phoebe Summary and Overview

(radiant) the first and one of the most important of the Christian persons the detailed mention of whom nearly all the last chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. (A.D.55.) What is said of her, #Ro 16:1,2| is worthy of special notice because of its bearing on the question of the deaconesses of the apostolic Church.

PHOE'BE , a distinguished member of the church at Cenchraea, a city of Corinth. Rom 16:1. She is called a "servant of the church" (see Deaconess); and the strong commendation of the apostle shows her to have been prominent in works of faith and labors of love.

The first and one of the foremost of the list of Christians in the last chapter of Romans (Romans 16:1-2). "A servant (Greek "deaconess") of the church at Cenchrea" (the eastern port of Corinth; where Paul had his head shorn for a vow: Acts 18:18). Pliny's letter to Trajan (A.D. 110) shows that deaconesses existed in the Eastern churches. Their duty was to minister to their own sex (1 Timothy 3:11 translated "deaconesses" literally, "women"). Phoebe was just going to Rome; Paul therefore commends her to their reception as "in the Lord," i.e. a genuine disciple: as becometh saints to receive saints; and to assist her in whatever she needed their help; for "she had been a succourer (by her money and her efforts) of many and of Paul himself." The female presbytery of widows above sixty is distinct from the deaconesses (1 Timothy 5:9-13). Phoebe was the bearer of this epistle, written from the neighbouring Corinth in the spring of A.D. 58.