What Does Myanmar Have in Common with Massachusetts?

 Lum Gyung, wife Daung Naw, son Chris Gyung Khaung, and daughter Keziah Gyung Naw before Adoniram Judson’s home, 145 Main St., Malden, MA

 Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and formerly referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989) is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and has a population of about 55 million. About 6.2% claim to be Christian (United States Pew Research Center 2019). Myanmar is bordered by India and Bangladesh to the northwest, China to the northeast, Laos and Thailand to the east and southeast.[1] We were reminded last November when Lum Gyung from Myanmar came into the Boston campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in order to help Aida with  technical help for her New Testament Interpretation zoom class that Myanmar and Massachusetts are closely tied together today as they were in the past.

An important missionary to Myanmar was Adoniram Judson and his family. The founder of Gordon Divinity School was named after him at his birth, as Adoniram Judson Gordon. Adoniram Judson was born in 1788 (died in 1850) in Malden, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was born to Abigail Brown and Adoniram Judson Sr., a Congregational minister. Judson Jr. attended the Andover Theological Seminary. In 1808, Judson "made a solemn dedication of himself to God." During his final year at the school, Judson decided upon a missionary career.[2]  

In 1810, Judson joined a group of mission-minded students who called themselves "The Brethren." These students inspired the establishment of America's first organized missionary society. Eager to serve abroad, Judson became convinced that "Asia with its idolatrous myriads, was the most important field in the world for missionary effort." He, and three other students from the seminary, appeared before the Congregationalists' General Association to appeal for support. In 1810, the elders voted to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was appointed by them as a missionary to the East. Judson was also commissioned by the Congregational Church, and married Ann Hasseltine on February 5, 1812. He was ordained the next day at the Tabernacle Church in Salem, MA. In 1813, Judson and his wife, Ann, moved to Burma. He was 25 years old. Judson served as an American Particular Baptist missionary in Burma for almost 40 years. His mission work with Luther Rice led to the establishment of the American Baptist Churches USA.

First attempts by the Judsons to interest the natives of Rangoon with the Gospel of Jesus met with almost total indifference. Buddhist traditions and the Burmese worldview at that time led many to disregard the pleadings of Adoniram and his wife to believe in one living and all-powerful God. Nevertheless, the first believer was baptized in 1819, and there were 18 believers by 1822. The progress of Christianity would continue to be slow with much risk of endangerment and death in the Burmese Empire. George H. Hough in 1817 produced the first published materials in Burmese that were printed in Burma, which included 800 copies of Judson's translation of the Gospel of Matthew. By 1823, ten years after his arrival, Judson finished the first draft of his translation of the New Testament in Burmese. When Judson finished translating the entire Bible into Burmese, it was printed and published in 1835.

Judson compiled the first ever Burmese-English dictionary (missionary E. A. Steven completed the English-Burmese half). Every dictionary and grammar written in Burma in the last two centuries has been based on those originally created by Judson. Though the Bible has been translated numerous times into Burmese, Judson's translation remains the most popular version in Myanmar.

Each July, Baptist churches in Myanmar celebrate "Judson Day," commemorating his arrival as a missionary. Inside the campus of Yangon University is Judson Church, named in his honor, and in 1920 Judson College, also named in his honor, merged into Rangoon College, which has since been renamed Yangon University.[3] 

Judson was the first missionary to make contact with the Karen people in 1827, when he ransomed and freed a debt-slave. This act of social justice then led to spiritual renewal of an individual and then a nation. The freed slave, Saw Ko Tha Byu, was an illiterate, surly man who spoke almost no Burmese and was reputed to be not only a thief, but also a murderer who admitted killing at least 30 men.

In 1828, the former Karen bandit was sent south with a new missionary couple, George and Sarah Boardman, into the territory of the strongly animistic, non-Buddhist Karen. Ko Tha Byu was no sooner baptized, when he set off into the jungle alone to preach to his fellow tribe members. Astonishingly, he found them prepared for his preaching. Their ancient oracle traditions, handed down for centuries, contained some startling echoes of the Old Testament so that some scholars conjecture a linkage with Jewish communities (or possibly even Nestorians), before their migrations from western China into Burma.

The core of what they called their "Tradition of the Elders" was a belief in one true God, unchangeable, eternal, all-powerful, creator of heaven and earth, of man, and of woman formed from a rib taken from the man. They believed in humanity's temptation by a devil in a garden, and its fall, and that some day a Great Messiah would come to its rescue. They lived in expectation of a prophecy that white foreigners would bring them a sacred parchment roll.[4]

By 2006, Myanmar had the third largest number of Baptists[5] worldwide, behind the United States and India. The majority of adherents are Karen, Kachin and Chin. The Karen population has spread around the world, to Thailand, United States, Australia, Canada, and India. Among the total 3,371,100 in Myanmar, an estimated 50% of Karen are Christian.[6]

The tribe to which Lum Gyung belongs is the Lhaovo ethnic group from the northern part of Myanmar (the Kachin State). He and his parents are Christians. His grandparents were converted from worship of their great-great grandfather’s spirit (Nat), who had died from the attack of a wild animal. Lum attends the Lynn Myanmar Christian fellowship, one of three Myanmar community churches in Massachusetts (two others are in Lowell and Boston).

Lum came to study at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA in 2023 and completed his Masters in Christian Ministries in 2026. He explains that: “Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (GCTS) is one of the best seminaries in the US which provides the best education for diverse ministry fields not only domestically but also internationally. In our country’s context, the GCTS alumni from Myanmar are most effective and successful missionaries and pastors nationwide, which means the seminary offers outstanding training.”

In 2024-25, these community churches dedicated themselves to purchase the home of Judson’s birthplace in order to preserve the heritage of the first missionary and Bible translator to the Myanmar (Burmese) people.[7] Judson’s motto was “devoted for life” and his biblical foundation came from Matthew 28:18-20: “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” (KJV).

Judson dedicated his whole life for the people of Burma to see the Light, despite much hardship, heartbreak, suffering, losses, and great challenges. Judson was prepared by God and by his Christian family and friends in Malden, thus the house is a symbol of faith, dedication, sacrifice, love, and obeying God’s command to go to all nations to baptize and teach. As Jesus was with his early disciples in Jerusalem and throughout the ancient world and with Judson in Burma, so too he is present today with the Burmese descendants of those early converts to Christianity.

Aida with Lum Gyung

 

 

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[1] “Myanmar,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar.

[2] “Adoniram Judson,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoniram_Judson.

[3] Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoniram_Judson. See also Rosalie Hall Hunt, Bless God and Take Courage: The Judson History and Legacy (Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 2005).

[4] See Don Richardson, Eternity in Their Hearts, 3^rd ed. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2006), ch. 2.

[5]  The Karen Baptist Convention in 2025 notes that it has 337,682 baptized members, https://kbcm1913.org/.; About Us.

[6] There are many different Karen peoples in Myanmar. The two largest are the Sgaw Karen (2.1 million total pop.) and the Eastern Pwo Karen (1.2 million). Together, the World Christian Database reports they are 51% Christian. If you add in the other Karen peoples, the percentage drops closer to 30%. Gina A. Zurlo, ed. World Christian Database (Brill, accessed December 2025). “Karen people,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_people.

[7] “Ribbon-Cutting Celebrates Opening of Adoniram Judson Heritage Center,” City of Malden News, Posted on August 13, 2025, https://www.cityofmalden.org/m/newsflash/home/detail/1090; Leon H Abdalian, “Preserving History and Protecting Heritage,” https://www.judsonheritage.org/restoration.

The Atomic Madonna and the Prince of Peace: A Christmas Message

 

At this frantic and special advent season, meditating on art may help us pause and contemplate the birth and message of Jesus Christ. Painter Harriet Lorence Nesbitt, in this piece, The Atomic Madonna, depicts Mary praying with the peace that passes all understanding in the presence of the calm baby Jesus, despite a detonated atomic mushroom cloud festooning above a set of buildings behind her.[1] The artist is indicating why we need so desperately the peace she draws from the Prince of Peace.

Worthy to note is the cartoonish quality of this painting, which is the way she presents all her subjects, a distinguishing element about her pictures that makes them identifiable. They are reminiscent of political cartoons. This makes sense, since she did serve the Murry Hill News with the column “Politics and Such.” One reason why her work stays in vogue, full of political opinions and artfully presented, is that the rise of the graphic novel earned profound respect in 1992, when Maus, a “graphic memoir” of the Holocaust, told through the vehicle of a paneled art cat-and-mouse tale, won the Pulitzer Prize’s “Special award in letters,” as well as the American Book Award. On December 16, 2013, Harriet was honored by the Southern California Motion Picture Council with its Golden Halo award “for artistic excellence,” for a painting that “visually illustrates the conviction that drawing on God’s grace in a natural disaster creates a mutually supportive human community,” a value that the Southern California Motion Picture Council has championed “unwaveringly since 1936: to produce art that is civic minded, educational, cultural and family oriented” through “the twin media of film and visual art,” striving “to make a difference in this world.”[2]

Harriet, too, had begun “drawing on God’s grace” to combat disasters both personal and communal. For her, by this time, Jesus had become more than simply the Christmas baby in the obscure manger; he and his mother were now personal. Our friend and fellow author and editor Jeanne DeFazio explains, “My favorite times with Harriet were going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art [in New York]. She knew every painting. Bellini’s Madonna and Child inspired her to create The Atomic Madonna. It is a self-portrait of Harriet and her son Larry. The contrast of the prince of peace and his mother with the nuclear mushroom cloud in the background depicts her concern for the danger of nuclear war and annihilation.”[3] When she modeled herself on Mary and the baby Jesus on her son, Larry had already died.

His mother, identifying with Mary’s pain in the loss of her son, was now focusing her own hope for the restoration of our world gone awry on Jesus the Christ (that is,  “messiah,” God’s Anointed One), risen from the dead, the promise of grace, embodying the hope of reconciling humanity to the redeeming God, as Jesus (whose name means “salvation”) was given as God’s gift to redeem humanity (John 3:16), leading and inspiring us all to do works of mercy and reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:17-20). God had graced earth with the incarnate Jesus, the greatest of all reformers, whose selfless sacrifice on behalf of humanity struck at the mushrooming symbol of the evil which is itself the root of human misery and suffering. In Harriet Nesbitt’s time, the atomic bond was what struck all hearts with terror as the ultimate image of evil.

The Atomic Madonna was her response. The divine tranquility of the ultimate gift of God, the eternal Savior, incarnated as a human, brought the peace of heaven to humanity.

This divine solution united both Harriet and the Southern California Motion Picture Council in their agreement that disaster demands human response, drawing on God’s grace for empowerment by modeling on Christ’s example to do what we can to help alleviate suffering around us, as God chooses to work through our good acts, employing fellow humans to reconcile this fallen world to God’s grace.

Had Harriet Nesbitt painted her vision-driven works in the late nineteenth century, she might have been called a realist, as opposed to a naturalist. For, in the Atomic Madonna, she is telling her viewers that overpowering nature or warmongers who seek to rule and destroy humanity is the calling of humans who want to live. The message in Harriot’s paintings and in the tribute to them, Jeanne’s book Keeping the Dream Alive, is that all those who love the good and want to live significant lives in its behalf is not to give in to evil, but to oppose those who wreak devastation and combat their threats not by doing more violence but by protecting civilization, through  promoting the positive and moral use of science, using political positions to free and advance oppressed people, musicians sponsoring harmony, and all human leaders accepting the task to bring about positive change by addressing challenging events that would disrupt such forward progress in each of their spheres, and accordingly receive well-earned honor for their triumphs.

In her vision, the task of the leaders she celebrates in her art is to tame natural forces and bring negative influences under control, in order to promote a good government for the population that desires and trusts positive, not negative, leaders. Thus, her work seeks to encourage leaders to combat and conquer all threatening chaos to restore order, an order that takes into account a wide variety of recipients and provides a freer form for all earth’s inhabitants than merely making cartographic map lines to demarcate turf and territory, such as fascism grants, as represented in her ever-present settings of urban scenes, for the city is where people gather for community, interconnection, and safe living.

So strong was this vision and her identification with the efficacy of God’s grace that she created a microcosmic parallel to the macrocosmic sacrifice of Jesus by infusing a corresponding redemptive dimension into the death of her younger son. To do this she stepped from the realm of art, fulfilling her identification with Mary in the Atomic Madonna, by becoming herself what she had admired in others, an active reformer.

She created her own organization, founding Mothers for more Halfway Houses, explaining to her Linked-in audience, “I am an advocate for the mentally ill, an artist as well as a political columnist.” She could not have expressed her vision more clearly by word or action. She had, in effect, become one of her own subjects, what she admired most in those heroes she painted. She was now herself a leader in bringing positive order to the threatened lives of others in the real world as an agent of reconciliation of the great Reconciler to this fallen world.

In this light, her lasting message in The Atomic Madonna is that, no matter how great the power that evil can muster, an even greater eternal power is the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7), centered in the gift of God in Jesus Christ, Immanuel: God-Among-Us (the child prophesied in Isaiah 7:14, identified as Jesus in Matthew’s gospel 1:23). This baby, having come to his human mother Mary through the Holy Spirit, was nurtured by Mary in our world gone awry. He would grow as a human, who was also God to nurture all who would join his mission to spread that nurturing in spiritual as well as physical dimensions to others. And, thereby, he would fulfill his holy task of bringing to all who would follow him our heavenly Father’s healing and eternal peace.

Bill

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[1] This blog post has been adapted from my afterword in Jeanne C. DeFazio, Keeping the Dream Alive: A Reflection on the Art of Harriot Lorence Nesbitt (Eugene, OR: Resource Publications of Wipf and Stock, 2019). See also Harriot’s portrayals of leaders and Jeanne DeFazio’s comments on each painting.

[2] DeFazio, Keeping the Dream Alive, 27.

[3] Jeanne DeFazio, Keeping the Dream Alive, 21, referring to an interview by email, April 30, 2019.

 

 

Prisca Welcomes Phoebe to Rome (Romans 16:1-16) monologue

 

picture from Priscilla's Catacomb in Rome by Aida Besancon Spencer

 

Please take a seat.

Thank you, Phoebe (Foibē),[1] for bringing us Paul’s (Paulos’) letter. I can see why the church appointed you as minister.[2] You did a wonderful job reading and then explaining Paul’s letter to us. We needed his message to us: for Jew and Gentile to live in harmony with one another since the gospel is God’s power for salvation to everyone believing. The Holy Spirit certainly inspired Paul. It is going to take you weeks, no months, to teach us its meanings.

Of course, you are going to stay at our villa the whole time, (we insist!) or, if you have to go to the city, we have our small place there.

“Akulas, bring us some fruits ([to Phoebe] right from our own garden)!”[3]

We need teaching leaders like yourself here in Rome, especially someone as experienced as yourself.

Cenchreae is such a lovely port, but so many earthquakes! Some day the whole city is going to go under the ocean!

I am so embarrassed about all the wonderful things Paul said about me and Aquila (Akula). Yes, we’ve known Paul for many years. We met him in Corinth (Korinthos) about 5 years ago, when the emperor Claudius picked us as part of the Jewish troublemakers. Yes, we spoke out to defend Jesus (Iēsous) as the promised Messiah and our Jewish compatriots were furious!

Aquila met Paul at the synagogue in Corinth. Both were sitting in the tentmakers’ section on the sabbath. That’s such a great way to meet fellow tentmakers. We needed more help for our new business in Corinth and when Paul came along the Lord brought us not only an experienced tentmaker but also a beloved brother and coworker in Christ. We have been serving Jesus Christ (Iēsous Christos) together ever since Paul stayed with us in Corinth; we slept in the loft, while he slept downstairs among the tools. We needed some privacy, and he didn’t mind.

We are so embarrassed by the compliments he gave us!

(pause)

You don’t know the details of what happened in Corinth, although you were not living far from us, just 7 miles east?

Once the ministry at Corinth escalated, Paul decided to move in with Titius Justus (Ioustos) (Acts 18:7). He was a new convert, a Gentile, and had a large villa where Paul could continue his teaching. Titius’ house was right next to the synagogue. It was so convenient and so daring! You, of course, know that the synagogue leader Crispus became a believer and his whole household—his wife, adult children, and all his workers. So many of the Corinthians were welcoming Jesus as the promised Messiah! And they were all being baptized! Whole households were dedicating themselves to ministry, like Stefana’s household.

Meanwhile, we had rented a larger place so that we could start a church where we would regularly disciple the new believers. Aquila and I still attended the synagogue on the sabbath, but then in the first day of the week, Dies Solis, in the evening we met in our villa.

Paul had been warned by the Lord through a dream of trouble to come but the Lord comforted him by promising him: “Don’t keep on being afraid but keep on speaking and do not become silent, for I myself am with you and no one will attack you in order to harm you, for many people are mine in this city” (Acts 18:9-10).

Yes, I have the message memorized!

Paul remembered exactly what he was told and we all memorized it, as well.

As you know, Luke (Loukas) is writing down all the Lord Jesus’s works among us.

Everything was peaceful for a year and a half!

But when proconsul Gallio (Galliōnos) arrived from Rome, the other Jewish religious leaders went to Gallio with a complaint against Paul that he was teaching the people against the law. Paul was going to have to argue at the prominent bema at the center of the city.

Were you there?

When Aquila and I heard what was going to happen, we decided to visit Gallio at his villa.

You might know that we are both senatorial rank. We knew Lucius Annaeus Novatus Galliōnos in Rome. Yes, that was his name before Lucius Junius Gallio adopted him. You know that the philosopher and orator Seneca is his brother?[4] How do you think he got this position? Gallio is from Spain, but, when adults, he and his brother moved to Rome. Seneca is a sensible man, but not so Gallio. He can be brutal!

Aquila and I thought that the Lord urged us to visit Gallio to prepare him (and maybe convert him?). He received us graciously enough. After some preliminary general comments, we began right away to explain about the different interpretations Jews have from the writings and prophets about Jesus and how that affected our way of life.

Phoebe, just like you, we feel freed by the Messiah to eat with Gentiles and eat their foods.

Well, Gallio got furious!

He said he had been hearing about these superstitions about Chrestus (he couldn’t even get Christ’s name right!) in Rome and about Romans becoming atheists—not having any idols in their homes—and abandoning the Roman ways of life. We were afraid he might have us taken to Rome and be executed!

No, Paul was not there! That would not have been wise.

But, we calmed Gallio down and explained we do believe in God, only one God, but our God is invisible but he became visible in Jesus.

No, we never met Jesus, we told him, but we met many eyewitnesses of his birth, life, and resurrection from the dead.

Gallio did not want to hear any more.

He had us dismissed.

We didn’t know what was going to happen at the tribunal.

The next week the Jews forced Paul to go with them. Gallio then appeared onto the tribunal all with great aplomb. After the complaint that Paul was teaching behavior contrary to the law, wrong ways to worship God, Gallio wouldn’t even let Paul open his mouth. Gallio interrupted Paul as he tried to defend himself!

Gallio proclaimed: “If there was any legal wrong to the state or an act of a criminal, O Jews, I would be justified in accepting your complaint. On the other hand, if these are questions concerning your teaching and names and matters of your law, see to it yourselves; I myself do not plan to be a judge of these matters!” (Acts 18:14-15)

Gallio had the guards drive away all the Jews, including Paul and ourselves and the new believers. Other Jews, who had also complained to Gallio, then turned against Sosthenes (Sōsthenēs), who had become the new synagogue ruler, and began to beat him right there and then. They blamed him for the judgment not going well and enacted their own judgment. And, ironically, Sosthenes too became a believer (1 Cor 1:1). He thought: “I’ve already been persecuted, I survived, so I may as well join them!”

Paul gave Aquila and me credit for softening Gallio’s approach to the situation.

(Yes, we also talked to the Asiarchs in Ephesus not to persecute Paul, but I don’t think Paul referred to that situation [Acts 19:31]).[5]

We were able to continue our ministry for a while.

When Paul decided to go back to his home church, Antioch (Antiocheia), he asked us to come with him. We made a great team!

He debated in the public places, while we led the church discipling and teaching, especially for the Gentiles, how Jesus was the promised Messiah and what that meant for a change of life:

One God—no more need of other deities;

How the resurrected Jesus is now our high priest in heaven and creator of the world, whose death purified us, and who is greater than any angelic beings.[6]

Jesus is greater than Moses and Abraham and Melchizedek and the Levitical priests;

One man-one wife, no more mistresses and prostitutes and slave relations;

Any food was okay, but stay away from food offered to idols when the Romans make a point of enticing them;

To study God’s word and the Spirit’s revelations in our new covenant superior to the Jewish laws,

for Jew and Gentile to live in harmony because we are all made righteous by the same powerful God.

We urge the believers to meet regularly to encourage each other to remain faithful and not get sidetracked back into Roman pagan or even Jewish ways (Heb 10:24-25).

We retell all the examples of faithful believers from the writings so they can follow them.

We want the Gentiles and Jews to keep running the race with their eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith (Heb 12:1-2) and to persevere through any family or republic harassment and try to be at peace with all (Heb 12:14), to be hospitable to all, as we have modeled (Heb 13:7).

Of course, you are aware of all these teachings, being a minister yourself, and now our coworker.

I’m like you, Phoebe. We are in a new age where it will no longer be unusual for women to teach and prophecy. We are like judge Deborah and prophet Huldah, in the new-Spirit infused covenant!

The Holy Spirit is so present in every one of us, to empower us to serve God, if only we remain faithful!

Paul has confidence in us, as he does in you.  We were developing a church that met in our upper room at Ephesus. After Paul left for Antioch, we stayed on, but we also kept attending the synagogue services. Aquila also listens in and contributes at the men’s classes at the synagogue.

Aquila is such a stable and solid partner with me in ministry. He gives personal attention to the believers in our church and keeps getting contacts at the synagogue while I keep up the teachings. He heard a visitor from Alexandria who came to Ephesus named Apollos. He was a believer in Jesus on fire by the Spirit, teaching about Jesus but he did not know that John’s baptism was only preliminary to the real baptism, the one in the triune God, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. So, we brought Apollos to our villa and invited the church meeting with us to join. We weren’t going to disagree with him at the synagogue and ruin his whole testimony.

We taught him more specifically about baptism. That’s why Paul left us in Ephesus, to check on all the teaching, that it would be correct, although we were having some difficulties with believers who were too legalistic and too ascetic. Some people began to propose that marriage was all wrong, just as they thought in the Artemis cult (1 Tim 4:13).

We were distraught. However, when Emperor Claudius died in 54, 3 years ago, we just had to return to Rome, now that Jews were no longer restricted from living there. We didn’t know how our tentmaking business was going. We hadn’t heard anything recently from our workers. We were worried and so we returned to Rome. But everything was well! They were doing a great job!

But when we returned and many other Jews as well, we saw that the church was quite divided. The Gentiles were haughty that they had replaced the Jews on the Israelite vine (Rom 12:3), while the Jews thought they were superior as having been entrusted for hundreds of years (no-thousands!) with God’s oracles (Rom 3:2). We were all writing Paul about these problems.

We could see that Aquila and I were perfect for this ministry there in Rome and at the perfect time, as Jews who ministered to Gentiles! We began our own church, among all the others there in Rome.

Haughtiness and superiority have no place in God’s kingdom!

We taught the Gentiles that they should appreciate the Jews as God’s elect and the Jews that they should welcome God’s newest elect (Rom 11-12). Paul’s message is just what we all needed to hear.

Phoebe, we are so glad you are joining our team in Rome. Epaenetus (Epainetos) is also here, beloved by all of us in Rome. You know that he is the first fruit in Asia for Christ!

Mary (Maria) keeps working very hard among us. Andronicus (Andronikos) and Junia (Iounia) are like us, coworkers in ministry, who were imprisoned as Paul had been. They are apostles, eyewitnesses of Jesus’s life and resurrection (unlike us), believers for many years, even before Paul (Rom. 16:7). They were both present also at Pentecost (Acts 2:10). We’ve learned a lot from them.

I don’t know if you have found out yet that the Way has infiltrated into powerful places here in Rome? Your teachings are going to be welcomed in many places!

We have many believers in emperor Nero’s household[7]: Ampliatus (Ampliatos), Urbanus (Ourbanos), Stachys (Stachus), Apelles, the twin sisters Tryphaena (Trufaina) and Tryphosa (Trufōsa), Patrobas, Philologus, and also Nereus (Nēreas) and his sister.

We even have believers in Herod’s grandson, Aristobulus’ (Aristoboulos’) household, (Aristobulus was a good friend of Emperor Claudius), and of course Herodion (Hērōdiōn), and in Narcissus’ (Narkissos’) household. (He was quite powerful and wealthy).

We have believers from many foreign countries, not only Epaenetus from Asia (v. 5), but also Persis from Persia. And you know that Aquila’s family is from mountainous Pontus (Pontikos), near the Black Sea. Some of his relatives were also present at the filling of the Holy Spirit in Jerusalem, when they came there to celebrate Pentecost.

Julia used to be in Julius Caesar’s household. Rufus (Roufos) is in Rome now. His father Simon (Simōn) was chosen to carry Jesus’s cross for a while. What a testimony he gives! (Mark 15:21). His mother was a dear friend of Paul.

We treat our slaves Asyncritus (Asugkritos), Phlegon (Flegōn), Hermes, Hermas, Olympas (Olumpas) no longer as slaves but as beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord (Philem 16-19; 1 Cor 7:21). Aquila and I are working in a plan slowly to set up our slaves as free, with their own businesses, of course, working together with us in the tentmaking trade. ([to Akulas, the slave] Akulas! You’re next. You can do it, we will help you!)

In Rome, we have slaves and freed, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, Romans and barbarians, rich and poor, married and single, all together trying to become what God wants of us—to be united and faithful to God.  

We have a large body of believers here in Rome, more than in the port city of Cenchreae! You are going to enjoy working with us.

And, we do welcome you here among us!

Aída

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[1] The names in parenthesis are the Greek ones. This monologue was first preached at Pilgrim Church in Beverly, MA Oct. 19, 2025.

[2] See translation by Helen Barrett Montgomery, The New Testament in Modern English (Valley Forge: Judson, 1952), 434-435.

[3] https://www.learnancientrome.com/what-were-the-foods-served-at-banquet-in-ancient-rome/. Slaves or adopted persons often took the name of their masters.

[4] N.G.L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary, second ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), 456

[5] E. g., C.E.B Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle to the Romans, vol. 2, The International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1979 [1983], 785.

[6] The following content comes from the book of Hebrews, since Prisca, together with Aquila, may have written it. For arguments, see Von A. Harnack, “Probability about the Address and Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,” in Linda Starr, The Bible Status of Woman, Women in American Protestant Religion 1800-1930 (New York: Garland, 1926 {1987]), 892-415.

[7] See Phil 4:22; J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, Zondervan Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953 [1975]), 174-77; Cranfield, Romans, 790-95.