Greetings
Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus. 4 They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them. 5 Greet also the church that meets at their house.
An unusual feature of the letter to the Romans is the large number of personal greetings Paul attaches—over two dozen! No other letter comes close to having that many. Such a quantity of greetings is the more remarkable when we recall that Paul had never visited the Christian community in Rome. The likely explanation is that many of the “Romans” may have been people whom Paul got to know earlier during his days of working “from Jerusalem . . . to Illyricum” (15:19) who subsequently moved to Rome, either permanently or temporarily. Note, for example, that Epenetus was “the first convert to Christ in the province of Asia.” There was, after all, a good deal of truth in the ancient generalization that all roads lead to Rome.
As for the people Paul simply mentions by name, the Roman readers would obviously know exactly who was being greeted. It’s a pity that we know so little about them. Once we’re past Aquila and Priscilla,* they tend to be mere names for us.*
* Known from Acts 18:18-26; 1 Corinthians 16:19; 2 Timothy 4:19.
** Priscilla and her husband Aquila were tentmakers with Paul in Corinth. They had helped Apollos come to know Jesus better.