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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews.
I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.
Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.
Romans 16:21-24
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
We’re down to our last two messages in this study of Paul’s letter to the Romans and so as you would predict, the apostle is ready to bring things to a close.
How does he go about this?
Well, first, we see him send greetings from some people who are with him in Corinth and within those greetings we find a very interesting revelation. Look again at verses 21 through 24 of chapter 16:
Timothy, my co-worker, sends his greetings to you, as do Lucius, Jason and Sosipater, my fellow Jews.
I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord.
Gaius, whose hospitality I and the whole church here enjoy, sends you his greetings.
Erastus, who is the city’s director of public works, and our brother Quartus send you their greetings.
Now, obviously the best known person on this list is Timothy who Paul identifies as his co-worker and when he says this, we know he means his co-worker for the cause of Christ. If you go back to chapter 16 of the Book of Acts, you will see how Paul met Timothy on his second missionary journey while visiting the city of Lystra in located in what was then Asia Minor (today it’s Turkey). Here’s what the scriptures tell us:
Paul came to Derbe and then to Lystra, where a disciple named Timothy lived, whose mother was Jewish and a believer but whose father was a Greek. The believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of him. Paul wanted to take him along on the journey, so he circumcised him because of the Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew that his father was a Greek. As they traveled from town to town, they delivered the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem for the people to obey. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers.
Hand selected by Paul, we see how Timothy was mentored by the apostle who saw great ministry potential in this spiritual prodigy from Lystra. Together, they gained great success as they carried on the work of the Gospel as the “churches were strengthened in faith and grew daily in numbers”.
Well, Paul would move on from Lystra with Timothy in tow and they would serve together through Paul’s third missionary journey where he ended up in Corinth and wrote his letter to the Romans. This is how Timothy became part of this letter as he sent greetings to the people of Rome as did Lucius, Jason and Sosipater who Paul described as his “fellow Jews”.
Another person sending greetings was a man by the name of Gaius, obviously a resident of Corinth since he served as Paul’s host during his stay and provided great hospitality to the apostle and other Christians in the church.
We don’t know much about Erastus except he was a city official, the “director of public works” in Corinth. Like the other he sent greeting as did a man by the name of Quartus who was obviously a Christian and acquaintance of Paul.
And finally, we get to the big reveal in these verses, the revelation that Paul wasn’t the one who technically put pen to paper. In other words, Paul had a special scribe who wrote down the things he wanted to say to the Romans and that scribe was a man named Tertius. We know all this because Tertius takes a brief moment to make sure he receives some credit in the creation of the letter by telling the readers that he wrote it down and like Paul, he sent his greetings. Of interest, it’s believed that Tertius was a Roman who became a traveling companion of Paul. That would explain the value in having him write to the people of Rome since he spoke the language.
So there you have it. Special greetings from some special people who were with Paul in Corinth and a surprising reveal to boot. Tomorrow, we’ll finish up this letter before moving on to Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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