“Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my relatives. I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord. Gaius, my host and host of the whole assembly, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, as does Quartus, the brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”
Paul’s greetings have moved in two directions. He first addressed Christians in Rome by name, remembering people who had labored, suffered, served, and shared life with him. Now those who are with Paul send their greetings to the church receiving the letter.
These names are easy to pass over after the sustained argument of Romans, but Paul’s closing greetings show that the people surrounding him are not incidental to the ministry he has described. Timothy is his fellow worker. Gaius has opened his home to Paul and the church. Erastus carries responsibility within the city. Tertius has performed the physical work of writing the letter and, for one sentence, speaks in his own voice. Others are identified simply by name or relationship.
Together they give concrete form to something Paul has already taught about the church. The work of the gospel takes place through a body whose members do not all perform the same function. Paul possesses a distinctive apostolic calling, but his ministry has never been solitary. He travels with other believers, stays in their homes, works beside them, receives assistance from churches, depends upon their prayers, and dictates this letter through the hand of another Christian.
Romans closes among the kind of people Romans has described: different members serving according to what has been entrusted to them, joined together in Christ.
Timothy, My Fellow Worker
Romans 16:21
“Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my relatives.”
Timothy stands first among those sending greetings. Paul calls him “my fellow worker,” language that reflects a long history of shared ministry. Timothy had traveled with Paul, represented him among churches, participated in missionary work, and shared responsibility for congregations connected with that ministry.
Calling Timothy a fellow worker does not erase the distinction between their callings. Paul remains the apostle whose authority stands behind Romans, but that distinctive office does not require him to describe everyone else merely as an assistant to his ministry. Timothy genuinely works alongside him in the service of Christ.
The same pattern appears throughout Romans 16. Prisca and Aquila were called Paul’s fellow workers, as was Urbanus. Christian ministry is not presented as the achievement of one unusually gifted individual whose importance reduces everyone around him to supporting roles. Paul readily recognizes the work of others as genuine participation in the ministry of the gospel.
Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater also send greetings. Paul calls them his relatives or kinsmen, but he gives no further explanation of their relationship or their particular work. There is little value in attempting to construct biographies from information Paul does not provide. For his purpose here, their presence among the Christians surrounding him is enough.
They may not know many of the believers in Rome personally, but they greet them because fellowship in Christ extends beyond existing friendships. Christians can recognize people they have never met as members of the same people because their relationship begins with the Lord to whom they all belong.
I, Tertius, Who Write the Letter
Romans 16:22
“I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord.”
For one sentence, another voice appears in the letter. Paul is the author of Romans, but Tertius is the man who has physically written it as Paul dictated. Here the scribe who has spent the letter recording another man’s words adds his own greeting.
The verse gives a brief glimpse of the ordinary human work involved in producing Romans. The theological argument is Paul’s, yet the letter through which he explained the righteousness of God, justification by faith, life in Christ and the Spirit, God’s faithfulness concerning Israel, and Christian obedience was written out by the hand of another believer.
That practical contribution belongs naturally within Paul’s understanding of the body. Romans 12 taught that the members do not all possess the same function and that believers should faithfully use what God has given them. Romans 16 now places different kinds of service before us in actual people. Some have traveled with Paul, some have opened their homes, some have endured imprisonment, and Tertius has written.
The significance of his work does not require turning it into something more impressive than it was. Tertius served by doing the work actually placed before him, and that work became part of the means through which Romans reached the church.
His personal greeting also makes clear that he is more than the mechanical instrument through which Paul’s words reached the page. “I, Tertius” greets the Romans “in the Lord.” The man holding the pen and the people who will eventually hear its words read aloud already share a relationship in Christ.
My Host and Host of the Whole Assembly
Romans 16:23
“Gaius, my host and host of the whole assembly, greets you.”
Gaius sends his greeting from a home already being used in the service of other Christians. Paul calls him both “my host” and host “of the whole assembly,” indicating that the hospitality extended personally to Paul also serves the wider church.
That description gives concrete form to the instruction of Romans 12:13 to pursue hospitality. Prisca and Aquila have already appeared as believers whose house serves as a gathering place for the church in Rome. Gaius now appears among the Christians with Paul using his home for a similar purpose.
Such hospitality required more than a friendly disposition. Opening a household to the church meant placing real resources at the service of other people. Space, food, time, privacy, and the ordinary routines of a home were affected when that home became a place where Christians gathered and travelers such as Paul stayed.
Paul himself is benefiting from that generosity while sending the greeting. The apostle who has called Christians to present themselves to God and use their gifts for the good of the body is living within the hospitality of another believer.
Gaius does not need an apostolic office or a public teaching ministry for his service to matter. What he possesses has become available to the church, and through that ordinary generosity he participates in the work taking place around him.
Erastus and Quartus
Romans 16:23
“Erastus, the treasurer of the city, greets you, as does Quartus, the brother.”
Erastus is distinguished from the others by his civic responsibility. Paul identifies him as “the treasurer of the city,” showing a Christian occupying a position within the ordinary administration of civic life.
Nothing in the greeting suggests that such responsibility stands in tension with belonging to Christ. Romans 13 did not call Christians to withdraw from civil society but instructed them how to live faithfully within a world where governing authorities and public institutions continue to function. Erastus belongs to the church while also carrying responsibilities within the city.
His position, however, gives him no different standing in the fellowship Paul describes. He appears among missionaries, hosts, laborers, former prisoners, household gatherings, and Christians whose occupations Paul never mentions. The gospel does not require everyone to occupy the same social position before they can belong to the same body.
The contrast with the next name is particularly striking. Erastus receives a civic title; Quartus is simply “the brother.” Paul tells us nothing about Quartus’s occupation, ministry, history, or accomplishments. He does not need to. His relationship to the people of God is sufficient identification.
The difference between the two men captures something Romans has argued from its opening chapters. Human distinctions remain real, but they cannot determine standing before God or membership among his people. One man may be known by an important civic office and another only as a brother, yet both send their greeting from within the same fellowship created by Christ.
The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ
Romans 16:24
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”
Paul again places the church beneath the grace of Christ. The blessing is fitting after a series of greetings that has brought together people differing in ethnicity, history, occupation, social position, and form of service.
Those differences have not disappeared. Paul has no need to pretend that Timothy and Quartus occupy the same role, that Erastus and Tertius possess the same responsibilities, or that Gaius serves in the same manner as the people traveling with Paul. Their unity does not depend upon making their lives identical.
It rests upon grace.
Romans has spent sixteen chapters removing every possible ground for boasting before God. Jew and Gentile alike stand under sin. Justification is received through faith rather than earned by works. Life in Christ is the result of mercy. Even the service Christians offer to God follows the grace they have already received.
The people exchanging greetings at the end of the letter stand within that same order. Timothy and Tertius, Gaius and Erastus, Prisca and Aquila, Phoebe and Mary, the strong and the weak, Jewish and Gentile believers, people with recognizable positions and people known only as brothers and sisters all depend upon the same Lord.
Paul therefore does not reserve the blessing for those whose ministry appears most important. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ” is to be with them all. The grace that brought them into Christ remains the grace in which their shared life continues.
Fellow Workers Whose Names Matter
Romans 16:21–24 gives us a brief view of the Christian community surrounding Paul as the letter approaches its conclusion. Romans bears Paul’s apostolic authority, but it was written within a network of believers whose different forms of service supported the life and mission of the church. Timothy works beside Paul, Tertius writes the letter, Gaius opens his home, and Erastus serves within the civic life of the city. Lucius, Jason, Sosipater, and Quartus belong to the same fellowship even where Paul gives us little information about what they did.
Their differences reflect the picture of the church Paul gave in Romans 12. One body contains many members, and the members do not all have the same function. By Romans 16, those members are no longer merely part of an illustration. They have names, relationships, homes, occupations, histories, and particular forms of service.
Paul’s distinctive calling does not make those contributions insignificant. His ministry has moved through churches that supported him, households that received him, believers who traveled beside him, Christians who prayed for him, and people who performed practical work necessary for the gospel to continue moving. Romans itself reached the page through the hand of Tertius while Paul enjoyed the hospitality of Gaius.
Nor does Paul attempt to make every person memorable by attaching an extraordinary story to his name. Some had done remarkable things that Paul records. Others are simply present among the saints. Quartus is “the brother,” and that is enough. His place among God’s people rests upon Christ rather than upon whether history remembers anything else about him.
The closing greetings therefore reinforce rather than interrupt the argument of Romans. The gospel that justifies sinners also creates a people, and the mercy that places them within that people reshapes how they understand their lives in relation to one another. Different gifts, responsibilities, resources, and circumstances become means of serving within the same body.
Paul names these believers because the gospel has never advanced as an abstraction. It has moved through actual people serving Christ and one another in whatever circumstances were given to them. Some preached and traveled. Some wrote. Some hosted. Some served in public office. Others left behind little more than a name.
All belonged to Christ.
And all stood beneath the same grace.