If you think that your service in the church or your service for Christ is not important, imagine if Phoebe felt that way. Imagine if she lost the letter. Imagine, oh, I forgot to deliver it. Silly me. She doesn't.
She delivers. And it tells us all ministry is important. We're not serving the church because there are those in Christ that feel serving outside of the church is sufficient.
It is not sufficient. to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Pastor Rick will continue teaching in Romans Chapter 1 on this edition of Cross Reference Radio. They began to assemble the Christians in the homes, making Gentile converts. And under that scenario that I just laid out, this is how the church in Rome came to be. And Paul writing his letter, again, careful, he's very careful to mention Jews and Christians separately in the same letter because they're in the same church.
And you can, well, let's take, we'll take them both. Romans Chapter 1 Verse 13. Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren.
Well, that's what I was just trying to do, saying you need to know this. But anyway, he comes back that I often plan to come to you but was hindered until now that I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles. And then when he gets to Chapter 2, in Verse 17, he says, Indeed, you are called a Jew, and the rest, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God. And so, following him, he doesn't, you know, say, okay, heading, now to Gentiles, and begin to cover that.
Okay, now to Jews. And then, no, he just goes all over the place. You got to keep up with him. And that, again, drives some of the people who want to outline it to the T of, you know, a problem because he takes these righteous rabbit trails.
I've never done that. So, he reminds the Gentile converts also in this letter of their indebtedness to the work, the spiritual work of the Jewish people. He essentially says to them, How'd you get your Bible?
How did you get the rest of the Scriptures? You got it from the Jews. They were entrusted with this. And if it weren't for them, they would really slow down evangelism, drastically. But you do have them, and it has sped up evangelism, and we've taken over the world.
They've taken over places that they go. That's the riot in Ephesus. So, the origin of this letter to the Romans is Corinth, or Cenchrea, which is a seaport about seven miles outside the city of Corinth. And there, Paul writes this letter from the house of a man named Gaius. Now, this letter, Romans, is what Jude wanted to write to the church.
He comes out and tells us that. But the Holy Spirit redirected him because of counterfeit Christians mingling in the church, trying to integrate by sneaking in and other nefarious deeds. Jude 3, Beloved. This is Jude talking to the Christians. While I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation.
Pause there. Well, that's what Romans is doing. That's why I talked about Hannah, the mother of Samuel, giving this succinct summary on salvation. Jude continues, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered for all to the saints. There's no new gospel coming.
There's no Charles Russell and Joseph Smith bringing some private interpretation of scripture. That is anathema. That is a cursed behavior laid out in scripture. Jude, again, says, I found it necessary.
If you were to say, how did that happen? You'd say, the Holy Spirit moved me. He impressed upon me that I got to deal with these troublemakers coming into the church, stealing away the truth. And that's why he thunders. He deals with them very thoroughly. And he says, the gospel, contend for it.
Not against it. Contend for the faith once delivered. It's trustworthy. It's worth it.
There's nothing like it. Converts that creep in need to be disfellowshipped if they're not converted. If they're not converted instantly. If someone comes into a church and says, I'm a Christian, but they're living in blatant sin, they're going to be disfellowshipped.
If we find out, that's how it's supposed to be. If a non-believer comes in and they're living that lifestyle, we're not going to disfellowship them. They're not professing Christ. But if they start trying to take people from truth, then they will be dealt with too.
That's why we have these handcuffs in this room of, oh, sorry, no, I didn't mean to say that. Anyway, they won't, they will be, you can't say disfellowshipped, you're not in fellowship, but they will be barred until they learn how to behave. When we get to Corinthians, we're going to find out that this is what we have to do. Thessalonians is very tough on it too. Anyway, the church at Corinth, that was the church in Rome.
The church in Corinth where the letter starts, which is important because Corinth was a decadent city and Paul was about fed up with going to the marketplace, looking at the windows, seeing all the lewd things. You know, we go and we see something on the impulse rack, a magazine or something, we go, oh man, this is just lewd and wrong. Well, Paul had it in real life, people committing lewd acts in public. Years ago, when I was in Sicily, I observed lewd acts in public. In fact, Hunts Point in the Bronx, you can go and see lewd acts in public.
Not that there were bleachers there or anything like that, you're just driving down the street or walking down the street, oh man, where's the shame? Well, sin likes to take the shame out of it so it can thrive. Well, there's a rich background on how this letter came about. In ancient Greek theater, when they portrayed the person from Corinth, they almost always portrayed him as the drunk in the story. This was a stereotype because there were a lot of sailors in Corinth and just a big population.
Of course, it was a lewd city and the idolatry thrived. And so, even the rest of the unbelieving world understood that Corinth, that lifestyle there was unacceptable. When Paul wrote to the Romans, he preached to the Corinthians. When Paul wrote to the Romans, he wrote to them what he preached to the Corinthians. It all fits wherever you are, but they certainly, that city influenced his writing to the Romans from Corinth.
However, in spite of all that darkness, these men and women of Christ stacked up the Gentile converts, a lot of converts. Paul, God told Paul, I have a lot of people in this city and you're going to be the one that I'm using to get them. So the Holy Spirit activated Paul in Corinth, used him, trained him, instructed him in Christ further.
Already he had written Thessalonians and Galatians and now he's just continuing as this dynamic character. And never want to say these things taken away from the other apostles. It's just not recorded what they did, but there's no way to say, well Paul was out there doing it all.
He was in Europe and it did get recorded. Who is the man to limit God? Paul's going to say, not us. Who's the courier of this letter then? In those days, they didn't have the, there are parts of the ancient world that did have a postal system from Persia to Sardis, for example. But overall, if you wanted the letter to reach someone, you had to take it or someone had to take it. In this case, is a woman named Phoebe and this is quite remarkable. Romans 16 verse 1, I commend to you Phoebe, our sister who is a servant of the church in St. Korea. Wait a minute Paul, that should have been your introduction.
But no, you got carried away with this whole gospel stuff. And so at the end he said, oh yeah, Phoebe. And she was a business woman, evidently. The Greek points in that direction when it talks about her in chapter 16. When she said to Paul, and she's a servant in the church in Corinth, St. Korea, same thing.
She's a servant there and she says, Paul, I have business in Rome. That lit a fire under that apostle. That stoked him, that electrified him. I don't think he saw what was coming. I think he said, okay, I'm going to write this letter to them. Dear Roman Christians, hi, this is Paul. I love Jesus Christ. And then by the time he gets to the 8th verse there's this explosion.
The dam burst and he begins to pour out and he can't stop until he says, oh by the way, Phoebe. Then there's the scribe, Tertius, means third. Could have been a slave. Sometimes slaves were just given, Primus number 1, you know Tertius number 3, Quartus number 4, Segundus, you know, they were given these titles.
It could have been. I Tertius, Romans 16, 22, who wrote this epistle, greet you in the Lord. He's the scribe.
I'll come back to him and Phoebe, not done with them. The host Gaius, chapter 16, Gaius my host and the host of the whole church greets you. Evidently another congregation.
In Corinth, Aquila and Priscilla has the church in their home in Rome. Paul is the teacher, of course, as verse 1 clearly says. Paul, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God. There's no authority in back of all that. There's nothing in there apologizing. I'm sorry I'm a Christian.
He's laying it out. And of course a man like Paul, he'd take a beating for that. The author is the Holy Spirit. Paul is the teacher. Tertius is the scribe. The Holy Spirit is the author.
So Tertius, he was able to write fast enough, with accuracy, without breaking Paul's rhythm, his train of thought. Can you imagine? If you always stop, Paul, hold on a second. What was that again? Well, you allowed some of that, but if you did too much of it, it's like, you know, never mind.
Just say, God bless you, amen. But, so, he's certainly a man of means. Gaius, whose house Paul wrote this letter from, took away the distractions. Paul didn't have to worry about going to fix dinner. He didn't have to worry about, you know, balancing the books. He just could focus on being the apostle that he was. So the Holy Spirit could draw from Paul that which he poured into Paul. Gaius had no idea that scripture was being written under his roof, in his house. Just imagine if he's writing a mortgage check out and he says, oh, by the way, scripture is being written in my house.
It couldn't be that way, but it is that way. Then there's Aquila and Priscilla, who I mentioned earlier, who in Rome, thwarted any corruption in Christianity. These two, they contended with the Jews, as I mentioned. They risked their lives to Paul, I mentioned that. But remember, they also corrected Apollos, who was very knowledgeable in the Old Testament scripture and a great orator. And they had the decency enough to not put him on defense. When they went up to say, you know, there's some things that you're preaching that I don't think you have a clear understanding on, and let us tell you what we're saying.
And they won him. That, I mean, most people don't have that skill. We would call it maybe tact. You know, I would go up and say, boy, Apollos, you should have messed that up.
I would not. But it's a caricature on how someone like me would handle it, where someone else who has tact would be able to just make Apollos, just pay him his $5, thanks for telling me. Paul, of course, he was being Paul, eager to put forth that which he first received. Whatever Christ poured in, he couldn't wait to pour out. As I mentioned, the vessels of Christ have spigots on them. We can turn on a spigot and it pours out or we can turn it off.
The Holy Spirit hopefully controls the knob. I don't think Paul understood when he first started that his hello, this is Paul, would turn into a 7,000-word doctrinal thesis. Then there's Phoebe again. As I mentioned, the Greek describes her and its description of her suggests very strongly that she was a wealthy businesswoman who cared for Paul, it tells us, incidentally. And, well, maybe we should just look at that.
We've got another hour. I commend you, Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the church in Sancria. She's a servant. She's doing something in the church. That you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints. Here you go, saints are living people.
They're not voted in by other people. When you come to Christ, you are a saint. You may not behave like one, but you are. He says here, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you. For indeed, she has been a helper of many and also myself. That's quite an endorsement from a man like Paul. And by this time, Paul has taken enough beatings and shipwrecks for everybody to know this is a man of God who has authority over the church of God.
He is truly an apostle of Jesus Christ. And so, here's Phoebe. Think of the excitement that she had when, I don't think she looked at the letter before she got there. Well, maybe she didn't suffer a shipwreck on the way to Rome like Paul. Maybe she read the letter on the way.
I don't know. But either way, when she first heard it, she had to say, Man, this is why I love Paul so much. This is preaching, whether it is in written form or from a pulpit. And so when she said, I have business in Rome, Paul, I'll be out of church for a few months. Paul said, Tertius, get your pad.
I want to write them an introduction letter and I want to just say hi to everybody there, my friends. If you think that your service in the church or your service for Christ is not important, imagine if Phoebe felt that way. Imagine if she lost the letter. Imagine, oh, I forgot to deliver it. Silly me. She doesn't.
She delivers. And it tells us all ministry is important. And I have to say, you know, when I talk about serving Christ, I have to put in serving the church, because there are those in Christ that feel serving outside of the church is sufficient.
It is not sufficient. And only serving in the church is not. We serve where we are, like a lily among thorns or like a lily amongst roses. Wherever we are, we are to bloom as Christians.
We are to get involved. And there are many ways to do that. When Paul begins to lay it out later, and he says, you know, some have the gift of generosity. Some can give. You know, they can't serve in other places, but they serve over here.
There's a place for everyone. And when I bring these things up, I'm not rebuking anyone. Maybe right now you're not serving. Maybe you've not felt the stir of the Spirit to serve.
I'm not rebuking you for that. But I also cannot dismiss what the Bible teaches. You have to be stirred when God moves you.
That's what we want, and not a moment before. Anyway, you know, and I also want to pause here. If you're not a Christian, and you're listening to all this, a lot of it may be lost on you, but one thing is not. You're guilty before a holy God. You can't miss that.
There's not a human being that can miss that, not one that can read and write. What are you going to do about it? Are you going to guess? That's what Satan wants you to do.
He's got a nice little guest pad waiting for you. Just guess about what heaven is about. Just guess about who God is.
Why don't you make him like you? You know, you wouldn't do that to people. God wouldn't do that to people. God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are higher than your ways. Unless I reveal them, you couple that with Deuteronomy 29, 29.
Unless I reveal them, you're not getting them, but I have revealed enough. Why do you come to my house? Why do you sit in my furniture, on my furniture? Why do you listen to my servant?
Because I'm stirring you, that's why. There are three relationships available to a human being in the Holy Spirit. I'll start at the last one is, of course, the filling of the Spirit, where you are able to just preach Christ and the gospel so clearly as his witness. That is, there's a power there available nowhere else in creation. Then there's the getting saved, which precedes that, of course. The Holy Spirit, of course, every Christian is full of the Spirit. But then there's a filling, a subsequent filling of the Spirit. And, of course, if that weren't the case, there'd be no day of Pentecost.
They would have all just been fine after Jesus ascended to heaven. But the first one is when the Holy Spirit comes alongside of an unbeliever and begins to woo that unbeliever, to tell them, I love you. I care about you in this life, and I really care about where you're going after this life. And I want you to stop fighting me. Yeah, a whole lot of bad things have happened to you. Pick a number. That is no reason to keep me out of your life.
What is keeping you from loving me back? And this is what it is all about. The church meets to get strong.
Why? Why do we want to be strong Christians? To obey Christ? Yes.
What is that supposed to do? Make us available to be used by Christ. I mentioned the Corinthian church. When Paul got there, there were no Christians. And they stacked them up because of his preaching and his presence and people like Aquila and Priscilla.
They built a church that, though problematic, it thrived nonetheless. Well, anyway, coming back to closing this up, Paul instructed all the people he came in touch with to be in touch with Christ. Through his teaching and the life that trained him, others would see it, would be drawn in by it, and the Holy Spirit would woo them to salvation, God seeing it all.
So let's just review this and then we'll pray. That word communion for a Christian tells us we have friendship with God Almighty because of the death of God the Son. And it is a time that the Holy Spirit is saying, I look forward to being with you at this table on earth and in heaven, world without end. The church started 33 years after the birth of Christ to give a take. And the church in Rome started by pilgrim Jews returning from Pentecost. They took the gospel back with them, but they lacked a lot. As I mentioned, the Jewish ringleaders began having confrontation with each other, Christians and Jews, rabbinical Jews alike, until they were pushed out.
The church continued there apart from the synagogues and then the Jews came back and joined up with the Gentiles and whatever Jews were remaining. Paul then wrote a letter to those Christians in Rome. Again, Romans 1, verse 11, For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift, so that you may be established. Then, about four years later, Paul arrives in Rome physically. And we remember from Acts how those Christians in that church traveled 30 and 40 miles out to receive Paul. I mean, you know, we have a short trip to the airport to receive a Christian coming from another place. These people walked out there, had that return trip on them, just so they could escort him back in love.
Powerful story. Paul arrives in Rome and about a couple of years later he is released. Peter later arrives in Rome. Rome burns. There's a big fire in Rome. It burns down, if I recall, a third of the city. The Christians are soon vilified for that.
Some believe Nero did it because he wanted to redevelop there. Whatever it was, the Christians were then vilified. Paul was re-arrested. Paul was then beheaded. John, the apostle, mostly in Jerusalem taking care of Mary until she died because Jesus said, Behold your mother from the cross.
Take care of Mary. John stays in Jerusalem to do that. But after Jerusalem, when Mary dies, Ephesus becomes the center of his operations until he, too, is arrested. And church tradition says that was about 95 years after the birth of Christ when he then writes, of course, the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So that's an overview of what's going on at this point. And I'll close with this verse. We'll pray and then be unleashed on the world. Romans 16 verse 26, but now made manifest by the prophetic scriptures, made known to all nations according to the commandment of the everlasting God for obedience to the faith. The point of me reading that verse are the last four words. Obedience to the faith. This is what the Roman letter is about.
This is what everything from Genesis to Revelation is about. These guys of the Bible, these men and women, they did not feel, you know, we need to adjust our message to the culture. The culture's dead. There are two cultures. You can have a citizenship with this world. You can have one with God also. It's the kingdom of God.
That's the one we're interested in. That's the culture we're after. That's what we preach. No Christian should alter God's word or dumb it down.
We can explain it without dumbing it down just to not offend people. God is offended by sin. Well, I could, I feel another sermon coming on. Let's turn to, all right, let's pray. Our Father, thank you for these real people, real things.
May now we as individuals not just close our Bibles and forget about it, but may something stand out to us, at least something that stands out to us, that influences us a little closer to our Christ-likeness. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio, so make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
