Two Ways News is a weekly collaboration between Tony Payne and Phillip Jensen – a newsletter and podcast on a topic to encourage gospel thinking for today (subscribe at twoways.news).
Although we may be tempted to read the final chapter of Romans as a hurried postscript with some personal greetings, it is extremely important. It helps explain why the whole letter was in fact written, and rounds off Paul’s whole argument. In this podcast, Phillip and Tony discuss how the chapter is both personal and deeply theological and how, for us, it leads to the importance of teamwork.
The next episode is Spiritual Formation or Transformation?The previous episode is Hope for Humanity.
For more on Romans 16 listen to the sermon The Work of the Gospel.
AN UNCONVENTIONAL FAREWELL
Romans 16 and the dangers and blessings of teamwork
Tony Payne: As we go into the last chapter of Romans today–Romans 16–one thing we’ll be discussing is the importance of teamwork. And this relevant to us, especially with the epidemic of unhappiness and disharmony in workplaces these days, and even in churches as well, that often centres around allegations of bullying.
Phillip Jensen: I think ‘harassment’ is a better term, but ‘bullying’ is the term that is so commonly used. Humans don’t always get on with each other. It’s not just the international wars that we are rightly worried about, but also local wars such as with neighbours. I’ve had friends who have had to move house because they could not get on with their neighbours. And my sympathy is with my friends because their neighbours’ behaviour was just unlivable, but you can’t stop neighbours doing what neighbours do.
TP: The same thing happens in our workplaces as well. There’s been a number of recent reports into bullying and harassment in major Australian organizations. The was a recent damning report into the corporate culture at Channel Nine, and not so long ago a very influential inquiry into bullying and toxic culture within the Australian Federal Parliament.
PJ: The parliament itself–the high, principled people who speak to us of what we should be living and how we should live. But their own institution was one filled with this kind of dysfunctional behaviour.
TP: And interestingly, even though that whole inquiry at the federal level was kicked off by allegations of sexual harassment, and the presenting issue was sexual abuse or harassment or mistreatment, the report itself highlighted that the bigger problem was workplace culture and bullying, of which the female parliamentarians were just as bad as the male. Everybody was doing it.
PJ: Yes, if I remember correctly, the female bosses were worse. It goes back to the doctrine of sin, doesn’t it? As we explain it in Two Ways to Live, it is the fact that “we all reject God as our ruler by running our own lives our own way, but by rebelling against God’s way, we damage ourselves, each other and the world”. And this is seen in our inability to work with each other.
Back to what we were saying on bullying, I don’t like the word ‘bullying’ because it’s so hard to define it, and it’s so hard to differentiate between, say, strong leadership and inappropriate use of power, or to differentiate between a strong leader and who’s a bit insensitive and the one who is weak and insecure and is using his position to push his point of view. When I look up bullying in the dictionary, I found the noun was “a person who habitually seeks to harm or intimidate those whom they perceive as vulnerable”. The verb is “to seek to harm or intimidate or coerce someone perceived as vulnerable”. I think nowadays the word is being used more generally to describe anybody who’s a bit bossy. They’re not necessarily doing it habitually. That’s a key element. That’s why I think harassment is a better word, because harassment means consistently doing it, and it’s got to do with a motivation, that is, you are seeking to do harm. Whereas I think many people just are insensitive to the harm they’re doing, which is different from seeking to do harm. And the ‘bully’ word carries that schoolyard physical violence overture to it. It’s an unhelpful word to describe something that is deeply wrong, whereas harassment seems to me a better word.
TP: ‘Insensitivity’ and ‘over-sensitivity’ are good words too. So sometimes in workplace dysfunctions, you have an insensitive boss allied to an over-sensitive worker, and you’ve got a recipe for dysfunction. Because one is quite oblivious to the effects that their sometimes boorish behaviour might have, and the other is so sensitive to every injury that every interaction becomes a major cause for complaint.
PJ: Their vulnerability is their sensitivity.
TP: And this happens, of course, in ministry teams as well. Working in teams in Christian ministries has become a normal feature of the Christian landscape. The churches have teams of pastors, teams of staff, large teams sometimes, and this wasn’t really the case even 30 years ago—which means that we’re often finding ourselves in work environments where we’re just not that good at working as a team. Working as a team is difficult. It requires a lot of skill and work and sensitivity to one another, and often in Christian ministry, it seems to me that’s not something people are trained for or aware of.
PJ: Well, we could get trained for sensitivity, but yes, working in a team will have elements of dysfunction simply because of sinfulness. There is also the fundamental that there must be a common mind as to what the team is seeking to achieve. In non-denominational or interdenominational work, I came to the conclusion years ago that you can work with people inasmuch–and only inasmuch–as you agree with each other. To force collaboration with people with whom you actually don’t agree as to what you’re trying to achieve or how to achieve it is a recipe for disaster. And in church life, agreement–being of the one mind and the one voice to sing the praises of God–is what Romans 15 has been about. That’s the end point that Paul was coming to in Romans 15:5-6. Our translation just says ‘harmony’, but the Greek is ‘being of the same mind’ and that creates harmony. Using the word ‘harmony’ doesn’t capture the full picture because you can be in harmony without being of the same mind.
TP: Yes, you can just put up with each other, but that’s not unity. It reminds me of Philippians, where often Paul expresses his great desire for the Philippians to ‘think the same’, to be of the same mindset, and that mind is the mind of Christ. But you are alluding to the verses from Romans 15 that we looked at last week:
May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And again, it’s the mind in accord with Christ Jesus that we should have, that together you may glorify God with one voice, because the voice comes from the mind. As you think, so you speak.
PJ: And even the word ‘together’ is an agreement word.
TP: Yes, that you may together glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now that almost feels like a good way to finish the letter of Romans. But it doesn’t finish there. We have chapter 16, which is where we’re up to today, and it often feels a bit like a PS.
PJ: Yes, but it’s actually very important. We’ve dealt with some of the great themes of the gospel of sin and righteousness, of justification, of the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, between Romans 1:16-15:13. But the reason for the letter is actually the first 15 verses of chapter one and the second half of chapter 15 and all of chapter 16. That’s why he actually wrote the letter.
TP: And why is that? What is the reason?
PJ: Well, he’s the apostle to the Gentiles on a world mission. His next step on the world mission is to go to Spain. The way to Spain is via Rome. He doesn’t need to do the work in Rome, because someone’s done it already. There’s a church already there, and so he, as the apostle, only preaches where the gospel hasn’t been preached before, because he’s the foundation of the new work. So he’s on the way to Rome, and he’s preparing the way for them to support him and his team going on to Spain, and he’s explaining to them what the gospel is that he, as the apostle, has come to preach.
The very opening verses of the letter are about himself being appointed as the apostle for the nations and explaining the gospel. The reason he hasn’t come to them already is because he’s been busy doing these other things. He is not coming right now either because he’s got to go home to Jerusalem first to give some money before he comes to Rome. This is why he’s writing the letter. But in the process, he’s explaining, well, what is the gospel that he’s preaching, and in particular, how is it the gospel for the nations? How come he’s the apostle to the nations? He’s not one of the 12. He’s not one who travelled with Jesus. Here is this other man who’s come. And so a lot of the exposition of the gospel in Romans is an exposition of how Jew and Gentile alike are declared righteous by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
TP: And even in chapters 9-11, which again, are often thought of as a kind of weird interpolation into the argument of Romans, he’s again talking about this same issue of Jew and Gentile, and how God’s purposes for all the world, for all the nations, started with the Jews, and in fact, still includes the Jews.
PJ: If you think of a book that you can leave three chapters out of and not notice they’re missing, you haven’t understood the book.
TP: Or else, the author was extremely bad at his job. He just got off on a tangent and said something irrelevant. And that’s sometimes how people look at aspects of Romans. But when you do look at it as a unity, it makes perfect sense. Just as you were explaining, he’s now coming to the end, he’s given this wonderful gospel exposition through the lens of the Jew-Gentile relationship and the importance of God’s plan for the nations, which has come out in chapter 15 so strongly—how the whole purpose was to gather in the nations by starting with Israel.
PJ: And that was always God’s plan. Sometimes he talks about it as a mystery or secret. And at the end of Romans, he finishes with a doxology that is still about Jews and Gentiles alike in the plans of God being united so that with one mind and with one voice, they can sing the praises of God. That’s his life’s work. And so in chapter 16, we’re now getting down to where the rubber hits the road, so to speak, of what he wants the Romans to be doing. He starts off with this long section of about 16 or so verses in which he’s commanding them to greet his mission team—the people he’s sending ahead of him to Rome, and who will presumably go on with him to Spain.
And there are all kinds of things he wants to say about this mission team that he wants the Romans to be greeting. They’re fascinating things about the status of them. The key to the status of each of these workers is not their title or position—as if there’s a bishop, there’s a priest, there’s a deacon–that’s our worldly status. Rather he’s talking about they are fellow workers in Christ, all of them, although how they’re in Christ and what they’re doing in Christ, it differs a lot. But the key thing about each of them is that they’re in Christ.
TP: The Lord himself is the centre and head and rationale of this team. The only reason any of these people are in the team and are significant is because they’re ‘in the Lord’.
PJ: And secondly, they’re all at work in the common gospel mission. So there’s a whole variety of ways of talking about their work. And the other thing to notice is the affection he has for them. They’re his family, some of them literally, like kinsman. But I always love Rufus, because his mother was a mother to Paul as she had been to Rufus. It’s the sense of affection within the team.
TP: Let’s read that section, in Romans 16:1-16:
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.
Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia. Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles, and they were in Christ before me. Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys. Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus. Greet my kinsman Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus. Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord. Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well. Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them. Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you.
PJ: “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It’s the affection, a godly affection, a holy affection. He has a great love for all these fellow workers.
TP: And he’s sending them on ahead of him to Rome, because he’s off to Jerusalem, presumably, and he’s asking the church in Rome to greet them, to welcome them, to be partners with them.
PJ: I think we need to say at this point that most people read Romans 16 as Paul sending greetings to people who are already there in Rome.
TP: Sort of like: “There are some of you in Rome that I already know well. Say hello to these people for me.”
PJ: Yes, but the Greek verb there actually is of a different character. It’s really saying that I want you Romans to greet these people who are coming (or who perhaps have already arrived).
TP: If he was wanting to say “I’m sending my greetings to these various members of the church in Rome”, then he’d use a different form of the verb. Is that right?
PJ: Yes, Paul is not sending greetings. He’s asking them to greet or welcome certain people. When he’s talking about sending greetings, he does it like he does in verse 21 and following:
Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen.
I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.
Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus, greet you.
These people are with Paul at the moment and they’re sending greetings.
But back to the paragraph that we skipped over, because that’s the section that really got me thinking more our unhappy divisions within groups and within communities, because there’s this warning against division in verses 17-20.
TP: Which contrasts with the very warm, united sense of teamwork that the previous verses have laid out, all these people who are labouring together in the Lord.
PJ: Yes. So he says,
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.
TP: What’s the nature of the division? There are people who are divisive, but it also seems to be a theological and teaching matter as well.
PJ: Yes, the two go hand in hand. Division comes from people and from teaching. When Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit and the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, uses this same word as in Rom 16, of ‘divisions’.
The works of the flesh are idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, ‘divisions’.
That’s from Galatians 5:20, which is the only time this word is used in the New Testament. The division he’s talking about is just so sinful because they’re serving themselves, not their Lord Jesus Christ, as it says in verse 18:
For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites,
You see, think back to what we said about sin when we are not living God’s way, but our way. We damage ourselves, each other and the world. That’s what sin does to us, and so here, people in their sinfulness can be divisive.
TP: Yes, because their purpose and focus is not on the work of the Lord, on the interests and service of Jesus Christ and his gospel—it’s on themselves and their appetites, on their bellies, as it says. They’re more interested in seeing their own prosperity and the enriching of themselves, as opposed to the enriching of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
PJ: And sometimes in Christian life, in ministry, they’re more concerned for their position in the team than for the team to succeed, and so we create little silos. They say, I run the Sunday school program, don’t you interfere with me.
TP: “Do you mean to say that you’ve done something with respect to children in ministry, and you haven’t run it past me!”
PJ: Yes, I’m in charge of the children’s ministry, or the music ministry, or the welcome ministry. We claim it to be our ministry.
TP: The appetite that we’re seeking to satisfy is for significance, for being someone, for reputation. The old translations say ‘vainglory’. I want to be someone. And that appetite can drive us in ministry and cause terrible divisions.
PJ: Yes, but it’s interesting also that the concept of divisions is the concept of heresy, and heresy relates to false teaching. And so it is partly personality, but it’s partly false teaching.
TP: In a sense, that’s what Romans 1-15 has been all about. It’s about Paul teaching them to be united around the one true gospel, explaining its nature, inner logic and workings and implications. This is the new mind that they’re to be transformed into, and which is to drive their behaviour. It’s a teaching about the Lord Jesus and the life that flows from knowing him, that serves as the basis for teamwork and for unity. And when that’s denied or not taught properly, it divides the team.
PJ: And you remember in Romans 12:1-2, you’ve got to be transformed in your mind so that you can approve what is the good, and what is the good is so important for us. And here verse 19 reminds me of 1 Corinthians 14:20, where it says be mature in thinking, but in sin, be infants. Likewise here he’s saying that I want you to be wise as to what is good, innocent as to what is evil. It is the same kind of strange thinking that you now approve that which is good and right and true, and yet you are yourself naive when it comes to sin. That’s a transformation that comes by the gospel of the Lord Jesus. So the teamwork in Romans 16 is what this whole book has been preparing us for, and the warning is about the failure of sin. There’s the funny little phrase in verse 20 about the promise that God will give victory in the end over Satan, but he then comes to this doxology which summarizes the themes we have been talking about for fifteen and a half chapters.
TP: Indeed, Romans 16:25-27:
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
PJ: Right back in chapter 1, he talks about his role as the apostle to bring obedience of faith to the nations. And here it is again at the end.
TP: What do you think the obedience of faith means? How does that summarize his goal?
PJ: I take it he’s bringing the gospel to the nations to call upon the nations to have their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, for salvation is of faith. And so the mystery that he talks about in Ephesians that has been hidden for a long time, has actually been prophesied by the Old Testament.
TP: It was there, if you had eyes to see it.
PJ: Yes, that the Gentiles (the nations) will be as much members of the kingdom of God as the Jews are, as God’s chosen nation. And so the person whose responsibility it is to make this known is the apostle to the nations, for that’s his job–to bring the nations into that same faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the Jews were to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and so to bring them to the obedience of faith itself. That is what is expounded throughout the epistle to the Romans. That’s why he keeps talking about the Jews. Have they lost their way? Was there any advantage in being Jew? And this issue of Jew and Gentile runs all the way through the argument of Romans, but it has come to a conclusion at chapter 15. This was God’s plan from the beginning, that the Gentiles would be praising God, as he shows in that series of quotes from the Old Testament in chapter 15:9. And it’s the gospel and the apostolic preaching of the gospel that is bringing it to its conclusion.
TP: And that tells us what the nature of Christian teamwork is, that we’re doing the work that God sent Jesus Christ to do, and that Jesus, ruling from heaven, continues to do through his Word and his Spirit—to bring about the obedience of faith. That’s our task and our cause, and that’s why all those team members in the earlier part of the chapter were all team members in the Lord Jesus Christ doing his work. That’s what binds us together.
PJ: And that’s why we can’t have divisions, because we’re new creatures in Christ Jesus, and we’re to see each other as neither Jew nor Greek, neither male nor female, slave or free, but one in Christ, Jesus, as we work together in the gospel.
TP: It’s a marvelous vision, isn’t it? And to finish off our long meander through the book of Romans, let us pray that doxology and pray it for all of us in our ministries, in our teams and in all our mission.
Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith— to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.
