A succourer of the saints!
In the above image, we find St. Lawrence presenting the Poor as Treasures of the Church
In his epistle to Romans, in Chapter 16, Paul commended to the saints in Rome "Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea" and exhorted them to receive her in the Lord as becometh saints, and to assist her in whatsoever business she had need of them because she had been a succourer of many including himself (Vs.1-2).
How Paul cared for a dear sister who was his co-worker and who ministered to him! Paul remembered every person who ministered to him in one way or the other.
Phebe was a servant of the church at Cenchrea. She was not described as a pastor or an elder of the church. We need today in our local churches servants who serve the sheep and not masters who want to be ministered to by the sheep by way of tithes or otherwise. A pastor of a local church calls himself/herself a shepherd. But he/she does not serve the sheep as a shepherd but acts as a master.
My real sister's son, Ebenezer Sahayaraj (who entered glory in 2019) pastured a small church in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, South India, in a humble manner. During October, 2004, he informed me that God asked him to sell his only motor-bike and to help two poor servants of God buy motor-bikes with the sale proceeds of his motor-bike. I knew that my sister's son himself needed money to put a roof over his small church. It was not required of him to give his money to some other servants of God when he himself needed that money. But he obeyed the voice of the Lord and became a succourer of these two poor saints. A true servant of the Lord becomes a servant of the church and a succourer of the saints.
We need many servants of the churches like Phebe who are succourers of the needy and poor in the House of God.
- Job Anbalagan