Phoebe (Romans 16:1-2)

As we can see from this final chapter in this book, Paul was aware of several individuals in the church in Rome and passed on his greetings to them. This fact probably does not strike us as unusual, yet we should recall that it was unusual at that time for the service of women, apart from some exceptions, to be recognised. So we can even see in this list of names one of the great changes that Christianity brought about in the value that humans should have of one another.

The first woman that Paul mentions does not belong to the church in Rome, however. Instead Phoebe was a member of the church in Corinth. The description that Paul gives of her is one of the most discussed verses in the New Testament because of its connection to the role of women in the church.

It is likely that Phoebe carried the letter to Rome, so this is Paul’s introduction of her to his readers. Some interpreters suggest that she was a businesswoman of some kind. It is likely that she was a wealthy woman because Paul describes her as a patron and she would have possessed property in order to show this hospitality. There were trade links between Corinth and Rome, and perhaps Phoebe’s family was involved in one or more of them. It looks as if she did not have property in Rome because Paul asks the church there to show hospitality to her.

Whatever her status, the fact that she carried the letter reminds us how God can use surprising methods in the conveyance of his Word to his people. Would we have entrusted this important letter to such a weak person? After all, she could have been attacked by bandits on her journey! It is strange to imagine this unknown woman entering this dominant city with a document that would revolutionise the subsequent centuries. She did not know that was the case, of course. All she would have known was that she was carrying a letter from the apostle Paul, and she knew that he wrote with divine authority as a special messenger of Jesus. So while she would not have known the future effects of the letter, she would have known that she was the bearer of a letter with God’s authority.

Paul mentions the location of the church in Corinth – Cenchreae, which was one of the harbour areas of the city, located about eight miles to the east (the other harbour was to the west). It may have been the case that the church in Corinth met in different locations round the city. Corinth was a trading centre and Cenchreae would have been a very busy port. It is interesting that this is where the church was located because the port area, if it was similar to other ports, would not have been the most desirable part of the city. When we recall some of the descriptions that Paul gives of the past lifestyles of the members of the church in Corinth, we can link this to the location in the city where they gathered. Many of them had sordid pasts, but that was not a barrier to their conversions. There in Cenchreae, there was a community of light shining in the darkness.

There would have been another benefit from having a church in the port area and that is the contact that would be made with travellers moving from one place to another by sea. Perhaps the church had specific ministries for such people as they passed through. And Christians also would have been among the travellers and they would have informed the Christians in Corinth regarding what was happening in other places as far as the progress of the gospel was concerned. Maybe Paul had met in Cenchreae some of the people he lists in this chapter as they passed through.

We can read about some of the members of the Corinthian church in verses 21-24 and we can see that among the believers were Jews and Gentiles, civic officials and slaves, a reminder that the gospel bridges barriers. Of course, the church in Corinth would have its own problems later on, but here its members show their affection for the believers who were resident in Rome.

Paul says three things about Phoebe that are true of all believers and in describing her in these ways he gives us an example of how we should describe one another. The three ways are sister, servant and saint.

Sister Phoebe

The obvious meaning here is that Phoebe belonged to the family of God, as did Paul and the Roman believers. At one time, Paul would never have recognised her as belonging because she was a Gentile and he, as a Jew, would have had no dealings with her. Instead before he met Jesus, Paul would have regarded her as an outcast, one who could expect no favours from God. Now, however, he was delighted to acknowledge that she was an equal member with him of God’s family.

How had this come about? The essential requirement was for Paul, Phoebe and the Roman believers to have met Jesus. It is likely that Phoebe was a convert of Paul after he came to Corinth. We are not told any of the details, but we don’t need to know them. Nevertheless, we can say what happened to her in a spiritual sense, and what happened to her has to happen to us if we want to belong to God’s family.

The first detail we can mention is that Phoebe did not belong to God’s family by birth – she might have belonged to a pagan family. There is an idea around that everyone is a child of God because they are humans. We have to be careful how we use that idea. Paul did say when addressing the philosophers in Athens that they were all God’s offspring, which points to a kind of fatherhood that God shows towards his creatures. Yet that is not the relationship that believers have when they say that God is their heavenly Father. Instead they are connected to God on a different level altogether.

The second detail we can mention is that Phoebe had to be justified by God before she could become a member of his family. Justification is God’s remedy for our state of condemnation. We had broken God’s law and had become estranged from him, as Phoebe had. He sent the gospel to us and in the gospel he informs us of how we can be justified. It is all connected to what Jesus did. In order to change from the state of condemnation by God to the state of acceptance with God, we needed Jesus to provide two things. First, he had to provide a life of obedience that could be given to us; second, he had to pay the penalty for the sins we had committed. The good news in the gospel is that Jesus has met both these needs by his perfect life and atoning death.

Yet it was not enough that Jesus supply those needs and leave us unchanged. Instead, we have to respond to the gospel in repentance towards God and in faith in Jesus. Both those features belong to the response and we cannot have one without the other. Repentance is a turning away from sin, and this turning away is accompanied by sorrow for having committed them. Faith in Jesus is a warm embrace of him in which we depend upon him gratefully.

The third detail connected to becoming a family member is what can be called God’s act of adoption. Justification dealt with our state of condemnation and adoption deals with our state of estrangement (in our society, it is orphans who are adopted; in Roman times, it was slaves who were adopted and given the freedom of the new family). Believers are moved by God into this new status. What can we say about it? Here are some details.

First, we should remind ourselves that the relationship is permanent – no one can be removed from this family relationship. There is nothing anywhere, not even their sins, which take any of God’s people out of his family. Second, the relationship is the highest privilege that God could give to them. Contained in the privileged status is access to God at any time and the recognition that they are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus. Third, the relationship is paternal in that God now always acts towards them as their Father. An example is what happens when they sin against him. He disciplines them as his erring children, but he does not reject them as rebellious sinners.

So that was how Paul regarded his fellow Christians, whether Phoebe or the believers in Rome. And it is how we should regard one another. If we did so, we would get rid of the trite assessments and petty complaints that we make, most of which are nowhere else but in our own imaginations.

Servant Phoebe

The term that is translated ‘servant’ here is not the word doulos, which means slave, and which is often translated by the word ‘servant’. Instead the word is diakonos, from which we get the term ‘deacon’, and therefore some people argue that it refers to an official role that Phoebe had in the church in Corinth. It is not possible, however, to use this word by itself to justify that idea because it is not unusual for the word to be used in the New Testament in a variety of ways. There would have to be additional information given before we can deduce that she had some kind of official role in the church.

The important detail to stress is that Paul says she was a servant. Now we know that there are two kinds of servants – the willing and the unwilling. No doubt, Phoebe was a willing servant. When we look at the description Paul gives here – ‘a servant of the church’ – it could suggest that Paul was saying that everyone in the church was a servant, that she was one servant among many. What can also be deduced is that she served everyone in the church there, which means that she was not selective in whom she chose to serve. If a person is selective, it means that they cease to be servants and instead become lords deciding who is worthy of their ‘service’. Selective service is the opposite of Christlike service.

How do we develop a servant attitude? The answer to this question is obvious. We develop it by spending time with Jesus. If we spent time with him today, we would have discovered that although he is Lord he is also the servant-king, ruling on behalf of his Father. On the throne, he has a servant heart, and in his heart he has the interests of all his people. Imagine we are praying for an individual in our congregation. We may ask that he or she would be taught something or that he or she should be given comfort. Who is going to provide that blessing and convey it to them? Jesus the Lord, the servant-king. Our prayer times should remind us of the servant role of Jesus as well as of the sovereign role of Jesus.

Of course, Phoebe showed her servant heart in being willing to carry this letter to the church in Rome. In doing so, she would be doing them a service because they would receive a great blessing as the letter was read. I suppose we could say that she also did an act of service for us because her action on behalf of Paul here also ensured that we would have the letter of the Romans as well. Who can estimate what the consequences of an act of service might be!

Maybe it would be good to ask how many people in heaven are grateful for the serving attitude of Phoebe in taking this letter to the church in Rome. It has often been pointed out how Augustine was converted through a verse from Romans while living a sinful life, how the letter was central to the development of the Reformation after the recovery of what the letter said about the doctrine of justification, and how John Wesley found spiritual deliverance as he listened to someone reading a passage from a commentary on Romans. And there are millions more who have been blessed through her act of service.

Maybe we can imagine Paul mentioning in a meeting in Cenchreae that he had an important letter to be taken to Rome. Perhaps Phoebe said to herself, ‘I will take it.’ Or maybe she said, ‘I am going to Rome on business, which means that God in providence has made it possible for me to take it.’ The point is, a servant wants to serve and avails himself or herself of the opportunity.

Saint Phoebe

No doubt there is a day assigned to Phoebe in the calendar of saints, although we should observe that there is little saintly about having such a calendar because it distorts the meaning of sainthood. A saint is not a special person with unusual gifs, nor is it a description of a believer who has matured greatly in the faith. That person is no more or no less a saint than a Christian converted two minutes ago.

A sinner becomes a saint at conversion when God separates that individual to himself. The Lord does not separate the individual in the sense of isolating him – instead he separates the individual from the world and into the community of believers, which may be one reason why the idea of saint occurs usually in the plural.

There is a connection between the terms ‘saint’ and ‘sanctify’. In separating the individual, God begins the process of sanctification because he gives to that person the Holy Spirit. This, of course, means that a saint is a person becoming Christlike.

It looks as if Paul was concerned that the saints in Rome would not behave in a saintly manner towards Phoebe. He expected them to welcome her in a manner ‘worthy of the saints’. The saintly way to welcome her was to provide her with practical support, defined by Paul as ‘whatever she may need from you’. From one perspective, such behaviour is an expression of Christian love; from another perspective, it is the expression of a holy character. So the saints in Rome were to take the initiative and find out what she needed.

Applications

There are two applications that we can note. The first is that believers should show appreciation for and affirmation of one another. From one point of view, Phoebe was only a messenger, but Paul spoke highly of her in spiritual ways. The second is to recognise the equality that exists between Christians and the great privileges that they all share because of the grace of God.