‘I COMMEND TO YOU PHOEBE’

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on May 12, 2024 under 2024 |

Bethany Bible Church Mother’s Day Sermon Message, May 12, 2024 from Romans 16:1-2

Theme: We need to recognize and appreciate the women in the household of faith who are truly Phoebe-like.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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It’s been our tradition every Mother’s Day to highlight a great woman of faith from the Bible. We’ve been doing this for thirty-two years now; and every time we do so, I always find that there’s a new heroine of faith in the Scriptures that makes me ask, “Why haven’t we talked about her before?”

I certainly feel that way this morning. I wonder why we haven’t taken the time before to learn from the example of the remarkable woman that’s described for us at the beginning of Romans 16. I feel that, once we get to know her better, we’ll be motivated to appreciate others of our sisters within our own church family who exhibit her qualities.

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Now; the Book of Romans is a wonderful letter. In it, the apostle Paul has set before us the most important and life-changing doctrine we could ever consider—and that’s the doctrine of ‘justification by faith’. It’s the message from God that a man or a woman is now declared 100% righteous in the sight of God by faith in Jesus Christ alone—apart from the works of the law. It’s the most liberating doctrine that the world has ever known. It’s truly good news.

And in this wonderful, ‘good news’-focused letter, Romans 16 stands out as a very heart-warming chapter. After having spent 15 chapters unfolding this vital doctrine to his readers, Paul closed off by sending some greetings to the people he loved and cared about in the church in Rome. They were people who had meant a great deal to him in his ministry of declaring the good news of justification by faith in Jesus. And as he sent the letter, he also included some greetings from those who were laboring with him. So if you’ve ever wondered whether or not the careful theologian Paul was also a compassionate lover of people, all you have to do is read Romans 16. You’ll discover very quickly how warmly and deeply he loved his brothers and sisters in Christ; and how much he felt a deep partnership with them in the work of the gospel.

And at the very beginning of Romans 16—as if to stress how important she was—Paul called his readers’ attention to a particular woman named Phoebe. He said something about her that he didn’t say about anyone else that he mentioned in that chapter. Throughout the list of all the other people he mentioned, he simply said to ‘greet’ this person, or ‘greet’ that person; or in the later half of the chapter, that this person ‘greets you’ or that person ‘greets you’. But in the case of this dear woman of faith, he said, “I commend to you Phoebe”.

In Romans 16:1-2, he wrote;

I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also (Romans 16:1-2).

The believers in the church in Rome didn’t know Phoebe. So; when Paul wrote that he ‘commended’ her, he certainly meant to assure them that she was coming as a reliable messenger sent from him. But it also meant that he wanted to place her before God’s people for recommendation and favorable attention. In a sense, he was saying, “I shine the spotlight on Phoebe before you, and recommend her to your thoughts; calling your attention to her, so that you can rightly consider her.” And that suggests to us, very strongly, that she was an outstanding woman of God that we need to study carefully and learn from this morning.

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Now; shining the spotlight on faithful servants of God is a very important thing to do in the church family. Obviously, there are some people who serve the Lord Jesus deeply and devotedly, but who also don’t want the attention put on them or to have the spotlight shined on them. And we never want to embarrass such servants of the Lord. But even their humility is a part of the example they set for us, and we ought to learn from them.

Think of what the apostle Paul wrote about another faithful Christian in another letter. In his letter to the Philippians, he mentioned a man named Epaphroditus. Paul had wanted very much to come to the Philippian believers himself; but he couldn’t because he was in prison at the time. But in Philippians 2:25-28, the apostle wrote;

Yet I considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need; since he was longing for you all, and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick almost unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I sent him the more eagerly, that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I may be less sorrowful (Philippians 2:25-28).

Obviously, Paul loved that particular brother in the Lord very much. And so also did the church in Philippi. They were all concerned for that man Epaphroditus because he had become ill—and had almost died. But he didn’t quit in his faithful service to the Lord. And once he had the strength to go, Paul sent Epaphroditus on his behalf to serve his brothers and sisters in Philippi. It’s very probable that Epaphroditus brought along with him the very letter Paul wrote to the Philippians.

And then, Paul adds this in Philippians 2:29-30—in words that are very much like what he said about Phoebe;

Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem; because for the work of Christ he came close to death, not regarding his life, to supply what was lacking in your service toward me (Philippians 2:29-30).

Paul was stressing to the church in Philippi that they needed to recognize and appreciate men like Epaphroditus—sacrificial servants of the church who did what they could to provide for and support the work of Christ. They were to hold such men in esteem and learn from them.

And I believe Paul was saying a similar thing about Phoebe in Romans 12:1-2. Paul lifted her up to the attention of the believers in Rome and encouraged them to consider her faithful qualities. And do you know why it may be that Paul was taking special care to lift up her godly qualities to the believers in Rome? It may very well be that—just as was the case with Epaphroditus when he went to the Philippians—Phoebe also brought along this very letter from Paul to the Romans. And if that’s the case, we’re all eternally in her debt. God used her to deliver one of the most important documents ever written in human history—the Epistle to the Romans. She was entrusted, by God’s appointed apostle to the Gentiles, to carry forth the world’s greatest exposition of the message of that gospel. It has been used by God to set millions upon millions of sinners free by faith in Jesus Christ!

And the lesson of this very brief reference to Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2 is that we need to recognize and appreciate the women in the household of faith who are truly Phoebe-like.

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Now; what was the story of this woman named Phoebe? All that we know of her is what is said about her in these two verses. But there are a couple of things that we might speculate about her background.

For one thing, it seems probable that she was a businesswoman. We’re told that she came from the city of Cenchrea; which was a port city just a few miles southeast of the city of Corinth along the Achaean isthmus. It was called by some historians ‘the emporium of Corinthian trade’; and so it was a very prosperous city with lots of merchandise flowing in and out. It wouldn’t have been likely that a single woman—living in those times—would have been able to travel the long distance across the sea, from Cenchrea to Rome, unless she was somewhat wealthy and was on some kind of important business. And since Paul urged the believers in Rome to “assist her in whatever business she has need of you”; it’s very likely that she was a wealthy merchant woman traveling on business or to settle some legal matter at the imperial city.

There’s another example of such a saintly businesswoman in the New Testament. She lived in Philippi, and her name was Lydia. We’re told about her in Acts 16. She was a merchant woman who dealt in the trade of exquisite purple cloth. Along the way, the apostle Paul led her to faith in Jesus. And she apparently had enough wealth—and substantial enough of a home—to then become the host of Paul and his missionary team, to open up her home as a base of headquarters for the mission in Philippi, and to be a helper and a patroness to Paul’s work.

It seems that this might also have been the case for Phoebe in the city of Cenchrea. Paul and his missionary team ministered in the city of nearby Corinth for a little over a year and a half. And Paul wrote and said of her, “she has been a helper of many and of myself also.” I suspect that the apostle Paul had led her to the Lord Jesus while he was in Corinth. And it seems that, in gratitude for the Lord’s saving grace, she gave of her time and energy and resources to minister to a newly-formed church in Cenchrea … and also to Paul’s missionary work in Corinth.

She makes me think of the famous British patroness Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon – sometimes referred to as Lady Huntingdon – who used her wealth in the 18th Century to fund the ministries of George Whitefield, John Wesley, and others of the preachers of the English Revival. The spread of the gospel in England and Colonial America was greatly aided by her. We should praise God for women like Lady Huntingdon … and like Lydia of Philippi … and very probably also like Phoebe of Cenchrea—women who used the resources God had given them for the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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So; those are things that we can only speculate about Phoebe. I think they’re sound speculations, however. But what can we know for certain about her? What are the ways that she especially stands out as an example to us? How do we recognize other Phoebe-like women in the church?

I think that we can tell this from the three things that Paul very clearly told the believers in Rome about her. First of all, he commended her as an example of …

1. A TRANSFORMED SISTER IN THE LORD.

He called her ‘Phoebe our sister’. And there’s great significance in that description.

You see; ’Phoebe’ would not have been a name that a Christian family would have been very likely to give to their little girl. And it very certainly wouldn’t have been a name that a Jewish family would have given to any of their children. The word phoibos in the original language has a very attractive meaning. It means ‘radiant’ or ‘bright’; and that—all by itself—would of course have been a nice name to give to a little girl. But it was also the name of a false goddess. The ‘Phoebe’ of Greek mythology was the daughter of Uranus (the mythological god of the sky), and Gaea (the mythological goddess of the earth).

Now; it may have been that her family background had nothing whatsoever to do with the worship of such false gods and goddesses. It may have been merely for cultural reasons that she was given that name. But she did come from Cenchrea—which was right next door to Corinth. And Corinth was overflowing and running over with the worship of false gods and goddesses. If she had grown up in paganism, and had been a worshiper of false gods, it wouldn’t have been very unusual; since that was the surrounding cultural context in which she would have been raised.

But if that’s the case, then isn’t it wonderful that Paul points out to the Roman Christians that she’s “Phoebe our sister”? Somewhere along the way, she had heard the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ—most likely from Paul and his ministry in Corinth; and she believed. She became a transformed woman, and was now very manifestly ‘a sister’ in Christ.

This would have been an important thing for Paul to highlight with respect to Phoebe. Someone like Phoebe—traveling from one church to another back in those days—would have come to a group of believers who had never seen her by face; and they wouldn’t have known anything about her. And producing a letter like the Epistle to the Romans—with an endorsement from the apostle Paul—would have made it more likely that she would have been received warmly by the people of God and given the assistance that she needed.

Not everyone needs such endorsements. Paul once wrote to the Corinthian believers—who had unbelieving people in their midst who were calling Paul’s ministry into question; and he said to them;

Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others, epistles of commendation to you or letters of commendation from you? You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart (2 Corinthians 3:1-3).

The transformed lives of the Corinthian believers were a sufficient ‘letter of commendation’ to prove the authority of Paul’s ministry. But here, Paul was able to point to the transformed life of Phoebe as a commendation of her as a truly faithful ‘sister’ in Christ.

Did you know that, out of all the many friends and co-laborers in the ministry that Paul mentioned in his letters, Phoebe is the only one whom he called ‘sister’? Her transformed life showed that she had truly believed on the Lord Jesus; and so, she was very definitely in the family of God. And dear brothers and sisters in Christ; do you see women within our church family—faithful servants of the Lord—whose transformed life shows unquestionably that they are now daughters of the heavenly Father and are our ‘sisters’ in Christ?—that they have left a life of sin far behind and are now genuinely ‘born again’?

If so, we should follow Paul’s example and recognize and appreciate them. They should encourage us to ask ourselves, “Has my life truly been changed by faith in Jesus Christ? Can people tell—just by looking at the transformation of my own life and heart—that I’m now a genuine child of God and am a part of the heavenly Father’s family?

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Now; another way Paul commended her to us is as an example of …

2. A SACRIFICIAL SERVANT OF THE CHURCH.

After letting the believers know that she is a true ‘sister’ in the faith, Paul went on to also say, “who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea.” The transformation of her life was translated into action.

The word that Paul used to describe her as a ‘servant of the church’ is a very important one to notice. It’s the Greek word diakonos; which basically means “a minister” or “a servant”. This is the word most commonly used in the New Testament to describe ‘ministry’ in the most basic sense; or to describe someone who ‘ministers’ to the needs of others. And I believe that the word used in this sense would have—without question—described this woman Phoebe. She was a true ’minister’. Paul clearly said so; that is, that she helped others and also helped him.

I think that Phoebe would have been a lot like another woman in the New Testament named Dorcus—whom God once used Peter to raise from the dead. Dorcas had been a very devoted Christian woman who lived in the city of Joppa. We’re told in Acts 9:36, “This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did”. And we’re also told in verse 39 about how, after Peter arrived to raise her, “all the widows stood by him weeping, showing the tunics and garments which Dorcas had made while she was with them.” I think Phoebe would have also been like what it says of the kind of woman who was to be recognized and supported by the church as ‘widows indeed’; whom Paul described in 1 Timothy 5:10 as

well reported for good works: if she has brought up children, if she has lodged strangers, if she has washed the saints’ feet, if she has relieved the afflicted, if she has diligently followed every good work (1 Timothy 5:10).

Phoebe would have, very clearly, been a woman such as that—a true servant in the household of faith—a true diakonos.

But perhaps you also recognize, in that word, the name of an official office of ministry that’s to be instituted in the local church called “deacon”. According to the Bible, the office of ‘deacon’ concerns those—both believing men and women—who the elders of a church recognize officially as called by God for specific areas of ministry and leadership within the church family. And it’s very possible that Phoebe was a woman who had been appointed by the church in Cenchrea to the official role of ‘deaconess’. Paul didn’t say, after all, that she was a servant ‘in’ the church; but rather, that she was a servant ’of’ the church. And she wasn’t called a servant of the church in a general sense; but rather, was called a servant of a specific local church—the church in Cenchrea.

Personally, I believe Phoebe was an officially appointed ‘deaconess’ of the church in Cenchrea—a woman who, on the basis of her godly character and unique giftedness, was appointed by the elders of her church to give leadership to and fulfill a specific area of ministry for the meeting of the needs of the church family. I believe she served the church in the ways that the elders were not able to serve—that is, by meeting the specific ministry needs of her fellow sisters in the faith. But however, we understand this—as either an officially appointed deaconess of the church, or as a woman who was simply recognized as having a ministering spirit—she deserves our attention. Paul lifts her up and ‘commends’ her to us as an example to follow.

Dear brothers and sisters; do you know of women within our church family who are Phoebe-like in their service to the needs of others? If so; it would be a very good thing to recognize them … and to personally thank them. Show your appreciation for them; because they are truly God’s precious gift to His church family.

And they also make us ask, “Is there a need within the church family that I can meet in the lives of others?—and all for the glory of the Lord Jesus? How can I follow her example of service?”

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So then; Paul commended Phoebe as a transformed sister in the Lord, and also as a sacrificial servant of the church. And finally, a third way that Paul commended Phoebe to his readers was as an example of …

3. A PROTECTOR AND HELPER OF OTHERS.

At the end of verse 2, Paul says of Phoebe that “indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also.” And as you might expect by this point, the word that he used to describe her as a ‘helper’ is one that also deserves our special attention.

In speaking of Phoebe, Paul didn’t use the ordinary word that might be used to describe someone who helps someone else. He used a word that’s only found in the New Testament in verse 2. The word that Paul used (prostatās) is one that literally means, “one who stands before”; that is, in the sense of being someone who was a chief guardian and protector of others. That doesn’t mean, as some have thought, that she was an elder or a pastor (because this word is never used to describe that office); but it does mean that she was recognized as someone who was a genuine care-giver to many within the church family. She was someone that the church could call on when there was a need; and the church family could be confident that she’d be available and very capable of providing whatever help was needed. It may even mean that she was able to serve as a leader, and to rally others together to help do what needed to be done.

If I may put it this way, I feel as if what Paul tells us is that Phoebe—in some very significant way—was somewhat like the ‘mom’ of the church in Cenchrea. That’s certainly not an official church office; of course. But I’ll bet you can think of precious women that God has provided to His church family that are very ‘mom-like’. They’re always checking on how someone is doing. They’re always making sure that their needs are met. They’re even willing at times to come along, shake a loving but firm finger, and set someone straight who’s going in the wrong direction—but always in such a way as to leave you knowing that you’re loved … and that, in some remarkable way, you know that you’ve just heard from God. I have felt as if God has blessed our church with several ‘church moms’ throughout the years, and I praise Him for them. They’ve greatly ministered to me. They’ve been “a helper of many and of myself also”.

Dear brothers and sisters; has there been a ‘church mom’ in your life?—a true ‘protector’ and ‘helper’? If so; it would be a very good thing to acknowledge them and thank them. They are God’s invaluable gift to His people.

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Now; with all of that in mind, let’s now read these two verses again:

I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also (Romans 16:1-2).

And do you notice in the middle of it all how Paul urged the church to receive Phoebe? He said to “receive her [that is, “accept her”] in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you”. This may have special reference to the fact that she’s coming to a church she’d never been to before. But on a personal and practical level, I take this to mean that, when we find such dear sisters within our own church, we should intentionally honor them in a manner that’s appropriate to those who have been set apart by God for the Lord Jesus Christ. We should truly love them, express our gratitude to them, and do what we can to advance their ministry to the church family at large. We should learn from their example.

Dear brothers and sisters; thanks be to God for the Phoebe-like women He places in His household!

AE