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 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's mentioned by Mark in Mark chapter 15, verse 21.

The Son of Simon of Cyrene, 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 in Rufus' 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

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