What's In a List of Names - Part One (Romans 16:1-16)

Welcome:

At first glance, Romans 16 appears to be nothing more than a list of greetings—a roll call of names. But as we dig deeper, we discover this is not just a farewell section or an appendix to Paul’s great letter. It is a profound window into the early church, its diversity, its leaders, and the vital role of hospitality, service, and community.

Paul’s list reads more like a memorial wall—every name etched into eternity with purpose and value. This episode explores why these names matter and what they teach us about true Christian fellowship, the equality of believers, and the heart of a community devoted to Christ.

🧠 Key Themes Explored:

• The Significance of a Seemingly Mundane List:
  Romans 16 is not a formality—it is theology in action, embodied in people.
• Phoebe, the Deacon and Benefactor:
  A woman of means and service who likely delivered the very letter of Romans.
• Prisca and Aquila – A Model Christian Home:
  Their home was a church. Their lives were mobile, yet always rooted in Christ.
• Diverse, Early Church Leadership:
  Jews and Gentiles, men and women, slaves and free, all recognized for their service.
• Women in Leadership:
  Junia is likely referred to as "outstanding among the apostles"—a remarkable statement about the role of women in the early church.
• Slaves in Prominent Church Roles:
  Names like Ampliatus reflect a radical reversal of societal hierarchy in the body of Christ.
• The Household of Faith:
  Mentions of the households of Aristobulus and Narcissus point to early church groups even within the imperial household.

📜 Notable Individuals Highlighted:

• Phoebe – Commended as a deacon and patron.
• Prisca & Aquila – Risked their lives, hosted churches, mentored leaders.
• Andronicus & Junia – Possibly a husband-wife apostolic team.
• Epenetus – The first convert in Asia.
• Mary – Honored for her tireless labor.
• Ampliatus – A likely slave honored with a bold Christian epitaph.

Paul’s greetings are more than acknowledgments; they reflect the truth that every member of the body of Christ matters. In a world that often overlooks the ordinary or marginal, God remembers every act of service.

There are no second-class citizens in the Kingdom of God. Whether Jew or Gentile, man or woman, slave or free—each has a name, a story, and a calling.

📖 Scripture Focus:

“Greet Prisca and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their lives for me.”
 — Romans 16:3-4“Greet Andronicus and Junia… They are outstanding among the apostles.”
 — Romans 16:7

Who are the people in your own “Romans 16 list”—those who’ve shaped your s

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Transcript

What's In a List of Names - Part One (Romans 16: 1-16)

Transcript:

We've journeyed through the Book of Romans for over nearly two months now and now we arrive at its final chapter, Romans 16. 

At first glance, it’s a long list of names. What could be more tedious? It might feel like sitting through a lengthy graduation ceremony, waiting for that one name you care about. Maybe a better analogy would be the wall with the names of 1000’s of veterans on a war memorial. To some, just a wall of names. But to those who understand, it's profoundly significant, each name representing a life given. (Expand)

I suggest that while Romans 16 might initially seem like just another list, if we glimpse what’s truly being said, we'll discover valuable spiritual lessons. So, let's explore this list, not to be tedious, but to uncover its significance.

I invite your attention to Romans chapter 16, beginning with verse 1:

This passage mainly consists of encouragement and exhortations to greet various individuals and groups in Rome. There are also special instructions for a lady called Phoebe and a greeting from other churches. 

So, let's briefly run through this list to grasp what's being said  and then I will try and draw out the main spiritual lesson….

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

(Rom 16:1)

Paul commends Phoebe, a "sister" and a "servant" (Greek: diakonos) of the church at Cenchrea, Corinth's seaport. He asks the Romans to receive her worthily and assist her.

There has never been a time in the Christian Church when the work of women was not of tremendous value. It must have been specially so in the days of the early Church. When woman would have been required in many situation to minister to other women.

In the case of baptism by total immersion, as it then was, in the visitation of the sick, in the distribution of food to the poor, women played a big part in the life and work of the Church, ministering to other women.

Paul tells them to welcome for Phoebe. He asks the people at Rome to welcome her as God's dedicated people ought to welcome each other. 

This reminds us there should be no strangers in the family of Christ; there should be no need for formal introductions between Christian people, for they are sons and daughters of the one father and therefore brothers and sisters of each other. 

And yet the church is not always the welcoming institution that it ought to be. It is possible for some churches to become like closed societies which are not really interested in welcoming the strangers. 

So when a stranger comes amongst us, Paul's advice still holds good--welcome such a one as God's dedicated people ought to welcome each other.

The term "servant" has led some to believe she was an official deaconess. While the word can mean a deacon's wife it at very least means she was a devoted servant of the Lord within that Christian community. 

She's also called a "helper", meaning benefactor, suggesting she was a woman of means who supported others, including Paul. A strong tradition suggests Phoebe carried this very letter of Romans to its recipients.

The text continues: 

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them Greet also the church that meets at their house. 

(Rom 16:3-5a):

This well-known couple is at the top of the greeting list. Paul calls them "my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks for my life." 

They had a history with Paul, moving from Rome to Corinth (where they met Paul), then to Ephesus with him, and now, apparently, back in Rome. Tentmakers by trade, they were also spiritual co-workers. The incident where they risked their lives for Paul isn't detailed, but it was clearly significant to him.

I think Prisca and Aquila are a fascinating pair of people. 

Let us begin with the facts about them of which we are sure.

They appear first in Acts 18:2. From that passage we learn that they had previously been resident in Rome. Claudius had issued an edict in A.D. 52 banishing the Jews. 

So, Anti-semitism is no new thing, and the Jews were hated in the ancient world as they so often are today. When they were banished from Rome, Prisca and Aquila settled in Corinth. They were tent-makers which was Paul's trade as well and he found a home with them. 

When Paul left Corinth and went to Ephesus, Prisca and Aquila went with him and settled there ( Acts 18:18 ).

The very first incident related of them is characteristic. There came to Ephesus that brilliant scholar Apollos; but he had not at this time anything approaching a full grasp of the Christian faith; so Aquila and Prisca took him into their house and gave him friendship and instruction in that faith ( Acts 18:24-26 ). 

It seems from the very beginning Prisca and Aquila were people who kept an open heart and an open door.

The next time we hear of them they are still in Ephesus.

Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians from Ephesus and in it he sends greetings from Prisca and Aquila and from the church that is in their house ( 1 Corinthians 16:19 ). This was long before the days when there was any such thing as a church building; and the home of Prisca and Aquila served as a meeting place for a group of Christian folk.

The next time we hear of them they are in Rome.

The edict of Claudius which had banished the Jews had ceased to be effective and no doubt Prisca and Aquila like many another Jew drifted back to their old homes and their old business. We discover that they are just the same--again there is a group of Christian people meeting in their house.

The last time they emerge in 2 Timothy 4:19 , and once again they are in Ephesus; and one of the last messages Paul ever sent was a greeting to this pair of Christians who had come through so much with him.

Prisca and Aquila lived a curiously nomadic and unsettled life. Aquila himself had been born in Pontus in Asia Minor ( Acts 18:2 ). We find them resident first in Rome, then in Corinth, then in Ephesus, then back in Rome, and then finally again in Ephesus; but wherever we find them, we find their home a centre of Christian fellowship and service. 

In a way I believe that every home should be a church, for a church is a place where Jesus dwells. From the home of Prisca and Aquila, wherever it was, radiated friendship and fellowship and love. If one is a stranger in a strange town or a strange land, one of the most valuable things in the world is to have a home from home into which to go. 

It not only takes away loneliness but protect people from temptation. 

Sometimes we think of a home as a place into which we can go and shut the door and keep the world out: but equally a home should be a place with an open door. 

There is an even more interesting possibility. It is an odd thing that in four out of the six mentions of this pair in the New Testament Prisca is named before her husband, although normally the husband's name would come first, as we say "Mr and Mrs." 

There is a distinct possibility that this is because Prisca was not a freedwoman at all but a great lady, a member by birth of the Acilian family. It may be that at some meeting of the Christians this great Roman lady met Aquila, an ordinary Jewish tentmaker, that the two fell in love, that Christianity destroyed the barriers of race and rank and wealth and birth, and that these two, one a Roman aristocrat and the other Jewish tradesman, were joined for ever in Christian love and Christian service.

Of these speculations we can never be absolutely sure, but we can be sure that there were many in Corinth, in Ephesus and in Rome, who owed their souls to Prisca and Aquila and to that home of theirs which was also a church.

This, along with later mentions, suggests Rome had several house churches.

Greet my dear friend Epenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia. Greet Mary, who worked very hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among[d] the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was. Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys. Greet Apelles, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus. Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet those in the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord. 

In this chapter there are twenty-four individual names and there are two interesting things to note.

Of the twenty-four, six are women. That is worth remembering, for often Paul is accused of belittling the status of women in the Church. If we really wish to see Paul's attitude, it is a passage like this that we should read, where his appreciation of the work that women were doing in the Church shines through.

Of the twenty-four names, thirteen occur in inscriptions or documents which have to do with the Emperor's palace in Rome. Although many are very common names, this fact is nonetheless suggestive that there had been a bit of a Christian revival there.

In Philippians 4:22 Paul speaks of the saints of Caesar's household. It may be that they were for the most part slaves, but it is still important that Christianity seems to have penetrated even thus early into the imperial palace.

Other Notable Individuals listed here include:

Epaenetus (v. 5b): the first convert in Achaia. Mary (v. 6): "Who laboured much for us" – worked to the point of physical weariness.

Andronicus and Junias form an interesting pair, because it is most likely that Junias is a female name. That would mean that in the early Church a woman could be ranked as among the apostle, I know some disagree with this perspective, but those who have studied NT Greek say that suggestion is clear here. I’m not going to be dogmatic or rule on this matter. But what we do know is that the apostles in this sense were people whom the Church sent out to tell the story of Jesus at large. 

Paul says that Andronicus and Junias were Christians before he was. That means that they must go right back to the time of Stephen; they must have been a direct link with the earliest Church at Jerusalem.

Ampliatus (v. 8), Urbanus (v. 9), Stachys (v. 9) are next to be mentioned.

Behind the name of Ampliatus may well lie an interesting story. It is a quite common slave name. Today in the cemetery of Domatilla, which is the earliest of the Christian catacombs, there is a decorated tomb with the single name Ampliatus carved on it in bold and decorative lettering. 

The fact that the single name Ampliatus alone is carved on the tomb--Romans who were citizens would have three names, what were referred to as their, nomen, a praenomen, and a cognomen. So this single name would indicate that this Ampliatus was a slave; but the elaborate tomb and the bold lettering would indicate that he was a man of high rank in the Church. 

From that it is plain to see that in the early days of the Church the distinctions of rank were so completely wiped out that it was possible for a man at one and the same time to be a slave and hold a high rank in the Church.

Households of Aristobulus (v. 10) and Narcissus (v. 11) are next.

The household of Aristobulus may also be a phrase with an interesting history.

In Rome household did not describe only a man's family and personal relations; it included also his servants and slaves. 

In Rome for long there had lived a grandson of Herod the Great whose name was Aristobulus. He had lived always as a private individual and had inherited none of Herod's regions or domains; but he was a close friend of the Emperor Claudius. When he died his servants and slaves would become the property of the Emperor, but they would form a section of his establishment known as the household of Aristobulus. 

So, this particular phrase used here by Paul may well describe Jewish servants and slaves who had once belonged to Aristobulus, Herod's grandson, and had now become the property of the Emperor. 

This is made the more probable by the name mentioned on each side of the phrase. Apelles may quite well be the Greek name that a Jew called Abel would take, and Herodion is a name which would obviously suit one who had some connection with the family of Herod.

The household of Narcissus may have still yet another interesting story behind it.

Narcissus was a common name; but the most famous Narcissus was a freedman who had been secretary to the Emperor Claudius and had exercised a notorious influence over him. He was said to have amassed a private fortune.

His power had lain in the fact that all correspondence addressed to the Emperor had to pass through his hands and never reached him unless he allowed it to do so. 

He was said to have made his fortune from the fact that people paid him large bribes to make sure that their petitions did reach the Emperor. 

When Claudius was murdered and Nero came to the throne, Narcissus survived for a short time, but in the end, he was compelled to commit suicide, and all his fortune and all his household of slaves passed into Nero's possession. It may well be his one-time slaves which are referred to here. 

It seems the influence of Christianity had reached and stayed within the highest circles in the Empire.....