Welcome to another week of our podcast, Things Unseen.

I wonder if you've ever noticed when you've been reading Paul's letters that he mentions

a remarkable number of fellow Christians. Actually, there are dozens and dozens of them.

And we wouldn't know of their existence, apart from these little cameos that he sometimes paints.

And they give us hints of what these people were like and what they meant to him.

And how some of them helped him.

The name that often pops up in my mind when I think of these people is one that he

mentions in Romans chapter 16 verse 13. He refers to a man called Rufus and he describes him as

chosen in the Lord. But all Christians are chosen in the Lord.

So why would Paul say that particularly about Rufus?

I suspect because this was the Rufus who had a remarkable connection to the Lord Jesus.

I think he was probably the Rufus who is mentioned by Mark in Mark chapter 15, verse 21, the son of Simon of Sirene, the man who carried Jesus cross.

Mark would only have mentioned Rufus and his brother Alexander in that passage if they were well known to the church.

But then Paul also mentions Alexander and Rufus's mother and says this lovely thing about her. She has been a mother to me as well. Isn't that beautiful? I wonder if this kind of feature

in the Bible, appreciation of an otherwise unknown lady who had obviously been such a blessing to Paul

has the same effect on you as it does on me.

It makes me think about people who have helped me in my own Christian life

that most people don't know very much about.

So I hope you'll not think I'm lapsing into a new phase of narcissism this week if I mention

some of these people.

I don't want to draw attention to myself here, but honestly to think about people who

are hidden away in our lives, just as Rufus's mother would be hidden away in Paul's life, and we wouldn't know anything about her

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