Paul is more forceful here in verses 17-20 then he has been so far in his approach to the Romans. Paul briefly suggests three protective measures that need to be taken by a Christian church. First, in verse 17a he says: “watch out for those who cause divisions.” Paul has no sympathy with theological sleepiness. Christians are to make a mental note of those who are off-base. Second: “avoid them” (v. 17b). Heretics are to be spurned. Third: “be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil” (v. 19b). This is an echo of Jesus’ saying in Matthew 10:16: “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” This is good advice because our tendency is to be as wise as doves and innocent as serpents.

This no-nonsense advice eloquently demonstrates the second aspect of Paul’s horizontal love: it is protective. The connection is clear: When you really love people as much as Paul loved the Romans, you protect them. This is a great example for all of us. We need to love in such a way that we really put it on the line for others and speak the truth in love. Paul’s heart is a loving, protective, and contagious heart.

I picture the scene in chapter 16 like this: As Paul nears the end of dictating his letter to the Romans, his friends gather around him in the home of his gracious host, Gaius. Tertius is writing down Paul’s words, and Timothy, Jason, Lucius, and Sosipater really get into the long recitation of greetings to real people. Their hearts are warmed, and all three interrupt: “Say hi for.” “Me too!” So Tertius writes verses 21-23. We see here that a heart that is filled with love is by nature contagious.

Though Paul was the supreme intellect of the Early Church, and though Paul had a heart that burned for the glory of God, as few have in the history of the world, he would not have been used like he was if he had not had a heart for people. The truly revolutionary heart is not just a visionary heart with great dreams, but a heart that loves people, a heart that remembers names, a heart with a good word for his brothers and sisters, a protective heart, and finally a contagious heart.

The beautiful Greek and Latin names in Romans 16 were names of real people. Each name had its joys and sorrows, its cares, its hope, its trials. All drank of the common cup of human experience. These were, and are, our brothers and sisters in Christ. Someday we will walk with them in radiant white. One of the primary human reasons this is so is that Paul loved them. May we have such a heart so that future generations may say the same of us!

Romans 16:17-23 Study Questions:

What is the main point Paul wants the church in Rome to understand in verses 17-20?

How can we use Paul’s guidance here to discern “false teaching” in the church today?

Paul sends greetings in verses 21-23 from friends of his to the Roman believers. How might these greetings have affected the Roman church?

What has Christ accomplished through you? How have others encouraged you as you have served the Lord?

None of our lives would be as they are today had it not been for the missionary heart of the Apostle Paul. As we continue the study of Paul’s great heart, we should bear in mind the four qualities we have already considered (liturgical, glorifying, visionary, and praying) were essentially vertical, whereas in this chapter we will see the horizontal aspects of his missionary heart.

The first characteristic of Paul’s heart described in this chapter is that it overflowed with personal love. If the long list of names and greetings in these verses teaches us anything, it is that Paul had a diffusive love for people. The word “greet” appears nineteen times and seventeen of them are by Paul. Our text features thirty-three names. Twenty-four were in Rome (seventeen men and seven women). In addition, the apostle mentions two households, the mother of Rufus, and the sister of Nereus. Nine of the people mentioned were with Paul in Corinth (eight men and one woman). Obviously Paul maintained a remarkable amount of affectionate relationships.

We may not normally think of Paul this way. We may naturally assume that though he was a great man, his greatness made him a forbidding companion. Having read through Romans, and knowing of his massive intellect, most of us would feel somewhat intimidated if we knew we were to spend an evening alone with him. We probably would spend a day brushing up on memory work, wading through the Minor Prophets, or clarifying some points in theology. No doubt such time would be well spent, but our fears unfounded, for Paul was a “people person” par excellence. Moreover, he did not determine his friendships on the basis of intellectual capability or theological literacy.

As we look at the list of greeting and the kind words in the first sixteen verses, we cannot escape the sense of genuine affection contained there. In verses 1-2 Paul mentions Phoebe, whom he gives four endearing names: “sister,” “servant,” “saint,” and “a patron.” In verses 3-4 he greets Priscilla and Aquila, who had “risked their necks” for him in Ephesus. This graphic phrase undoubtedly recalled a warm flood of memories in Priscilla and Aquila. In verse 5 he greets Epenetus, his first convert in Asia. What Christian worker can forget his first convert? In verse 7 Paul sends greetings to Andronicus and Junia, who spent time in prison with him. In verse 10 he greets Apelles who is approved in Christ. Tryphena and Tryphosa in verse 12 were probably twins who were given names that go together. Their names mean “dainty” and “delicate.” Paul employs some playful irony here because he calls them “workers in the Lord,” using a word that means to labor to the point of exhaustion. Dainty and delicate, yes – but dynamite comes in small packages.

Who was the “Rufus” of verse 13? Mark 15:21 identifies Simon of Cyrene as the father of Alexander and Rufus. Couple this with the fact that Mark wrote his gospel to Rome and we conclude that Rufus was the son of Simon of Cyrene who carried Jesus’ cross. The parade of names in closing chapter of Romans repeatedly affirms Paul’s affection for his Christian brothers and sisters in Rome. The best exposition of this horizontal affection was given by Paul himself in 1 Thessalonians 2:7-8.

How Paul loved the Church! Paul’s loving example challenges us. If our hearts beat with something of the pulse of the Apostle Paul, we will be “people persons” who are affectionate to each other. This is the plain meaning of verse 16, which completes Paul’s individual greetings to Rome: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It is Biblical to express love and affection, even to the point of an embrace and a kiss. What a difference authentic Christian affection can make in a cold and indifferent world.

We must note before we move on to the next section that though Paul was a great giver, it all came back to him! In Galatians 4:15 Paul testifies that there were some in the Church who loved him so much they would have plucked out their eyes for him. Here in verse 13 of our text, when he greets Rufus and also greets Rufus’s mother, who he says “has been a mother to me as well.” When did she “mother” Paul? In Antioch when he was getting started? In some small town after a beating? At times Paul no doubt felt he could use a little mothering. Paul received back more than he gave. The richest people in town are always those who love the most. “People persons” – the affectionate – those who remember names and pray for them – receive the most. So we see from the list in verses 1-16 that Paul’s heart overflowed with a diffusive love.

Romans 16:1-16 Study Questions:

What observations do you make from the list of greetings in verses 1-16?

What do you notice about the house churches in Rome and their leadership?

Phoebe is the letter-bearer, entrusted with the fullest and most remarkable letter of Paul. What can be learned about Phoebe from verses 1-2?

The “holy kiss” (v. 16) became a key feature of Christian liturgy very early on, but it was not meant to replace normal expressions of affection; in many parts of the Middle East and elsewhere a kiss on both cheeks is a normal greeting between men as well as women. How does even this simple gesture reinforce the main themes Paul has written about throughout Romans regarding the Church?

Part of Paul’s missionary heart is in glorifying God. In verses 17-19 Paul does some sublime boasting, sublime because he is boasting about God. Paul mentions here at least three marvelous happenings in his life: (1) Gentiles came to belief, (2) signs and wonders accompanied his ministry, and (3) he himself preached the entire 1400 miles from Jerusalem to Illyricum, which is present-day Yugoslavia. Not bad – especially in sandals! But Paul takes no credit. Christ did it through him. Paul made this very clear to the Galatians: “Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14), he also told the Colossians that Christ “is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent” (Col. 1:18). God was everything to Paul. That is the way it has been for the great missionary hearts that have followed in Paul’s footsteps as well. If we are to have lives like Paul’s, our hearts must not only see our ministry as entirely sacred, but we must give all glory to God. This is so fitting, so right; it is the way we were designed to live.

Another aspect of Paul’s missionary heart is that it dreams. We must first note that Paul had dreams and visions of incredibly large proportions (vv. 20-21). Basic to Paul’s dream was the obsession to preach where the gospel had not been preached. He voices this explicitly in 2 Corinthians 10:16. This was an immense obsession, in verse 24 of our text he indicated he even wanted to go to Spain. No one really knows why – probably because Spain and Britain were seen as the end of the world.

Verses 23-29 relate Paul’s dreams to real life. If Paul had his way, he would have immediately set sail for Rome. However he first had to complete the important business of taking an offering to the poor in Jerusalem that he collected from the Gentile churches. His main motive in this was to cement the relationship between Jewish believers and new Gentile converts. The Book of Acts tells us that things didn’t go as planned, however. He did deliver the offering with great success, but he was almost killed by an unruly mob and escaped by night with Caesar’s soldiers. Then he underwent shipwreck and deprivation before arriving in chains in Rome. As to his vision to go to Spain, we really cannot say for sure whether he ever got there. Modern scholarship inclines to say that he did not, though church tradition says he did.

It is important that we have hearts with dreams and great visions of what God can do with us. We need our “castles in the sky” – our Spains. We need to dream of victories and accomplishments for God. Not all of us will meet our dream’s end, but that is all right because God is more interested in the process than the prize, in the journey than the road’s end. May we learn to travel as Paul did.

Paul concludes this section on a positive note: “I know that when I come to you I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ” (v. 29). Such optimism! Paul was sure he would come to Rome in blessing. Little did he know his arrival would be in chains, and yet it was in joy. What a way to go – “in the fullness of the blessing of Christ.”

The final aspect of Paul’s missionary heart is, he believes in prayer. Verses 30-32 contain his call to prayer. He asked two things: (1) “that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea” and, (2) that his service in Jerusalem “may be acceptable.” Both prayers were answered. In Acts 21:17-20, it records his offering’s joyous reception and the resulting solidarity of the churches. In addition, Paul was granted a spectacular deliverance that could only be attributed to God, as Acts 21-23 makes clear. The prayers of the Roman church brought great power to bear in Paul’s life. Paul called them “to strive together with me” in prayer – literally “to agonize together with me” – and that is what they did.

To those with Pauline hearts, the request, “Brother, pray for me,” is not a cliché, and neither is the response, “I will pray for you.” The missionary heart is a heart that believes in prayer.

To summarize this study: A missionary heart is a heart that sees its mission as entirely sacred. The sacredness of the work comes from seeing oneself as a priest offering up his or her service as a fragrant offering to Christ. Therefore, it regards its own life, however mundane, as a liturgy. Let us ask God to help us see all of life as glorifying Him. A missionary heart is a heart that gives God the credit for everything. Let us pause for a moment and give God the glory for what is happening through us. A missionary heart is a heart that is visionary. Do we have a dream – a Spain? If not, let us ask God for one. A missionary heart is a heart that prays passionately. In God’s Kingdom the great heart passionately strives in prayer. Nothing would be the same for any of us were it not for Paul’s remarkable heart for God.

Romans 15:17-33 Study Questions:

There is no evidence that Paul ever got to Spain. But his desire to go there and, perhaps, establish a new “home base” was one of the reasons he wrote the letter to the Romans. Paul may not have gotten to Spain, but what mattered then, and has mattered enormously in the whole history of the Church, is that, as part of his plan to go to Spain, he wrote Romans. What lesson is there for us in the fact that Paul wrote Romans in preparation for a dream that he may never have realized?

How does the collection for the poor Christians of Jerusalem reinforce what Paul has been saying throughout Romans about the Church?

What does it mean for Jewish Christians to be family with Gentiles and Gentile believers to be family with the Jewish believers?

Why is it so crucial for Paul to enlist the prayers of the Roman church for the journey ahead of him?