Unlimited: Tertius the Scribe
Jan 22, 2024 822
I, Tertius, who wrote down this letter, greet you in the Lord (Romans 16:22).
Paul followed the normal method in Roman times for writing a letter: he used a professional scribe. For shorter letters, the author would often just tell the scribe what he wanted to say, and the scribe would write the letter himself. For a longer letter like this one to the church in Rome, the author would dictate his letter to a scribe who would take down the dictation and, together with the author, develop the final form of the letter.
Who was Tertius, Paul’s scribe in Corinth? “Tertius” literally means “third” and was a common name for a slave. Tertius was likely a slave or a former slave. The fact that Tertius himself greets the believers in Rome suggests that perhaps he had lived in Rome and knew the church there.
God often uses other people to communicate with us.
Some people are surprised to learn that Paul had help in writing his epistle to the Romans. They seem to think that God somehow miraculously dictated the words that Paul wrote, as if Paul were himself God’s scribe. But that’s not how inspiration functioned in the writing of the Bible. Instead, God gave Paul the ideas that he was to convey, and the Holy Spirit had oversight of the process, and in this case, Paul, with the assistance of a scribe, put these ideas into written form.
Spiritual Application
Does it surprise you that God often uses other people to communicate with us, and that he often uses more than one person? How have you experienced this general principle at work in your Christian community?
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