Romans 16 Round Two: Yo-Mama-An-Em

A goodbye filled with names shouldn’t feel this alive—but Romans 16 pulses with friendship, courage, and the real faces behind the gospel’s spread. We close our journey through Romans by meeting Phoebe the deacon, Priscilla and Aquila who risked their lives and hosted a house church, Junia honored among the apostles, and a host of believers whose homes, resources, and hearts powered the mission in Rome. Their stories turn a farewell into a blueprint for Christian community built on hospitality, loyalty, and shared purpose.

We also tackle Paul’s clear caution: watch out for teaching that fractures the church. Smooth words can divide; wisdom and innocence protect. That balance—kind to people, firm on the gospel—keeps a church both loving and resilient. Along the way, we debunk the myth of the lone apostle. Paul dictates to Tertius with teammates nearby, offering a window into how letters were crafted and how ministry actually happens: with editors, encouragers, patrons, mothers and brothers in the faith, all lending strength.

Zooming out, we connect these closing greetings to the whole arc of Romans: from human brokenness and the need for a Savior, to justification by faith, life in the Spirit without condemnation, a widened mission to the nations, and a community shaped by mercy and mutual grace. The final doxology ties it all together—God’s ancient plan revealed in Jesus and announced to all peoples—and the promise is bold: the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. That is hope with traction.

If you’ve been listening and wondering what to do next, here are two simple steps: refuse isolation and share your story. Choose a few people to walk with you, and tell someone what God has done in your life this week. If this resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with a friend who needs courage for community today.

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The More We Dig. The More We Find.

Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Road To 1,000
• 0:45 Purpose And Overview Of Romans
• 2:05 Yo Mama Nim: Why Community Matters
• 3:26 Reading Romans 16 Greetings
• 7:30 Warning Against Division And Deception
• 9:00 Paul’s Team And The Amanuensis
• 10:40 Two Takeaways And Closing Prayer
• 14:20 Romans 1:16 Charge And Next Book

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast. Every day, we take one chapter of the Bible, dig deeper, and discover that the more we dig, the more we find. You can find out more at the BibleBreakdown.com. Now let's grow in God's Word together. Well, hello everybody. Welcome back to the Bible Breakdown Podcast with your host, Pastor Brandon. Today, Romans chapter 16. Man, we have made it. We have finished up with this one, and we're going to finish up with calling this one Yo Mama Nim. If you are not from the South, you might have just thought I told you a joke, but it's true. Yo mama Nim. Now, what that means is, is that means your mother and them. And we're going to get to talk about why that's important in just a moment because Paul, he has got all the shout-outs coming. But before we do that, make sure if you like what we're doing here, you like, share it, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We are on the road to 1,000, and I need your help. So make sure that you are subscribing to the channel, also sharing it on social media so other people can subscribe to the channel as we are reading God's word together. Also on the podcast, you are continually my favorites. I love you so much. Make sure you are leaving us a five-star review and also our rally point, a Facebook discussion group over on Facebook, the Bible Breakdown Discussion. It's so wonderful. Those people are doing an amazing job. And if you would like to know about how you could become part of our devotion team, make sure you comment on one of their devotions and let us know. And we'll give you the details and what those next steps might look like for you. Because it is a joy to do life together. And as you get your Bibles ready for the grand finale, we have made it. Romans chapter 16. I want to kind of catch you up one more time with what Paul is doing. He is getting ready to head to Rome. He's been wanting to go there for a while, but he goes ahead and he sends like this introductory message, a description of the gospel ahead of him so people can read it and know what's going on. Because that's what they would do. These letters that Paul wrote were intended to be read to the local congregation. So whoever it was that sent this, he sent this letter with, they would go get in the middle of the church there, whatever, wherever they were at in a home or something, and they would read this as though Paul were there. And it would take a little over an hour, if you were reading this straight up, to hear all of this. And what Paul is doing is he is outlining the gospel. And what we said, the overview of this whole thing is the most beautiful thing in all creation, is that the creator came for all of us. That's the beautiful thing about this. And so we give it to you one more time. Chapter one, two, and three is all about how God created us perfect, but then we fell into sin and couldn't get back to perfection ourselves. We needed a savior. Chapters three, four, and five is all about how Jesus came so that we could find that relationship with Him again, washed away all of our sins, and He's washed us clean. Chapters six, seven, and eight is how it's still an ongoing journey. Every single day we're growing in Christ and we have setbacks, and sometimes we move forward, but thank goodness we're no longer under condemnation because of Christ. 9, 10, and 11 is all about how then we reach out to others to share the gospel with them. And then 12 through 15 is all about how we live together in Christian community, especially in the areas of controversy and in the gray areas. And now here we go, we're finishing up. And I'm curious if you've ever done this before. You know, when I was younger, we we didn't have, we had we had cell phones, but we didn't have, you know, video and that kind of stuff on our phones. And it was the coolest thing in the world when I remember watching a movie one time, and on the movie, the guy was talking on the phone and he had, you know, a video where you could see the person you were talking to. And that sounded like and looked like the most ridiculous futuristic thing, right? Well, nowadays it's it's perfectly normal. It's called FaceTime. And you just have their phone there and you can see them while you're talking to them. And sometimes when you're talking to people who live out of town, it's like, hey, everybody, tell so-and-so goodbye. And folks will kind of jump into the screen, bye, mama, you know, whatever it is, and all this kind of stuff. And it's just a way to kind of throw shout-outs to everybody. Well, that is what Paul is about to do. He is getting ready to throw some shout-outs to everybody. And he's talking about everybody. And what we used to do back where I come from, I come from Alabama, and one of the things that we would do is if we were just trying to cover everybody, you know, like we wanted to say either hi to everybody or goodbye to everybody, we would say, hey, say hi to mom and him. And what mom and them meant was mom and them, everybody else in your life. So I'm gonna say hi to mama and say hi to everybody else. And that is what Paul is doing. He is he is saying, say hi to mom and him for everybody. And so what we are gonna do is we are forever gonna name Romans 16 the Yo Mamanim chapter, because when we read this, he's gonna say a whole lot of people, but I want us to catch this idea at the very end. These are all people that were part of Paul's life. He wasn't living on an island somewhere, he was living in a pretty, pretty complex, pretty amazing community. And let's read some of these and we're gonna finish this, and then we're gonna finish up the book of Romans together. Here we go. If you have your Bibles with me, Romans 16, verse 1 says this. I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a deacon in the church in Censura. Welcome her in the Lord as one who worship who is worthy of honor among God's people. Help her in whatever she needs, for she has been helpful to many, and especially to me. Give my greetings to Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in the ministry of Christ Jesus. In fact, they once risked their lives for me, and I am thankful to them. So are all the Gentile churches. Also, give my greetings to the church that meets in their home. Pause. Now, that greeting to the one that meets in their home, that is likely the main church that's meeting in Rome. And a lot of scholars think that it was Priscilla and Aquila that actually started the church in Rome. Here we go. Greet my dear Apennetus, who was the first person from the province of Asia to become a follower of Christ. Give my greeting to Mary, who has worked so hard for your benefit. Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews, who were in prison with me. They are highly respected among the apostles and became followers of Christ before I did. Greet Ampiliath Ampiltus, my dear friend in the Lord. It feels like I'm reading the book of Joshua right now, but no, here we go. Verse 9. Greet Urbanus, our coworker in Christ, and my dear friend Stitius. Greet Ampelus, a good man who Christ approves, and give my greeting to the believers from the household of Astrobulus. Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew, and greet the Lord's people from the household of Narcissus. Give my greetings to Tramfina and Tramphosa, the Lord's workers, and to the dear Persis, who has also worked so hard for the Lord. Greet Rufus, good old Grufus. Greet Rufus, whom the Lord picked out to be his very own, and also his dear mother, who has been a mother to me. Give greetings to Ashnistus, Philigon, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermos, and the brothers and sisters who meet with them. Give my greetings to Philagus, Julia, Nurias, and his sister to all to the Olympus and to all the believers who meet with them. Greet each other in Christ's love. All the churches of Christ send you their greetings. And now I make one more appeal, my dear brothers and sisters. Watch out for people who cause divisions and upset people's faith by teaching things that are contrary to what you have been taught. Stay away from them. Such people are not serving Christ our Lord, they're serving their own personal interests. By smooth talk and glowing words, they deceive innocent people. But everyone knows that you are obedient to the Lord. This makes me very happy, and I want you to be wise in doing right and to stay innocent of any wrong. The God of peace who will soon crush Satan under your feet, may the God of peace who will soon crush Satan under your feet. May the grace of our Lord Jesus be with you. Timothy, my fellow worker, sends you greetings, as do Lucius, Jason, Sophister, and my fellow Jews. I, Teritus, and the one writing this letter for Paul, send my greetings too, as one of the Lord's followers. Gaia says hello to you, and he was my host and also serves as host to the whole church. Erastus, the city treasurer, sends you his greetings, and so does our brother Quartus. Now, all glory to God who is able to make you strong, just as my good news says, this message about Jesus Christ has revealed this plan to you Gentiles, a plan kept from the beginning of the world. But now, as the prophets foretold, as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all the Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey him. May the glory of to the only, all glory to the only wise God through Jesus Christ forever. Amen. I stumbled over that one. There's a whole lot of words, but that was awesome. I mean, think about that for a moment. We think about, and I don't know if you do this, but I think about Paul as like this loner out there who's just going from city to city and he'll have Silas with him or he'll have Barnabas with him or whatever, but he's I had this picture in my head that Paul's pretty much alone all the time. But that's not true. Paul had constantly, he constantly had people around him. And so he's giving out all these shout-outs. As a matter of fact, I was listening to a scholar the other day say that this idea of Paul writing these letters all by himself over in a cave somewhere was likely not true. That likely what would happen is that Paul would sit around because he would have what's called an aminuensis. And that's like a ghostwriter who is writing down, dictating everything that Paul was saying. That's why in some of the letters he would say, Here I write of my own hands, because he's dictating to somebody else an aminuensis, and then he would write down at the bottom. But instead of the idea of Paul being by himself, that many times Paul would say this as he's got other friends, and they're they're probably likely just going, Man, that Paul, that's good. Paul, that's awesome. Just encouraging him as he's writing this stuff down. And Paul is doing life with other people as he was ministering to others. And so as we get ready to bring this whole thing to a close, what can we take out of the Yomamanim chapter? And then what can we take from this as a whole? First of all, when it comes to the Yomamanim chapter, I think we have to be very careful as followers of Christ to get this idea of the long ranger out of our heads. We were not intended to do life alone. Even if you're an introvert, you're not intended to do life all alone. You need somebody in your life. Now you don't need all the bodies in your life, but you do need somebody in your life. And that's why I think it's so important that we take a moment here and there to kind of give give life to that idea that you don't have to have a thousand friends, but God did not intend you to have no friends in life. But the thing is, is that those friends have to be sought after and fought for and do life with. Because even Paul, who is thought of as a long ranger by a lot of people, he was constantly surrounded by people who supported him and who helped him through life. And so I want to tell you that if you feel like that Christianity is this long-ranger island kind of thing, I think there's a next step for you to take. And that maybe your prayer needs to be, God, over the next season, I pray you will open my eyes to people all around me that I can do life with. And then as back up a little further, 10,000-foot view. What can we get from this overall book? Well, as I told you before, I feel like the overall idea of the gospel through the book of Romans is that the most beautiful thing in all creation is that the creator came for us. You are in this story. Maybe your place in this story at one point was at the very beginning, where we were lost without God and in sin. We needed a savior. Thank goodness Christ came and he set us free. He washed us of all of our sins and he started us on the path toward freedom. And as we have gotten on this path to freedom, from time to time we stumble, sometimes we fall. But thanks be to God. Roman eight Romans eight says, There is therefore now no condemnation. So we don't live with shame, we live constantly leaning forward and allowing Christ to be the Lord of our life. And because of that, we give it to other people. We live in community, we give grace in the great areas, we unite under the main thing, and we're constantly living to please the Lord. So I want to ask you this question What about the hope of salvation in your life? What is it about that that you can share with somebody? That's what Paul's doing. Is as God has done this in his life, he's sharing the gospel with somebody else. What is it about what God has done in your life that you can share with somebody else? We're gonna have to give you a couple moments in just a second to think on that. Like today, what is it about what God's doing in your life you can share with somebody else? And I look forward to hearing in the comments about what God does. And so here's our two takeaways. Number one, make it a point to realize I am not gonna do life alone. And number two, what about my life can I share with somebody today? Let's pray. Father, thank you for the book of Romans. Thank you that it teaches us about your goodness and your faithfulness. My prayer today, God, is that you will help us to find that that community, that tribe of people where we don't have to do life alone. We don't have to do life with a thousand people, but not alone. And Lord, I pray that you will so overwhelm us with your love and with your joy that we will be excited to share what you're doing in us with others. I pray for the courage to take the next step and help us to see that next step. And I'm thankful for that. And I'm thankful for keeping us through this wonderful, wonderful book. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Well, my prayer for you is we read it one more time, is that this will be your reality, Romans 116. I am not ashamed of this good news about Christ. Why? Say it with me. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow for Judges chapter one.