What Phoebe Carried

Before there was a single commentary on Romans, there was a woman carrying it.

Paul calls her Phoebe — a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, a benefactor of many, and the one entrusted to carry his letter the long miles to Rome. To carry a letter in the ancient world was not to be a courier only. It was to read it aloud, and to answer the questions it raised.

"I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae."

— Romans 16:1

So the first person to teach the book of Romans to the Roman church may well have been Phoebe, standing in a doorway with a scroll in her hands.

A name worth keeping

We have spent centuries arguing about what women may not do. Paul spends the last chapter of his greatest letter naming the women who already were.