Romans chapter 16. In the closing chapter of Romans, this is the closing chapter of Romans,

Paul gives a special farewell greeting and commendation to 29 people that he mentions by name.

Ten of those 29 are women. And here in chapter 16, he opens by mentioning one of those 10 women. In chapter 16,

verse 1 and verse 2, he commends a woman by the name of Phoebe. She is from the church in Centria.

Centria was a port city near the ancient city of Corinth, which is in modern Greece. And Paul mentions her.

And in fact, he says in verse two, he says to the church at Rome, receive her in the Lord in a manner

worthy of the saints, because most scholars believe that Phoebe is the one who hand-delivered

this letter to the Church of Rome that Paul had written.

Now, check this out. She's from the church in Centria. That is about 750 miles from Rome, Italy.

So she makes this journey here to hand-deliver this letter that we've been reading here over the last several months,

the letter to the church at Rome.

So that's why Paul mentions her by name, commens her to that fellowship. And after he gives these greetings and commendations to 29 people by name in this closing chapter,

he concludes his letter here with one final exhortation.

And I always find that interesting.

It's like, you know, when you or I might write a letter, if you're still old school,

you might actually write a handwritten letter, and you say some of the most important things

near the end, just to kind of emphasize what's

most on your heart.

And I want you to notice the thing that Paul hones in on here as the thing that he stresses

more than anything else.

It's in verse 17.

So here in Romans 16, I'm going to read verse 17 down through verse 20.

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