In our last fellowship concerning church service we saw clearly that our need is to serve firstly as a priest, then as a servant, and finally as a slave. All of our service must minister Christ to others and build up the organic Body of Christ. In this message we want to fellowship concerning serving unto the mystery of the faith. As the subject of this message indicates, our service must have a result. No one would serve without a goal, and our service does have a goal. Yet we, including the elders, may be so busy serving that we forget the goal.
In Romans 16:1 Paul mentioned the name of a particular sister, Phoebe, who was a deaconess of the church at Cenchrea. Because Cenchrea was not a large city, the church there must have been small. Yet in such a small church there was a sister, a deaconess, who served that church. The first two verses of Romans 16 show us that Paul highly recommended her, because he used the word patroness. This word has bothered almost all of the translators because it is difficult to find an English equivalent.
According to Roman custom, a patron in the Roman Empire was one who served others and took care of all of their needs. At that time even an attorney was called a patron. This word was also used to indicate either a female nurse or a male nurse. The Greek lexicon tells us that this title is a title of dignity.
A patroness denotes one who helps, sustains, and supplies. First, she helps in an all-inclusive way. When you are sick, she serves you and takes care of your meals. If you are weak and cannot walk, she walks with you. She also sustains and supplies you like today’s nurses. It is not so easy to be a nurse because it is so bothersome. From head to toe, everything must be done for the patient.
In the United States the young girls do not like to study nursing because the job is too bothersome and time-consuming. Whether it is convenient or not, nurses serve day and night.
Today the immigration service is open to foreign nurses to come to this country because the United States is short of nurses. Few are willing to serve as nurses because it is so bothersome.
The most flourishing church is a church full of serving ones. Today, since we are taking care of the increase of the Body of Christ so much, we are promoting the gospel visitation and home meetings in order to gain the remaining fruit. But the most effective item in our church life is to serve people. By serving we will keep the people and preserve the people. Every human being loves to be served by others. To serve just means to love. We must love others.
Especially in the United States today, everybody is in need. So the best way to visit people to preach the gospel is to serve them. In Seoul, Korea, there is a large church with a membership in the thousands. One of the ways that they gain their increase is to charge the sisters who do not work to serve at the entrance of the elevators when a number of housewives are returning home from grocery shopping with bags of groceries and one or two children. These church sisters would immediately render some help to take care of their children and carry their grocery bags. By that little service, they touch the hearts of the ladies and are able to obtain their names and telephone numbers. They also use this time to preach the gospel to them. In this way the doors of their homes will be opened.
Another way to reach people for the gospel is to take care of our neighbors. Among the neighbors some may be sick and even crippled. We can take care of at least some of their needs. This is the best time to gain people. Even among the saints in the church, a number do need help. If we serve them with love, we will surely edify them. We can take the opportunity to speak a word to them from the Bible. By serving them, we can easily deposit something into them. If we only speak a word and do not serve them, it is rather difficult to impart and infuse them with something. We must touch people’s heart by serving in many ways. Sister Phoebe in Cenchrea was such a person. Otherwise, Paul would not have recommended her so highly.