Romans 16:1-27<\/p>\n
V1-16<\/p>\n
Paul sends his greetings and final instructions to the church of Rome.<\/p>\n
Some important things to note about Paul\u2019s extensive greetings are that they are very personal and are addressed to many different kinds of people that he knows in the church of Rome. From verse 3-16, Paul mentions both women and men who have served the church and we also know that this is a diverse group of people.<\/p>\n
Phoebe, mentioned in verse 1, is likely the one delivering Paul\u2019s message and is called a \u201cservant of the church\u201d, also meaning deaconess. Paul greatly commends her, a woman, and goes on to recognize many other faithful women who served in the church as well. Also mentioned are Prisca (also known as Priscilla) and Aquila, who we know from Acts 18 as a Jewish couple who came from Italy and accompanied Paul to Ephesus. Additionally, there are others mentioned who are Gentiles.<\/p>\n
So, rather than just reading a bunch of names, we can learn that the church of Rome consisted of different genders, origins, and races and that Paul\u2019s greetings encourage the development of strong, personal connections between people in the church — which ultimately promote a unified community in Christ.<\/p>\n
V17-20<\/p>\n
In verse 17, Paul\u2019s final instruction is to avoid people \u201cwho cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine\u201d. These are people who preach heresy to others. It is important that we remain alert so that we can recognize when someone is doing or saying something contrary to what we know is the truth. This is because in verse 18, we see that these people don\u2019t serve Christ, but are trying to serve themselves \u201cand by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the na\u00efve\u201d.<\/p>\n
There are many who preach things that people want<\/u> to hear while targeting a specific, simple-minded audience: \u201cbelieve in God and you\u2019ll go to heaven, you\u2019ll become rich, you\u2019ll never go to Hell, etc\u2026\u201d Just the same, there are many people who are na\u00efve and easily deceived by those flattering lies. That\u2019s why Paul sends this reminder to the church of Rome, so that they can be \u201cwise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil\u201d (verse 19).<\/p>\n
V25-27<\/p>\n
Paul wraps up his letter by proclaiming God\u2019s power through the truth of the gospel, which was made to known to all, not just the Jews, \u201cto bring about the obedience of faith\u201d. This ties in directly to the opening of Romans in Chapter 1:1-5 and nicely brings the letter to a close as he finally concludes with the praise of the only wise God.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 —- Cecilia Yip<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romans 16:1-27 V1-16 Paul sends his greetings and final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion-2019_2021"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4346,"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1793\/revisions\/4346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glorycbc.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}