The First Expositor of Romans was … Phoebe!

Jeremy Bouma and Mike Bird:

Michael Bird says he likes to open his Romans class each year with a special question:

Paul dictated the message of Romans; who actually wrote the message down?

After the class settles on Tertius, he asks another:

Who delivered Romans? Who was Paul’s envoy?

After receiving confused faces and odd looks, he brings his students to Romans 16. Drawing their attention to Phoebe and discussing the role of letter carriers in antiquity, Bird asks yet another question:

If the Romans had questions about the contents of the letter, who would be the first person they would ask?

Yes, Phoebe. In other words a woman would have been the one to teach Romans to the Church of Rome.

This thought-provoking exchange launches a just-as-thought-provoking discussion on gender equality and ministry in Bourgeois Babes, Bossy Wives, and Bobby Haircuts. In it Bird offers an engaging, incisive perspective on biblical gender equality and the egalitarian view.

He believes this seemingly minor detail of Romans is actually a major one—for it reveals three important aspects of Paul’s view of women in ministry: they were his co-workers; he didn’t mind their speaking in churches; and he encouraged them to teach.