The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.
The letter to Corinth ends the way Paul's letters often do — with names, greetings, and a household. Behind these few words stand a whole province of believers and a couple who kept moving house. They also raise a question that still matters: what is "the church in their house"?
Why the letter ends with greetings
These greetings are not filler. One writer explains why Paul ended his letters this way:
Arthur PridhamHe wrote from God, in the name and power of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet he also wrote in the communion of the one Spirit who lives in the entire body. Such messages of love, therefore, are natural and fitting ornaments to the writings they are attached to. He had boasted among the Asians about the Lord's work in Achaia. Now the Asian churches make him the carrier of their loving greetings to brothers and fellow believers they had never met.
This was not a one-off courtesy. Letters and travelling servants kept the assemblies in touch:
Samuel RidoutIt is interesting and refreshing to notice the greeting sent by the apostle from one assembly to another at the close of his letters. These greetings went not only to and from individual believers, but to and from all the saints… Titus, Timothy, Apollos, and other servants of the Lord passed from one assembly to another. They carried news of joys and sorrows, and in practice linked the Lord's beloved people together.
"The churches of Asia" — the plural of a region
Scripture uses "church" in more than one way. Here the plural covers all the assemblies of one region. Asia was one such region; Corinth lay in another, Achaia.
Samuel RidoutWe have the plural, "Churches," giving us the gatherings of any one country taken together: Judea (Acts 9:31), Galatia (Gal. 1:2), Asia (1 Cor. 16:19), and Macedonia (2 Cor. 8:1).
What "the church in their house" meant
Read with today's meaning of "church," the phrase suggests a building inside a house. It meant something else:
Frank WallaceWell, if we used the normal meaning of the word they must have had a very large house to have a church inside it. But of course that is not the idea at all. In their house a company of people gathered together. A collection of called-out persons met in the house of Aquila and Priscilla. They worshipped the Lord there, they met for prayer, they met to read the word of God, they met to do the things that were pleasing to God and to Christ.
The custom itself had a simple explanation:
William KellyIt seems to me a mistake to think that the words "church" or "assembly" here name a single family. The truth is that this godly pair seem to have opened their house regularly for the saints to gather, wherever they lived — in Ephesus or in Rome. That was how it was in those early days. True unity prevailed, and Christians had no large buildings to hold crowds.
Several meeting places, one assembly in the city
Saints in Ephesus met in more than one house. That never split the city's assembly into "assemblies."
William KellyThe Holy Spirit is one, and He stamps unity on all saints here below. So there is care in a place like Ephesus — not to hinder saints gathering to the Lord's name in more houses than one, but also to guard them all in unity. There may be the assembly here or the assembly there. But the whole body of the saints in the place were "the assembly in Ephesus," never the assemblies in it or of it.
A couple whose home followed them
Aquila and Prisca — also called Priscilla — kept moving from city to city:
Arno Clemens GaebeleinThis interesting couple had settled in Corinth… From 1 Corinthians 16:19 we learn that they were still there [in Ephesus] when that letter was written. But writing to the Romans, Paul says, "Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus." So they had made their way back to Rome and were in happy fellowship with the Roman assembly. 2 Timothy 4:19 tells us that once more they were back in Ephesus… They were indeed strangers and pilgrims. But they were blessed to know that their wanderings were by the Lord.
Why their greeting is warmer than the rest
Where the ESV has "hearty greetings in the Lord," older translations read "much in the Lord." Aquila and Prisca knew Corinth personally, so their greeting is warmer than the general one:
William KellyAquila and his wife greet the Corinthian saints "much in the Lord," unlike the more general greeting of "all the brothers" or of the Asian assemblies. This is easily understood from their personal acquaintance with the capital of Achaia. But the manner of greeting commanded here, as to the Romans, points to the warm but holy affection that then bound the saints together as saints. So it should always be in a world where sin brings in distance or corruption.
Summary
- One house. Their home was not a family called a church. It was where called-out people met to worship, pray and read God's word.
- Any city. Corinth, Ephesus, Rome, Ephesus again — wherever they moved, the same door opened. Their wanderings were by the Lord.
- One assembly. Several meeting places in one city never made several assemblies. The saints of Ephesus were "the assembly in Ephesus," never the assemblies of it.
- One province. From that one house the greeting widens. The churches of Asia sent love to believers in Achaia they had never met.
- One love. Their greeting is "hearty" because they knew these believers. Such holy love should still bind saints in a world that pulls them apart.