Passage

Romans 16.23

Book: Romans · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

ASV

21. Timothy my fellow-worker saluteth you; and Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my kinsmen. 22. I Tertius, who write the epistle, salute you in the Lord.

23. Gaius my host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the treasurer of the city saluteth you, and Quartus the brother.

Now to him that is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through times eternal, (Romans 16:21-25, ASV)

WEB

21. Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you, as do Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my relatives. 22. I, Tertius, who write the letter, greet you in the Lord.

23. 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. (Romans 16:21-25, WEB)

KJV

21. Timotheus my workfellow, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kinsmen, salute you. 22. I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord.

23. Gaius mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city saluteth you, and Quartus a brother.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. 25. Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, (Romans 16:21-25, KJV)

YLT

21. Salute you do Timotheus, my fellow-workman, and Lucius, and Jason, and Sosipater, my kindred; 22. I Tertius salute you (who wrote the letter) in the Lord;

23. salute you doth Gaius, my host, and of the whole assembly; salute you doth Erastus, the steward of the city, and Quartus the brother,

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ [be] with you all. Amen. 25. And to Him who is able to establish you, according to my good news, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the secret, in the times of the ages having been kept silent, (Romans 16:21-25, YLT)

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Setting

Speaker: Paul the Apostle
Audience: the mixed Jewish and Gentile house churches at Rome, a congregation Paul had neither founded nor yet visited
Location: composed at Corinth, addressed to Rome
Time period: c. AD 57

Theological reading

Gaius my host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the treasurer of the city saluteth you.

Two names, and the second is one of the better archaeological footholds in the Pauline corpus. A first-century limestone pavement uncovered at Corinth bears a Latin inscription recording that Erastus, in return for his aedileship, laid the pavement at his own expense. The identification with Paul's Erastus is debated rather than settled, since the name was not rare and the Greek oikonomos tes poleos does not map exactly onto the Latin aedilis. But the coincidence of an Erastus holding civic financial office in Corinth in the right period, in the city from which Romans was written, is a real convergence and is treated as significant by a wide range of scholars.

Its evidential weight should be stated carefully rather than oversold. It does not prove anything doctrinal. What it does is place Paul's incidental social details in a verifiable civic setting, and incidental details are the ones a fabricator has least reason to get right. This is the same category of evidence as the Gallio inscription at Delphi, which anchors Acts 18 to a datable proconsulship.

The verse also has a social point that the archaeology reinforces. A city treasurer and a householder wealthy enough to host the whole church are in the same congregation as the slaves implied by the household greetings of verses 10 and 11. The Corinthian and Roman churches were socially mixed in a way the surrounding culture's voluntary associations generally were not.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

G1577 - ekklesia, ekklesia, Strong's G1577

Quoted in

Concepts:

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.