1 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 16.
Concluding Admonitions. 1 Corinthians 16, 1–24.
Final greetings: V. 19. The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the church that is in their house. V. 20. All the brethren greet you. Greet ye one another with an holy kiss.
In closing his letter, Paul sends greetings, first of all, from the congregations in Asia, the Roman province on the Aegean Sea. Although he had not personally visited all the congregations that had been founded in the province and in the district of which Ephesus was the distributing center, Rev. 1, 11, he was in touch with them all and knew their feeling toward the brethren in Greece.
Aquila and Priscilla, who were at that time living in Ephesus, where they had labored very faithfully, were again, as in Corinth, acting as hosts to a house congregation. Compare Acts 18; Rom. 16,4. Many and hearty greetings this worthy pair sent to the congregation at Corinth through the apostle, not only on account of their personal friendship with many of the Corinthian Christians, but because of their eager interest for the welfare and growth of the Lord's work, as the addition "in the Lord" tends to show.
In the third place, all the brethren of Ephesus sent greetings to Corinth in a body, not merely the small house congregation just mentioned.
As a sign of the proper acceptance of these salutations, Paul urges the Corinthian Christians to greet one another with a sacred kiss, with the kiss that is holy, the men saluting the men and the women the women. This custom of the sacred kiss was retained, during the celebration of the Holy Communion, for a number of centuries.