Women of Romans 16

Photo courtesy of Kevin Carden at Lighstock

I have spent a lot of time on the women in the Gospels and a little on some in the Old Testament. I thought I would move forward a little and start talking about the women in Acts and the Epistles. I already have a teeny bit of research about the women listed in Romans 16. I am going to share some of that with you. The first two mentioned are the ones we know the most about.

The epistle to the Romans was written to all Believers in Rome, though it appears according to the list in Romans 16 that there were many house churches that existed there. There are ten women listed in the passage of Scripture in Romans 16. They are:

1. Phoebe

2. Prisca

3. Mary

4. Junia

5. Tryphena

6. Tryphosa

7. Persis

8.. Rufus’ mother

9. Julia

10. Nereus’ sister

The first woman mentioned was Phoebe. It is believed that she was the one who actually carried the letter of Romans to the Church at Rome. I have written about her in more detail in a post in relation to 1 Timothy 3. Click here to read that post.

The second woman mentioned was Prisca or Priscilla. She was the wife of Aquila, and they are mentioned throughout the New Testament. Luke mentions them in Acts, and Paul mentions them in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and 2 Timothy. Click here to read a little more about Priscilla.

There are 8 more I have yet to explore. When Paul mentions some of them, he says they "laboured much for us" or "laboured much in the Lord." What does in mean to "labour in the Lord?" Where else is that phrase found in the New Testament? They must have held some significance to be among those mentioned in this passage of Scripture.
More to come...

A Foundation of Grace: Grace in the Greek

You therefore, my child, be strengthened in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.-2 Timothy 2:1 (World English Bible)

For the last few days in this series, I have been sharing stories about Jesus, and how there are pictures of the difference between law and grace in these stories. But, what is grace? I think we need to let the Bible define grace for us by looking at it in its original language.

There are words for grace in the Old Testament in the Hebrew Language. We might look at them later. But since the New Testament is what we have been primarily been studying in this series, I thought we would look there first. As Believers, we are part of the New Covenant. Jesus came to fulfill the Old and usher in the New.

The New Testament was originally written in Greek. So, we can also look at the definition in the Greek.

The Greek word for grace is "charis."

Looking up Greek words in the Bible is fun because we get a much broader picture of what the word is supposed to mean. And sometimes it redefines it for us, because we might have a smaller picture in our minds that what the word really means.

The Greek word for grace is "charis." There are 157 occurrences of this word in the New Testament Scriptures.

There are several different Bible study tools that can help define this word for us.

Strong's Concordance defines it as "grace, as a gift or blessing brought to man by Jesus Christ, favor, gratitude, thanks, a favor, kindness.

Helps Word Studies defines it as "favor, disposed to, inclined, favorable towards, leaning towards to share benefit.

New American Standard Bible Exhaustive Concordance defines it as "grace, kindness" and translates it as "blessing, concession, credit, favor, gift, grace, graciousness, gracious work, gratitude, thank, thankfulness, thanks."

Thayer's Greek Lexicon contains some more lengthy, descriptive definitions, but in brief, it defines grace as:

1. sweetness, charm, loveliness

2. good-will, loving-kindness, favor; kindness which bestows upon one what he has not deserved

So, we can see that grace is something that is a free gift given to us, one we did not earn, or deserve, but based upon God's favor and goodness in our lives. And when Jesus came it brought it forever, eternally with Him.

To read more in the series, please join me here, at A Foundation of Grace.