The God of peace, the God who crushes. Certainly, referring back to Genesis 3:15, speaking of the crushing of the serpent, the mention of the gospel for the first time. God will do this, but it will be under the feet of the church, your feet. The instrument the Lord is using is the body of Christ. Our God of peace is not indifferent to evil. He does not stand idly by. How do we know this? He sent his son to die for sins, to conquer death. It is this message of his son that’s overcoming the world. What is the meaning It’s not the means of his crushing? It’s sending his people with the good news of Jesus. What is our means of crushing? Does it look different than that? If it looks different than that, we need to back up because this is what the God of peace is doing, to crush the emity of the world. It’s the good news of his son. Paul has already told us in Romans 8, We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.
1 Corinthians 15, Paul declares, But thanks be to God. He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 5, For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Now, I know at times it’s hard to feel like we’re winning. History has ebbs and flows. We are ebbing and we’re feeling rather battered. But be of good cheer. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. He’s not stopped. His church is advancing. In those moments of ebbing, he hasn’t lost his ability to conquer. And often from the worst moments come the greatest pictures of grace and triumph. And we’re called all along the way simply to be faithful, to be able to not shoot the people on our team, but also to know that maybe not everybody’s on our team. That takes a great deal of discernment, wisdom, communication with one another. I really appreciate Philippians 4, coming to the end of that great book, Paul is dealing with conflict in a church. There he says, I I treat Euodia, and I treat Synteche, to agree in the Lord.
Yes, I ask you, true companion, help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life. He mentions names. He mentions his care for them. He mentions Clement and these two women. And notice where these names are to be found in the Book of Life. That’s why he takes such great care with how he deals with these conflicts, because they’re brothers and sisters whose names have been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and we are not to speak of them poorly. Those for whom Christ has died. We have great care when their names are on our lips, and we all can confess this as sin. How we speak of a brother or sister for whom Christ has died. With love and forbearance, with joy. Because they too have been saved by grace, by grace written in the Book of Life. Together, we diligently guard the church as we bear with one another. In this, we commend one another. For those in Christ are fellow believers, they are coworkers of whom we are to give thanks in prayer for.
Even as we are discerning, maybe there are divisive people, false teachers, malcontent that we need to be watchful over. As Paul says, warn a divisive person once and have nothing to with them. Why? Because that divisiveness, it causes such turmoil in the church. It spreads and it breaks things apart that God is unifying in his spirit. We are a part of that. How we speak of one another, how we even take on the challenges that are there, are all done under the authority of the gospel. Paul has modeled this beautifully. Even as we look at these names, we’re like, I don’t know who any of these people are. But this becomes then a template for how we respond to one another, how we care for one another, how we greet and commend each other, and how we speak of brothers and sisters in other groups who are also laboring with us in the work of the gospel. Yes, we may have significant disagreements with them over secondary issues. But I’m really glad we’re not the only church in the valley doing this. There are some great evangelists. I’m not a gifted evangelist. I know some who are, and man, I appreciate the fact that they do what they do.
And They’re so good at drawing people in. They’re people who are really good at that one-on-one discipleship and other people who are really good at bringing large troops together and formulating maybe worship in this area, maybe helping people in those areas. One of the things our church is known for is teaching. We have lots of teachers here, both actual teachers in schools, but teachers in various ways. That’s part of the gift that we have for the body of Christ. We, too, are able to learn from others who have great gifts that God has given to them that we don’t do that well. We can say, I commend them, greet them, for they work hard in the Lord. They are my friends, my fellow coworkers, because the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is with us. Pray with me. Father, as we come before you, we do say thank you. Thank you for how you have saved us by grace. Men, women, and children, Lord, of all kinds of backgrounds and varieties. Father, thank you that we are here because you have put us here. And Father, we just want to say thank you for brothers and sisters in the faith who you have also called to your son, who you have written in in your book of life.
Father, we just say thank you, praise you for it. Lord, we also would ask that you would grant us discerning and wise hearts. Father, how do we know what’s central to the gospel and what secondary we ask you, Father? Show us. Please open our eyes to see, our ears to hear, according to the truth of your word. Father, may the world see the love that we have for one another and know that you sent your son. We pray and ask this in his name. Amen. Please stand. The church is one foundation.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.