When Your Living Room Becomes a Cathedral: Notes from Romans 16

Dear Reader,

I can't get Romans 16 out of my head today. My mind keeps bouncing between the broken people at the start of Romans and these incredible believers at the end. The change in them... it's honestly mind-blowing.

Prisca and Aquila really got to me. Like, they literally put their necks on the line for Paul! And get this - they didn't just go to church, they turned their living room into one. And Gaius? His house was basically Grand Central Station for believers. These people weren't just Sunday Christians - they poured their whole lives into this.

Sitting here, I have to ask myself some hard questions. When's the last time I opened my home like that? Would I stick my neck out for someone in my church family? And if I'm really honest... do I sometimes act like I own this thing instead of remembering it's Christ's church? Man, these early believers weren't playing church - they were living it, breathing it.

Looking at how these people changed from Romans 1 to 16... it kind of chokes me up. They went from such dark places to becoming these incredible, loving people. And it wasn't overnight - they went through this whole journey of being saved, made right, made holy, and totally transformed.

I want that. I want to be like Gaius - just throwing my doors wide open. Or like Prisca and Aquila - having that kind of courage and commitment. These people didn't sit around talking about what they should do - they just did it. They loved hard. They served hard. They lived all out.

Maybe that's what real change looks like in my life - not just changing what's in my head, but actually living differently. Loving differently. Being there for people in real, messy, practical ways.

I need to sit with this for a while...

Until tomorrow

Chaplain Mark

P.S. Note to self: Maybe start by having some people over for dinner this week...?