You’ve likely heard the term “breaking the glass ceiling.” It was a term that was only coined in 1978, and it refers to difficulties faced by some in advancing to certain roles that have never been held before by someone like them. Originally, it referred to women having difficulties advancing to roles that were never available to them before, but now it has become a blanket term to cover anytime a barrier like this is overcome.
Being the person who breaks the glass ceiling requires a lot of courage. Courage to step out into places where people like you have never been before and spaces where people like you have never been welcome before. It means speaking up for yourself and often standing by yourself. It’s a challenging thing to do. And even though the term has only existed for 45 years, breaking glass ceilings is something people have been doing for a very long time.
I want to talk to you about Phoebe. She’s another person in the Bible who, like Barnabas, is not mentioned much in the Bible, but seems to have been very influential in the early church. There’s two verses in the book of Romans where Paul mentions Phoebe’s name. But in those two verses, he says a lot, that often we gloss over, not truly understanding all that Paul is saying about Phoebe because there’s a language barrier there. Let’s look at what he says about her in Romans 16:1-2,
“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea, 2 that you receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and that you help her in whatever matter she may have need of you; for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well.” (NASB)
Just in these two short verses, Paul speaks very highly about Phoebe. He commends her to the church in Rome, and what he says about her is actually very impressive, especially when we consider that Paul also gives us the two verses in the Bible that allegedly bar women from preaching and teaching men. However, when we look at what he actually says about Phoebe, we see a different story, a story of Phoebe’s courage to be who God called her to be.
Paul first says that Phoebe is a sister, so we are to understand right away, without question, that she is a believer in Christ Jesus. But Paul goes further to say that she is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea. It’s with passages like this that it is helpful to look at the original language, in this case, Greek. Because when we look at this word in English, and we read “servant”, it doesn’t tell us all that Phoebe actually was.
When we read the word “servant”, it diminishes Phoebe’s role, because we think of a servant of the church as anyone who serves in the church. That should be all of us. We all have gifts and talents and each of us is called to serve the body of Christ with those gifts and talents. So when we read the word “servant”, we think of all of us, doing what we can to serve one another in love.
Phoebe was definitely a servant, she did serve the church in Cenchrea, but the word “servant” in the Greek gives us a better understanding of how Phoebe served that particular church. In the Greek, servant is “diakonos”. That word might look familiar to you. In 1 Timothy 3, Paul uses the word “diakonos” to speak about the office of deacon in the church. A deacon is a minister of the church, one whose responsibilities in the church include teaching.
“Diakonos” or deacon is the same word that Paul uses to describe himself, Timothy, as well as a few others in the New Testament who were doing the work of pastoring, teaching, and preaching in their local church groups. It appears that Phoebe was serving in her church specifically as a minister of the word, much like Paul and Timothy did. And Paul commends her to the church in Rome for the service that she had been doing for the church in Cenchrea.
What we know about letters written during this time is that there was no universal postal system in Rome or the Middle East or Greece or anywhere really. There was a government postal system in Rome, but it was only for official government documents sent by politicians and other governmental officials. For a common citizen like Paul to send a letter through the government postal system wouldn’t have been possible. So Paul, and other citizens would have sent letters through a hired courier, or a friend, or in Paul’s case, trusted ministers of the word.
The reason Paul commends and lists a list of Phoebe’s credentials in this part of his letter to the church in Rome is because Phoebe was the one Paul sent his letter with. Phoebe took his letter to the church in Rome, and Paul was telling the church in his letter all about this woman who was carrying his letter and how much he commended her and trusted her to carry his letter because of all she had done for her church as a deacon and for him.
Not only was Phoebe a deacon in the church in Cenchrea, Paul also calls her a helper. He says, “for she herself has also been a helper of many, and of myself as well.” Helper is another word like servant, where we have a language barrier. It’s not translated to encompass all it really means. The word here in the Greek is “prostatis”. The Latin equivalent is “patronus”, from which we get our word “patron”. A patron in ancient cultures was a leader in their community. They were the person that people went to if they needed help with something, like building an aqueduct, or showing hospitality to newcomers to a city. Many times, patrons would sort of have office hours at the city gates, where the business of the city was conducted and important persons met with other important persons to lead their city and make decisions for their city. The idea is similar to someone who was a benefactor. Paul says that Phoebe was such a person.
She’s not the only patron that Paul commends either. Just a few verses later in Romans 16 Paul talks about the apostle, yes apostle, Junia, another woman who was also a patron. Archaeological finds also give the names of four other Christian women who acted as patrons in their community around the same time.
What Paul seems to be asking here of the Roman church is that they will treat Phoebe the same way they would treat him, that they would help her with whatever she needs help with as she seeks to minister the word to them and with them and seeks to act as a leader of all in their community.
You’ll notice in your bulletins this morning, I have also written that Phoebe was a preacher. This does sort of go along with the role of deacon in her church, but just to make it a little clearer that Phoebe was in fact a preacher of the word of God to men and women, we’ll return to her role as the deliverer of Paul’s letter to the Roman church.
Here’s another thing we know through Scripture and other ancient documents and archaeological evidence, that very few people could read and write in these ancient times. Generally only the wealthy, upperclass, and well-educated could read or write or both. When Phoebe brought Paul’s letter to Rome, it was not likely that every person in that church would be able to read what Paul had written, the inspired words of God. And because this letter was the inspired words of God, they were important for the people of that church to hear.
The book of Romans is one of the most influential books of the Bible in terms of Theology. The things we learn in Romans about who God is, particularly the nature of grace and the forgiveness of sins and salvation through Christ Jesus are the foundation of much of what the church knows about these parts of what we believe. It is so incredibly clear that the book of Romans was inspired by the Spirit to be written. The people of that church needed to hear what the Spirit told Paul, and Christians from that time on have turned to Romans over and over again to understand grace and repentance and salvation.
When Phoebe brought this letter to the church in Rome, she would have read it out loud for all to hear. It’s important to note here as well, that the church in Rome wasn’t just one church. It was a network of house churches, each meeting in someone’s home where they would hear the reading of the Scriptures, pray together, eat together, and serve on another. So Phoebe wouldn’t have just read this letter out loud once, but multiple times in each house church. In the simplest terms, in reading this letter, she was preaching out loud the inspired word of God for the church in Rome to hear. Whether she preached in her role as deacon or not, she definitely was preaching when she read Paul’s letter out loud for the church to hear. That is what a preacher does, we read the Word of God aloud for all to hear, we proclaim the truth written in His Word. Phoebe did this.
Finally, you notice that I have apostle listed in your bulletin with a question mark. This isn’t something we know for sure about Phoebe, but it suggested by what Paul says about Junia, whom I’ve already mentioned. This is what Paul says about Junia, “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews who have been in prison with me. They are outstanding among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.” (Romans 16:7, NIV)
Paul calls Junia an apostle, just like himself, as he uses the term to apply to himself more than once, and there are others as well, including Barnabas whom I preached about last week, who are called apostles. Our word “apostle” comes from the Greek “apostolos”, which in its most simplest meaning means one who is sent. This is the way Paul uses the word, to describe a person who is sent with a message. Junia was sent with a message, the message of Christ, and it was that very message that landed her in prison with Paul.
So even though Paul doesn’t specifically call Phoebe an apostle, one who is sent, she was in fact serving Paul in the manner of an apostle, being sent by him to the church in Rome to deliver and preach his letter to them.
All of these roles Phoebe stepped into took courage. To be a deacon, to preach and teach the word of God, to lead in her community, to welcome people into her community with hospitality, to be a benefactor to many to get them what they needed to minister, to do the important work of bringing and preaching the inspired word of God to the church in Rome, these were not usually things women did. But Phoebe had the courage to fulfill these roles as she served her Lord and Savior and His church.
I imagine sometimes what women like Phoebe, and Junia, and Priscilla, and Chloe, and Lydia would say to church traditions that continue to persist in the idea that Paul forbade women from preaching and teaching when it is so clear from Paul’s own letters that these women were doing just that, and he was commending the work that they were doing in spreading the gospel of Christ. He has the some of the highest praise that he gives to fellow ministers when he talks about these women.
They still face criticism today. There are still Christians that want to minimize the roles they had and try to explain the words Paul uses to describe what these women did as meaning something else than what they mean when Paul talks about other men. What we learn from Phoebe is that there will always be criticisms when you try to follow God and do things His way. There will be criticisms from the world certainly, but there will also be criticisms from those inside the church, just like I’m sure Phoebe faced. But she stepped into what God had for her with courage, knowing that as long as she was walking by faith in Him, she could stand firm.
It takes courage to step out in faith and do what God asks, but we have confidence from His word that He never leaves us or forsakes us, and He equips us to do exactly as He calls us to do. He gives us the courage to rise to the challenges that sometimes come when we walk in faithful obedience to Him.
1. Phoebe’s work in the early church required a great deal of courage, to break through “glass ceilings” of her time. Where in your life do you need the same courage to follow through on something God is nudging you to do?
2. What criticisms might come with following God in this way? How can you stand firm even when those criticisms come?
3. Look up other places Paul uses the word “apostle” in his letters (Rom. 11:13; 16:7; 1 Cor. 4:1; Gal. 1:19; 1 Thess. 2:6). What insight does that give you about what an apostle in the early church was and what they did?