Context at a Glance
Author:Traditional Attribution
Topic:romans Chapter 16 Study
This chapter provides a foundational look at the theological themes of romans, analyzed across multiple historic translations for maximum scholarly depth.
Romans 16
New Revised Standard Version
1I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae,
2so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.
3Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus,
4and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.
5Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ.
6Greet Mary, who has worked very hard among you.
7Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.
8Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.
9Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys.
10Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.
11Greet my relative Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.
12Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.
13Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother — a mother to me also.
14Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who are with them.
15Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.
16Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you. A warning
17I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.
18For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.
19For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil.
20The God of peace will shortly crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
21Timothy, my co-worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my relatives.
22I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord.
23Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you. A concluding blessing
25Now to God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages
26but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith —
27to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever! Amen.
1CORINTHIANS
3401 CORINTHIANS Introduction First Corinthians offers a fascinating window onto the struggles of one community of the movement that developed into Christianity. Paul's attempts to persuade them to see and do things his way reveals just how difficult it was for people rooted in the Hellenistic culture of a large metropolis such as Corinth to assimilate Paul's gospel of Christ and its implications for personal and community life and for their relations with the larger Roman imperial society. The city of Corinth had been punitively destroyed by the Romans in
146BCE, but then rebuilt in
44BCE as a colony to which the Roman patricians sent the "dregs" of the surplus population from Rom itself, such as recently manumitted slaves and displaced peasants. Corinth quickly developed into a busy hub of east-west trade in the empire and the center of Roman imperial culture in Greece. Except for Antioch in Syria, where Paul was based at the very beginning of his mission to various people of the eastern Mediterranean, Corinth was the first major urban center to which Paul brought his mission. For eighteen months, with several coworkers such as Timothy and Silvanus, Prisca (Priscilla) and her husband Aquila, and Phoebe, leader of the community at nearby Cenchreae, he organized and taught in several house-assemblies of Corinthians who came together periodically as a "whole assembly" (church) to celebrate the LORD's Supper. After he moved across the Aegean Sea to work in the city of Ephesus, another missionary, Apollos, an eloquent Hellenistic Jew from Alexandria in Egypt, also taught in the community at Corinth. In dictating
1Corinthians (from Ephesus, 16.8), Paul was responding both to a letter from the Corinthians asking questions about several issues (see 7.1; 8.1; 12.1) and to news he had received through "Chloe's people" of some serious conflicts in the Corinthian community. The
1CORINTHIANS
341letter begins with the usual address, greeting, and opening thanksgiving (1.1-9) and ends with the standard closing exhortation, greetings, and grace (16.13-24). The body of the letter consists of a series of arguments on key issues over which the Corinthian community has come into conflict: divisions within the community connected with devotion to wisdom (1.10-4.21); how to deal with a man living with his stepmother (ch 5); on not taking disputes to the official courts (ch 6); on marriage and sexual relations (6.12-7.40); on eating food sacrificed to idols (8.1-11.1); on hair arrangement when prophesying (11.2-16); on procedure at celebration of the LORD's Supper (11.17-34); on the use of spiritual gifts, particularly "tongues" (chs 12-14); on the resurrection of the dead (ch 15); and finally on the collection for Jerusalem and Paul's travel plans (16.1-12). The language Paul uses and the issues he deals with in
1Corinthians are very different from those in his other letters. That suggests that the views he addresses in
1Corinthians were distinctive to the Corinthians among the various communities Paul founded (and perhaps had something to do with Apollos's ministry in Corinth after Paul had gone to Ephesus). Indeed, it appears from the way Paul uses some of these distinctive terms that some of the Corinthians understood themselves as "spiritual" and "mature," as opposed to merely "unspiritual" or "physical" and "infants" (2.6, 14-15; 3.1; 15.44, 46) and as "wise," "powerful," "of noble birth," "rich," and "kings," as opposed to "fools," "weak," etc. (1.26; 4.8), apparently because of their possession of "wisdom" as the agent or substance of salvation, a religious selfunderstanding known from contemporary Jewish communities in Alexandria, where Apollos came from. Throughout
1Corinthians Paul appears to be responding to what certain Corinthians were thinking and doing, and at several points in his major arguments he even uses their language and slogans. Paul's arguments in
1Corinthians were not immediately effective, as is evident from the continuing conflicts he had with the Corinthians in various sections of
2Corinthians (see Introduction to
2Corinthians). Paul's arguments in
1Corinthians, however, contain some of the earliest traditions of believers in Christ, such as the words of institution for the LORD's Supper (11.23-26) and the basic creed of Christ's HT TH
1CORINTHIANS
342crucifixion and resurrection (15.3-5). First Corinthians also contains Paul's most insistent emphasis on the cross of Christ (1.18-2.9), and his most extensive discussion of the resurrection of the dead (ch 15). Moreover, Paul's use of the Corinthians' language in attempting to persuade them to his viewpoint resulted in formulations that provided key bases for subsequent Christian belief and practices. In
1Corinthians are the only statements among Paul's genuine letters in which Christ appears to be a preexistent figure (8.6; 10.4). Only in
1Corinthians does Paul deal with issues such as sex and marriage and spiritual gifts such as glossolalia (speaking in "tongues"). Given the ways that subsequent generations of Christians have understood them, Paul's formulations in ch
7in particular became a basis for Christian sexual asceticism and one of the texts used to legitimate the practice of slavery. Passages in
1Corinthians (11.2-17; 14.34-36), moreover, became some of the principal bases on which women were subordinated in the patriarchal family and church. And it is in
1Corinthians that Paul composes the famous "hymn to love" as part of his argument for solidarity of the community as the "body of Christ" (ch
13as part of the argument in chs 12-14), and his almost ecstatic vision of the dramatic parousia, the coming of Christ and the resurrection of believers, "at the last trumpet" (15.51-55).