Romans 16. There are many names listed in Romans 16 as the Apostle Paul sends his personal greetings. Ten women are recognized by name. Romans 16 has become a source of great encouragement to me personally, as a woman gifted to lead and teach.

Pause for a moment to read the names of those whom Paul credited with shaping the early church:

• Phoebe, the deacon who carried the letter from Paul and read it aloud to her house church.
• Prisca (Priscilla), whose name is mentioned before her husband’s name (something rather notable in the Roman world) as a coworker with Paul.
• Mary, a hard worker for the gospel in Asia.
• Junia, prominent among the apostles.
• Tryphaena and Tryphosa, Paul’s fellow workers in the Lord.
• The beloved Persis, who also worked hard for the Lord.
• Rufus’s mother, Julia, and Nereus’s sister.

Seven women are recognized by their ministry: Phoebe, Priscilla, Mary, Junia, Tryphaena, Tryphosa, and Persis. One woman, Phoebe, is identified as a deacon. In fact, Phoebe is the only deacon of a first-century church whose name we know. Another woman, Junia, is identified not simply as an apostle but as one who was prominent among the apostles.

Did you know that more women than men are identified by their ministry in Romans 16?

If you are thinking, “Why have I not noticed this before?”, you are not alone. It may be because the English Bible translation you use obscures women’s activity. There are many footnotes in this chapter, depending on what translation of the Bible you are reading.

Allow me to share a bit more from Dr. Beth Allison Barr on the topic:

// Take, for example, The Ryrie Study Bible, published by Moody Press in 1986. My grandfather owned this Bible, and I have his copy on my shelf. Instead of recognizing Phoebe as a deacon, it translates her role as “servant.” We can guess the reason for the translation choice: it is because Phoebe was a woman, and so it is assumed that she could not have been a deacon. If the phrase “a deacon of the church in Cenchreae” had followed a masculine name, I seriously doubt that the meaning of “deacon” ever would have been questioned.

Junia, was accepted as an apostle until nearly modern times, when her name began to be translated as a man’s name: Junias. New Testament scholar Eldon Jay Epp compiled two tables surveying Greek New Testaments from Erasmus through the 20th century. Together, the charts show that the Greek name Junia was almost universally translated in its female form until the 20th century, when the name suddenly began to be translated as the masculine Junias.

Why? Epp makes it painfully, maddeningly clear that a major factor in 20th-century treatments of Romans 16:7 was the assumption that a woman could not have been an apostle. Junia became Junias because modern Christians assumed that only a man could be an apostle. Most people don’t realize that the ESV translation of Junia as “well known to the apostles” instead of “prominent among the apostles” was a deliberate move to keep women out of leadership.

The historical reality is the same for Phoebe, I told my students. Paul calls her a deacon. No one disputes the text — they can only dispute the meaning of the text. Phoebe was recognized as both a woman and a deacon by early church fathers. Origen, for example, wrote in the early third century that Phoebe’s title demonstrates “by apostolic authority that women are also appointed in the ministry of the church, in which office Phoebe was placed at the church that is in Cenchreae. Paul with great praise and commendation even enumerates her splendid deeds.”

A century later Chrysostom writes, “Both men and women should “imitate” Phoebe as a “holy one.” In his homily on 1 Timothy 3:11, Chrysostom makes it clear that he understands women to serve as deacons just as men do. Describing Phoebe as a deacon wasn’t surprising to Chrysostom because some of his good fourth-century friends were female deacons. Indeed, 107 references (inscriptions and literary) to women deacons in the early church have been found.

As a historian, I knew why the women in Paul’s letters did not match the so-called limitations that contemporary church leaders place on women. I knew it was because we have read Paul wrong. Paul isn’t inconsistent in his approach to women; we have made him inconsistent through how we have interpreted him.

People believe that women were banned from leadership in the early church – they were not. Instead, the pagan patterns of patriarchy have seeped into the church and subsequent Bible translations. //

And that, my friends, is why I find Paul’s greetings in Romans 16 so encouraging. The early church recognized and celebrated women who were approved by Christ, women who risked their necks for the gospel, women who worked hard for the Lord using whatever gifts and talents they had – including teaching and leadership. I hope you are encouraged!

In the words of Paul, “Watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught” (16:17).

Read more excerpts from Dr. Beth Allison Barr’s book The Making of Biblical Womanhood (2021) here.