The Gospel in the Credits: Real People, Real Partnership, and the Gospel We Share ~ Romans 16:1–16, 25–27

 

Have you ever stayed through the credits of a movie until the very end? I remember the first time a friend talked me into doing that. We were sitting in a theater watching the credits roll after Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. The story was over, the music was playing, and people were getting up to leave. My friend leaned over and whispered, “You gotta wait for the stinger.”

“The what?,” I asked.

“The stinger! It’s a hidden scene after the credits. It’s really funny.”

So we waited. And sure enough, after all those names had rolled by, the movie suddenly came back to life. There was one more little scene, and it was funny. In fact, it became one of my favorite parts. I’ve loved stingers ever since: those unexpected moments at the very end that give closure, answer a question, or reveal something we would’ve missed. Because sometimes, just when you think the story is over, there’s one more scene.

The sixteenth chapter of Romans is a lot like that. Paul has spent fifteen chapters explaining the gospel: the faithfulness of God, the grace of Jesus, the power of the Spirit, the reconciliation of humanity, and the hope of a new creation. Then we reach chapter sixteen, and suddenly Paul starts saying “hello” to people. Phoebe. Priscilla. Aquila. Mary. Junia. And a whole lot more. It can feel like the credits have started rolling, and you might be tempted to get up and walk out.

 

But what if this is the stinger we’ve been waiting for? What if, after fifteen chapters explaining the gospel, Paul shows us what that gospel looks like when it takes root in real people’s lives? The gospel is never simply an idea to understand. It’s a new way of being human, a new way of living together, a new creation taking shape in the middle of the old one. And when Paul starts greeting his friends, something remarkable comes into view: women and men teaching, leading, serving, risking their lives, and building the church together. 

 

Let's begin with Phoebe. Paul writes, “I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.”

There’s a lot packed into those two verses. First, Paul calls Phoebe a diakonos of the church in Cenchreae. This Greek word can be translated as servant, minister, or deacon. Paul uses the same word to describe his own ministry (Rom. 15:25; 1 Cor. 3:5; Eph. 3:7; etc.) and the ministry of other male coworkers, and even of Jesus (Rom. 15:8). He does not invent a separate, lesser category of ministry for Phoebe. He identifies her with the men.

Paul also calls her a “benefactor” of many people, including himself. The word refers to someone who provides support, protection, or assistance to others. Phoebe was not simply someone who showed up to help when an extra pair of hands was needed. She was someone Paul trusted, someone whose resources and relationships had helped sustain the work of the gospel.

And because Paul mentions her first, many scholars believe she was the person who carried Paul’s letter to Rome. Imagine the significance of that. The letter we’ve spent centuries reading, studying, and preaching, most likely arrived in the hands of a woman. Before the Roman Christians could hear Paul’s letter, they needed to welcome Deacon Phoebe. If they had questions about Paul’s most significant and challenging letter, they needed to ask Deacon Phoebe.

And Paul isn’t embarrassed. He doesn’t offer a lengthy explanation for why she has such a significant role. He simply identifies her ministry, celebrates her contribution, and tells the church to welcome her. But consider this: Before Paul tells the Roman church how to understand the gospel, he shows them what the gospel is by who carries it.

Next, Paul writes, “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me.”

Priscilla and Aquila were a married couple who worked alongside Paul, helped establish communities of faith, and hosted a church in their home. Paul calls them “coworkers,” his favorite term for fellow ministers, not people who simply stand on the sidelines and cheer him on.

And Priscilla has a story of her own. In Acts 18, we meet Apollos, an articulate and knowledgeable teacher whose understanding of the faith is incomplete. Priscilla and Aquila take him aside and explain the way of God to him more accurately. What’s interesting is that Priscilla’s name appears before her husband’s in both Romans 16 and Acts 18, which was culturally unusual. New Testament scholar Craig Keener notes that in this particular context, the order of the names points to Priscilla acting as Apollos’s primary tutor.

Think about that. Priscilla teaches a man who will become an influential Christian preacher. She is not merely present while her husband does the teaching. She takes the lead and helps a male leader understand the faith more fully, and the biblical text tells the story without stopping to justify why this arrangement is acceptable.

There’s something beautiful about that scene. Apollos is already a gifted teacher, but recognizes that he still has something to learn. Priscilla has something important to teach, and Apollos is willing to receive it. The kingdom of God grows when we stop treating another person’s gifts as a threat to our own. Men need women who can teach them. Women need men who can learn from them. All of us need people who can see what we’ve missed.

Then Paul introduces Andronicus and Junia. He writes, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.”

Junia is a particularly fascinating person because some later translators struggled with the idea that Paul could identify a woman as an apostle and so they rendered her name as the masculine “Junias.” The problem is that Junia is a well-attested woman’s name in the ancient world, while evidence for Junias as a man’s name doesn’t exist. And Paul’s phrase, “outstanding among the apostles” meant that Junia and Andronicus were noteworthy as apostles and not simply known by them.

In other words, Paul identifies Junia as an apostolic coworker, entrusted with carrying the gospel into the world. She followed Jesus, took risks, suffered, and served alongside others. Paul wants the church to remember her and greet her.

And these are not the only women Paul celebrates. He mentions Mary, Tryphena, Tryphosa, and Persis, commending them for their hard work. He uses the language of “labor . . . in the Lord” that he also uses to describe his own ministry and the work of other male leaders. These women are not simply recipients of the gospel. They are among the people doing the hard work of making it known.

 

Across Romans 16, Paul’s language for ministry repeatedly crosses the exclusionary gendered boundaries his culture might have expected him to maintain. Women are ministers, coworkers, teachers, benefactors, laborers, and, in Junia’s case, even apostles. Paul does not stop to explain why their gifts are legitimate. He casually assumes they belong and celebrates what they contribute. He is describing the actual community through which the gospel is taking root.  And this brings us back to the bigger story.

In Genesis 1, we saw that humanity is created in God’s image, male and female, and together entrusted with the vocation of caring for each other and all creation. Neither is given the image of God in a lesser measure. Neither receives a separate, inferior calling. They each share together in the dignity and responsibility of bearing God’s image in the world.

But Genesis 3 describes the rupture of that good creation. Sin distorts our relationships. Trust gives way to blame, partnership to gendered domination, and shared vocation to struggles for power. The world we inhabit is full of such broken relationships particularly between women and men.

But the gospel announces that this is not the end of the story. In Jesus, God is reconciling humanity, breaking down the dividing walls that separate us, and beginning the restoration of creation. Paul describes this good news reality in Galatians 3, where those who belong to Christ are no longer defined by the ethnic, gendered, or hierarchical divisions that once determined their standing. And in Romans 16, he shows us what this restoration looks like in the ordinary life of the church.

Here are women and men sharing the work of the gospel, recognizing one another’s gifts, risking their lives for one another, and building communities together. This does not mean every inequality in the ancient world had suddenly disappeared. It means that the new creation was already taking shape within the old one, and the church was called to live as a preview of the world God is restoring.

That matters when we read the passages where Paul appears to restrict women. We can’t pretend those passages don’t exist, or that every question is simple. But neither should we take a handful of difficult sentences, interpret them in isolation, and use them to dismiss the women Paul actually names, trusts, and celebrates.

 

Romans 16 gives us a lens through which to read those passages. It reminds us that Paul’s letters were written to particular communities facing particular challenges, and that his words need to be understood within the larger story of the gospel he proclaims. We should ask what a difficult passage was addressing in its original setting, how it fits with Paul’s wider teaching, and whether our interpretation reflects the new creation Paul says God is bringing about.

If our interpretation of one passage requires us to dismiss Phoebe’s ministry, diminish Priscilla’s teaching, or erase Junia’s apostleship, we should doubt that we have understood that passage correctly. We should not interpret Paul’s occasional restrictions in a way that makes his own ministry partners disappear.

This is not about criticizing men reversing the old arrangements and putting someone else on top. The point is not to replace one hierarchy with another. The gospel invites us into a different kind of community altogether: the restoration of the shared partnership God gave women and men in creation. Men are not diminished when women are encouraged to lead. Men are enriched when they have more gifted teachers, wiser colleagues, more courageous partners, and more people to share the work.

Some of us are called to preach. Some are called to teach, organize, care for the vulnerable, offer hospitality, challenge injustice, lead, or sit beside someone who is hurting. Some ministries will be public and visible. Others will happen quietly, far from a microphone or a platform. But none of us should assume that we know in advance what another person is capable of because of their sex or gender.

Imagine what might happen if a young woman could discover her gifts without first having to prove that her gender did not disqualify her. Imagine if a young man could learn to lead without being taught that leadership requires control, emotional distance, or domination. Imagine if our children grew up watching women and men teach, lead, serve, disagree, learn, and work together with mutual respect and harmony.

What kind of church would that be? I suspect it would look a little more like the community Paul describes in Romans 16. And a lot more like the kingdom Jesus announced, where greatness is measured not by how many people serve us but by how freely we serve one another.

So perhaps the next time you read Romans, resist the temptation to hurry through the final chapter. Slow down and listen to Paul say “hello.” Hear the affection in his greetings, the gratitude in his words, and the hope in the community he describes.

Because when Paul says “hello” to Phoebe, Priscilla, Junia, and all the others, he is doing more than rolling the credits. He is showing us what the gospel looks like: the restoration of our shared humanity, the healing of relationships distorted by sin, and the emergence of a new creation in which women and men bring their gifts together for the life of the world.

Romans 16 is not the credits at the end of the story. It’s a stinger for the story God is telling—and a guide to how we should live it. And that, my friends, is a story worth staying for – until the very end. Amen.

How to Better Read the Bible With Women: Jesus and the Bent-Over Woman ~ Luke 13:10-17

 

There is something beautiful and painful about the story in Luke 13. A woman walks into a synagogue bent over. Luke tells us that she has been this way for eighteen years. And Jesus sees her and sets her free.  Praise God! But the story isn’t over and not everyone is happy. The religious leader is upset. He doesn’t see a person healed. He only sees a Sabbath command to defend and a Savior to oppose. And I think that difference is really the heart of this story and the true battle of the Bible.

Because this story isn’t only about healing. It's a story about how we can read the Bible to heal or to harm. It asks, How do we read Scripture faithfully? How do we read difficult passages? How do we read a command when it seems to put someone else in a smaller place? And that’s why I want us this morning to watch Jesus read the Bible when a woman is bent over in front of him.

But first we need to slow down and read this story carefully. Because Luke is a masterful storyteller and there are important literary tricks that we might miss. The NIV says that this woman was “crippled,” but Luke's language is more mysterious. He doesn’t use the word “crippled” but says she had a “spirit of weakness” or “frailty,” and that she was bent over and unable to straighten herself. The Greek word Luke uses, astheneia, Paul will use for human weakness, possibly from oppression (see 1 Cor. 15:43 and 2 Cor. 13:4). So we shouldn't imagine that Luke is giving us a simple medical diagnosis or disability but a more complicated diagnosis of embodied trauma and disempowerment. Jesus himself says her condition was bondage by Satan.

And notice something else. Luke doesn't simply say that Jesus “healed” her. Jesus says, “Woman, you are set free from your weakness.” The Greek verb there is apoluo, a word that helps clue us into the nature of her affliction. The phrase “set free” isn’t normally used for healing or even exorcisms. It often means “liberate,” like a political prisoner (Matt. 27:15, 17, 21, 26) or can refer to releasing someone to do commissioned work (see Luke 8:38-39). So Luke is surrounding this encounter with rich and symbolic language that is deeper than disease or demons and more descriptive about freedom and release from domination.

All of this implies that the story is not merely about Jesus fixing a woman's body. Jesus is setting a bent-out-of-shape woman free in a male-dominated religious space. It’s more than the healing of a bad back. It’s the healing of a broken story. It’s a picture of the liberating kingdom of God.

Jesus sees her, calls her forward, touches her, and releases her. And then Jesus names her. And he does all of this in a religious world in which women were easily treated as secondary. A world where his own disciples could be “surprised to find him talking with a woman” (John 4:27). And Luke wants us to notice Jesus and this woman and consider our own response.  Because some people see liberation and praise God. Others are indignant and say God doesn’t allow it. Some “were delighted,” and others “were humiliated.” Some see a woman set free and others see a command broken. And the question is, “Which one will we be? Which crowd will we join? Which way of reading will we employ?”

Because Luke 13 gives us a remarkable contrast between two ways of approaching Scripture. Jesus practices Scripture principles on real people, experiencing real oppression. And we see its fruit. She stands tall and praises God. And the angry synagogue leader quotes Scripture, one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:9), and wonders aloud why she simply can’t wait. Why Jesus can’t go slow. With Scripture in hand, he opposes Jesus and seeks to keep her bound.

He's got a biblical command. He's got a religious conviction. He's got a sincere concern for obedience. And yet Jesus says, in effect: You are using Scripture harmfully. And then Jesus makes the accusation even more serious. Jesus says that Satan has bound this woman for eighteen years. The synagogue leader thinks he is protecting God's command. But Jesus says his interpretation is preserving a bondage that God intends to break. I can’t read this passage and not hear Jesus saying, “You are reading the Bible and helping Satan.”

And that’s a frightening possibility for anyone who takes the Bible seriously. Because sometimes the most dangerous way to misuse Scripture is not to ignore it. Sometimes the most dangerous way to quote it in a way that keeps somebody bound. Your Bible can be open. Your doctrine can be orthodox. Your motives can be sincere. And yet you bend people out of shape. You tie people up in knots.

So here's the question I want us to sit with: What happens to women when we read the Bible? [BTW Feel free to change out “women” in that question for anyone of the following: divorced, people of color, the poor, LGBTQ+, the disabled, etc.] Do they become more free? More able to stand? More able to hear the voice of God and offer praise? More able to use the gifts God has given them? Or do they become smaller? Quieter? More afraid? More ashamed? More bent out of shape?

This is one reason I think learning about women and women's role in Scripture is such a good way to learn how to read the Bible like Jesus. Because there are stark passages in Scripture that would seem to suggest that women should be silent (1 Cor. 14:34). That women should be subordinate (1 Peter 3:1-7). That women should occupy a lesser role (1 Tim. 2:11-12). Those passages exist. We don't have to pretend they don't. The question is: What do we do with them? How do we read help people in the freeing, unbinding way of Jesus?

Because Jesus isn't afraid of Scripture. But neither does Jesus read Scripture as though every command exists independently of the God who gave it or the people God gave it for. Jesus doesn’t read the Sabbath command as a rule to protect but reads Scripture with a Sabbath mind, in a Sabbath way, for a Sabbath purpose.

And Jesus reaches back to the heart of the Sabbath tradition itself where God  commands the Israelites to rest in order for them to remember that they once were slaves and God freed them. Because Sabbath is about more than stopping work. Sabbath’s purpose is stopping slavery. So Jesus looks at a woman who has been enslaved and oppressed for eighteen years and essentially says to the people: If your interpretation of Sabbath prevents this woman from experiencing freedom, you've missed the point of Sabbath.

The synagogue leader reads the Sabbath command and sees a violation. Jesus sees a woman in need and reads Scripture with Sabbath freedom. The synagogue leader cares about the command. Jesus cares about the person. The synagogue leader knows how to read the Bible in a nuanced way that is conveniently merciful only to himself. Even on Sabbath, Jesus says, he knows his animals need to be untied and led to water. And Jesus doesn’t correct this nuanced reading. He affirms it. Instead, Jesus asks why that same mercy doesn't extend to the woman standing in front of him. According to Jesus, bad Bible reading isn’t the nuanced one but the hypocritical one.

Being nuanced is not less biblical. That's Jesus reading Scripture toward its deepest purpose. Jesus reads the Bible sabbathly. He reads the Bible in ways that privilege compassion and flourishing over and above literal readings which hurt people. This is precisely the reading strategy he promotes when he says, “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27). He reads Scripture in a way that remembers what God is doing in the world: liberating people, restoring people, making room for people to flourish. He’s not less concerned about the Bible than the synagogue leader. He doesn’t take it less seriously. Jesus is concerned about what Bible reading is for – “for humankind.”

And this is where the story becomes particularly uncomfortable for the church. Because some Christians imagine that faithfulness is reading Scripture literally, practicing it woodenly, and protecting God defensively.

A woman says, “I believe God is calling me to preach.” Someone says, “But 1 Timothy 2 says women shouldn't teach men.” A woman says, “I believe God has given me gifts of leadership.” Someone says, “But Ephesians 5 says the husband is the head.” A woman says, “My husband is abusing me.” Someone says, “But the Bible says you're supposed to submit.” A woman says, “Something is wrong.” Someone says, “Are you sure you're not being rebellious?” And a woman says, “I've been harmed by a man in religious authority.” And suddenly the first question isn't, “How do we protect this person?” The first question is, “How do we protect the institution?” That's when biblical interpretation bears poisonous fruit.

And this doesn't mean that everyone who holds a complementarian interpretation hates women. They don't. The issue is deeper than that. What happens when a system of authority becomes more important than the bound person standing in front of us?

Look again at the woman in Luke 13. Her bondage isn’t a theological abstraction but one that involves real pain. Jesus doesn't debate whether she deserves freedom. He doesn't ask her to prove that she is worthy of being released. He sees her and says: You were not made for this. That's what flourishing looks like.

And then Jesus makes the argument almost humorous. He says, “Every one of you unties your ox or your donkey on the Sabbath and leads it to water.” In other words: You already know how to practice mercy when the creature in front of you is an animal you care about. You know how to make sure your ox isn't suffering. You know how to make sure your donkey gets water. You have figured out how to interpret the Sabbath in a way that serves the needs of your animals. So why can't you extend that same mercy to this woman? That's the ironic tragedy of the story. They have enough theological flexibility to water their animals, but not enough theological imagination to free a person in need. And then Jesus uses those extraordinary words: “Shouldn't this woman, a daughter of Abraham…be set free?”

That phrase “Daughter of Abraham” deserves our attention. It’s what New Testament scholars call a hapax logemena, a word or phrase that appears only once in all of Scripture. In fact, we know of no instance in any Jewish literature of this phrase ever being used. Through this one-of-a-kind phrase Jesus encourages the woman in a distinctly female way that recognizes her as both a commissioned actor in God’s redemeptive drama and a full recipient of its promise. Her identity prior had been wrapped up in her infirmity and a bent-over-theology that privileged men as “sons of Abraham.” But Jesus widens the circle: “Daughter of Abraham.”

Not a problem to be solved. Not a temptation to be managed. Not somebody's wife. Not somebody's daughter. Not a body that needs to be controlled. Not a woman who needs to know her place. A daughter of Abraham. A person who belongs. A bearer of the promise. A member of the covenant family. Someone through whom God is at work. That is what it looks like to read Scripture with Jesus.

When we encounter a difficult passage, we can ask: What is happening in the original context? What is this text doing? What interpretation moves toward human flourishing? What kind of fruit does this reading produce? And perhaps the most important question: Who is standing in front of me? How can I join Jesus and set them free?

So when we come to Scripture, let's bring more than our questions. Let's bring the woman who was told she couldn't preach. Let's bring the girl who learned to apologize before she learned to speak. Let's bring the woman who was told, “Know your place.” Let's bring the person who has been told that submission means enduring something Jesus never asked them to endure. Let's bring the person whose life has been damaged by religion. Let's bring the person who has been made smaller by someone else's interpretation of the Bible. And then let's stand beside Jesus and ask: Does this reading set people free?

Because when Jesus opens Scripture, bent people stand up. When Jesus opens Scripture, prisoners are released. When Jesus opens Scripture, daughters are named. When Jesus opens Scripture, people discover that they belong.

Because if we’re going to read the Bible with Jesus, we already know where the story is supposed to lead. Toward freedom. Toward love. Toward dignity. Toward life. Toward flourishing. Toward the delight of the kingdom of God. And toward a woman standing upright in the middle of the synagogue, praising God.

A daughter of Abraham. A child of the promise. A kingdom partner. A child of love who stands, unbound by a Savior with a Bible that sets them free. Amen.