Hello, why religion friends? John Hilton here. As Christmas draws near, hearts and hymns turn toward Jesus Christ.

We think too of Mary. Her faith and submission to the divine will stand as a pattern for all disciples.

And Mary is one of many powerful female faithful followers of Christ that we read about in the New Testament.

We're familiar with many of them.

Mary Magdalene, who was the first witness of the resurrected Lord,

Martha of Bethany who testified powerfully of Christ,

and Priscilla, who led early missionary efforts.

But what about the names we hardly notice?

For example, near the end of Paul's letter to the Romans, tucked among his closing greetings,

we find this simple line, Salute Trifina and Trifosa, who labor in the Lord.

Salute the beloved Persis, which labored much in the Lord.

My wife recently pointed out to me that Trifina,

Trifosa, and Persis are all female names, and Paul says they were working hard for the Lord.

Although we don't know much about them, these women can inspire us in our day to labor

diligently in the Lord's work. Now all of the women I've been talking about so far are women who are clearly

named in the New Testament. But what if there were another named New Testament woman?

A woman whose name has gone unnoticed for centuries. It's very clear that Ecclecta has to be a

proper name. Ladies is a substantive so it can only be to the Lady Ecclecte.

And what's interesting, this reading even appears in some manuscripts that I found, and no one

never noticed. We realize it's not written to some church personified as a woman, like this

grand metaphor, but an actual woman held some position of authority in an early congregation

where the elders writing to her and giving

...