Holy Helpers!

  A preacher, so the story goes, arrived in a small town on Sunday morning to begin a short gospel meeting. Wanting to mail a post card, he spotted a young boy on a bicycle. He pulled over and told the boy, "I’m new in town and need your help. Can you tell me where the post office is?" The boy told him, "We are on 1^st Street. Go down two blocks and turn right onto Main Street. The post office will be down one block on your right." The preacher was impressed and delighted with the young man’s simple but precise directions. He told the boy, "If you’ll come to church with me this morning, I’ll help you learn how to go to heaven." The boy thought for a second then said, "I don’t think I’ll come. You didn’t even know how to get to the post office."

Let’s get real. There are times when we need to receive help, and times when we need to give help. The Bible tells us about a Christian who excelled at helping others in Romans 16:1-2 where the apostle Paul gives a brief but beautiful cameo of Sister Phoebe. Here is his reference to her in its entirety: "I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints, and assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also." What a wonderful commendation! I wish we knew more about Sister Phobe, but that single passage of two verses tells us everything the Holy Spirit wanted us to know about her. What we know about her is impressive indeed. Paul refers to her as "our sister" – and his clear meaning is,"our sister in Christ." Somewhere along the way Phoebe heard and believed the gospel of Jesus Christ and was born again of the water and Spirit into the family of God (John 3:3-7). But that wasn’t all. Paul also said she was "a servant of the church in Cenchrea" (a seaport town not far from Corinth). After dying to sin and being buried into Christ’s death, Phoebe "was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father" to "walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:3-4). After she was baptized into Christ, this beautiful lady got busy serving! A lot of theological dust is kicked up as some use this verse to allege that Phoebe was part of a separate order of female deacons in the early church. While true the Greek word for "servant" (diakonos) can be translated "deaconness" (as some modern translations do), the same word is used repeatedly to refer to "servant / minister" in general in many passages. Brad Price, in his commentary on ROMANS, points out that this same word is used by Paul at Romans 13:4 to apply to human governing officials! There simply is no proof or reason to believe Phoebe was anything but a faithful, hard-working, always-serving child of God like so many God-fearing and faithful women (and men) in the church today. That makes them like Christ Himself and a part of the greatest of among us (Mark 10:43-45). And then, not surprisingly, Paul said, Sister Phoebe "has been a helper of many and of myself also." Beautiful! A great Christian lady, active in the church. We might call her a "holy helper" because she was intensely involved in God’s work. Thank God for holy helpers. May their number increase. Are you one of God’s holy helpers?

  Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN