Year 5, Day 39: Romans 16

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Competency

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

Do you ever wonder who Paul’s In was?  With Jesus, we know that His In was His disciples.  But what about Paul?

Sure, there was Barnabas who took him under his wing.  But they eventually split apart.  There’s Peter as far as other church leaders go, but we really don’t get the sense that Paul and Peter got along all that well.  There’s John Mark the Gospel writer, but they had a rough start to their relationship and likely only were able to patch it up towards the end.  And of course there is Timothy, Paul’s spiritual son, who is the closest thing that Paul has to family.  Of this list, probably only Timothy is In.

Then, of course, there are the people who traveled with Paul.  The aforementioned Timothy would be at the head of that list.  Of course there was Silas.  And Titus.  And Luke, of course.  We can’t forget Phoebe, who is likely the messenger who brought this letter to Rome from Paul.  And there are a few other people, too.

But what I love about Romans 16 is that it gives us some great insight into other people that Paul likely considered In – even though he didn’t travel with them.  At the top of this list is Prisca and Aquila.  This is a married couple that Paul met in Corinth and traveled to Ephesus with after being in Corinth.  Then there is Epaenetus, who likely converted in Ephesus and then took to the road with Prisca and Aquila much like Timothy took to Paul.  There is kinship in the disciple-making process.  Then we meet Andronicus and Junia, who were imprisoned with Paul.  I’m guessing that if Paul ended up in jail with them that it was about God!

These are Paul’s In.  They lived with him.  They lived like him. They followed the same God.  They had the same heart.  Their mission was the same: from God.

Romans 16 is Paul’s Family on Mission.

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