Scripture: Romans 16:1
I’m introducing our sister Phoebe to you, who is a servant of the church in Cenchreae.
Thought for the Day: Yesterday, I started playing around with the Greek word, Ekklesia – usually translated as church. In the above words from Romans, Paul writes that Phoebe is a Diakonos of the Ekklesia. It is sometimes translated as a deacon of the church. The word Diakonos is often translated as servant or minister, though in this specific instance, the English speaking church often translated it as deaconess because it did not want to suggest that a woman could be a minister or even a person set aside for an important “male” role in the church. But this is the exact word used by Paul to describe his own ministry in the First Letter to the Church in Corinth. Though minister might be an ok translation of the word in our current understanding of church, it probably does not make sense back in the first century. Servant is probably a better word, yet for Paul to use that word in conjunction to a specific church is really quite significant. Paul is introducing her as a person of authority, and as a servant, she is a model of Christ-like living for the community. Let us be very clear, Christianity originally found women and men working in leadership side-by-side until it institutionalized in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. At that point, scriptures were bent and twisted to push women into a subversive role in the life of the church. Yet as we talked about around Easter this year, women were the first preachers of the resurrection, and in today’s world, they remain some of the finest preachers of the resurrection.
Prayer: Let me always celebrate the gift of your Spirit, O Lord, even when it might be working through someone that tradition had told me is unworthy or unable to hold such a gift. Your Spirit does as it wants and as it wills, and for my earthly bias to suggest limitations on such a thing is embarrassing and maybe even blasphemous. Amen.
TONIGHT
