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THE GOD OF PEACE 

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Rom. 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.

One of the sure evidences of my conversion was a new sense of peace that immediately took over my life. It was really quite comical, I had been a worrier all of my life. For whatever reason I was stuck on a negative, you might say pessimistic, bent very early in my life. I was sort of of the belief that if anything could go wrong it probably would. I would then find myself worrying about the different things that might go wrong. The Lord fixed that. Now don’t get me wrong, if I don’t keep my spiritual batteries charged I can still go negative really quickly. The point is this, there was an immediate, dramatic change in my life. Jesus became the God of peace in my life. Here are some thoughts on the God of peace from Matthew Henry.
“The titles he gives to God: The God of peace, the author and giver of all good. When we come to God for spiritual victories, we must not only eye him as the Lord of hosts, whose all power is, but as the God of peace, a God at peace with us, speaking peace to us, working peace in us, creating peace for us. Victory comes from God more as the God of peace than as the God of war; for, in all our conflicts, peace is the thing we must contend for. God, as the God of peace, will restrain and vanquish all those that cause divisions and offenses, and so break and disturb the peace of the church.”
Matthew Henry has a great understanding of this supernatural peace that God gives. He says first that He is at peace with us. How did this happen? He removed the barrier to our peace with God which was our sin. Since we are justified by faith in His sacrificial blood, we have peace with God. He also speaks peace to us, the word of God is filled with promises that quiet the storms in our lives. Bask in His word and peace will comfort your soul. He works peace in us, Christ is the Prince of Peace and His Spirit inhabits us filling our whole being with a supernatural peace that cannot be described. Finally, He creates peace for us. He goes before us and defeats our enemies. No weapon formed against us will prosper. Wow, the God of Peace is crushing Satan under our feet.

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THE DEACONESS

THE DEACONESS

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.
Rom.16:1,2

Women have fulfilled some of the most important positions and functions throughout the history of the church. In today’s verse we meet Phoebe, one of the leaders in the church in Cenchreae. Paul acknowledged her in his letter to the church in Rome, setting her up as example not only in Cenchreae, but everywhere the Bible has gone in these last 2000 years. He used two words to describe the work of Phoebe in the church. The first word was servant or diakonos, the very word we get deacon from. This is Thayer’s wordbook’s definition for diakonos

servant
– deacon, deaconess
one who executes the commands of another, especially of a master, a servant, attendant, minister
a deacon, one who, by virtue of the office assigned to him by the church, cares for the poor and has charge of and distributes the money collected for their use.

The second word Paul used was patron or prostates. The KJV translates this word succorer.
Here is Thayer’s definition.
patron – succorer
a person who supports with money, gifts, efforts, or endorsement an artist, writer, museum, cause, charity, institution, special event, or the like: a patron of the arts.

Phoebe was a very important part of the local church in Cenchcreae, her gifts were able to enable and support the work of the ministry. We are grateful to God for all of the powerful women of God in our church. They are preachers, administrators, exhorters, soul winners, prophetesses, helpers, business women, givers, worshipers, teachers, mothers, and wives. Women play a critical role in the work of God, what a shame some want to put a religious yoke on fifty per cent of the body of Christ.