John K. Jenkins Sr - A Walk Through Romans, Chapter 16

Good evening, everybody! Thank you for joining me tonight, wherever you might be. I am joining you live from Orlando, Florida. As you all know, I come down here every month for my responsibilities at Converge, and I’m glad to have our brothers here tonight: Brother Mike and, um, what’s your name again? Braxton! You have to keep reminding me, Braxton. These guys came down and set me up in my hotel room, and I want to celebrate them because they do a phenomenal job. I mean, they came down and set this up in an hour and 45 minutes! They 're becoming experts in their field, and I’m very proud of them. They 've got me all set up, and I’m ready to go and share with you the Word of God. Thank you so very much for your dedication and commitment, young men who are engaged in helping to spread the gospel throughout the world.

I hope you’ve had a great day today. I know the weather down here in Orlando has been phenomenal-80-plus degrees, 81 degrees today! However, I was stuck in the building all day working, and I’m grateful for that. So let me give a shout-out to 18 different states and people in 18 states. I see you! Additionally, eight different countries have joined us tonight. I’m so thankful for people who put time in their schedules to be a part of our Bible study. I’m honored, grateful, and thankful to God for all of that.

Now, let me thank the Lord for your dedication and commitment to the Word of God. Tonight, we will finish up in the Book of Romans. We’ve gone through 15 chapters of Romans, and we 've studied; it’s been great. I hope you found it as impactful and powerful as I have. Going back through it and studying it again has been a blessing. We finish tonight with Romans 16; this will be our final lesson in this book. By the way, let me mention this in case I forget: next Tuesday is our baptism night, so we won’t have Bible study. I’ll try to remember to tell you all that every time we have that break. Once a month, it’s always the Tuesday before the fourth Sunday. We dedicate that night to baptisms, and so next Tuesday, we will be baptizing people. We will then resume and actually hold what we call «Conversations» the following Tuesday. So, the following Tuesday will be, I think, April 30th. We’ll come back and talk about that in a few moments.

So, we’ll do Conversations that night. That 's when I talk with a group of people who can ask questions and give insights on how the study benefited them. Tonight, as we discuss Romans 16, I find this particular chapter seems to be full of names and people, but there’s a message in why the Holy Spirit allows these names to be mentioned. We 'll take a moment and talk about that in just a moment. So, let’s begin with prayer.

Father, we thank You for Your loving kindness and tender mercies. Thank You for allowing us the privilege of being able to study Your Word. I pray in the name of Jesus that You speak to our hearts tonight. Challenge us by Your Word. Help us, O mighty God, to be in the center of Your will. I pray, Heavenly Father, that hearts would be open and receptive in the precious and mighty name of the Lord Jesus. Thank You again for what You 've already done and said. We give You the praise, glory, and honor in Jesus' name. Amen and amen.

Alright, this is not going to be a long study tonight, so stick with me here for these few moments that we have. I don’t think it will take the whole hour or 50 minutes to do this tonight, so just hang with me. Romans chapter 16, let’s start, and we’re going to begin with the first two verses, which speak on the commendation of a deaconess. It starts off in chapter 16 by acknowledging a woman who is a deaconess. Let 's read verses 1 and 2. Let me read that for you: " I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a servant of the Church in Cenchrea, that you may receive her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever business she has need of you, for indeed, she has been a helper of many and of myself also.»

Here 's a woman whom the scripture calls a servant of the Lord. Let me take a moment to dive into this for just a second, because the term «servant» actually means deaconess (diaconate). It’s the same word used for a deacon, except it’s related to a female. Now, what’s the significance of that? The significance is that we made this adjustment in our church early on. In the history of our church, the deacons were the officers of the church, and we didn’t have any deaconesses. We had deacons, but they didn’t participate as officers of the church. What we 've sought to do in our church is put the deacons and the deaconesses on the same equal level. It’s not that the deacons are over the deaconesses; they are both servants of the church.