When a special delivery letter is handed to us at the door, it usually means we are receiving something very important. According to many Bible scholars, Phoebe was the one who hand-delivered a letter of immeasurable value to the church in Rome—Paul’s inspired doctrinal masterpiece. It points out how a lost and sinful humanity can find redemption through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Phoebe, whose name means “bright and radiant,” lived in Cenchrea, a harbor village in eastern Corinth where Paul had stopped during his third missionary journey. Because of her kindness to him, he wrote to the Romans, “I commend to you Phoebe our sister, who is a servant of the church in Cenchrea, that you may . . . assist her in whatever business she has need of you; for indeed she has been a helper of many and of myself also” (16:1-2). Phoebe had assisted others in getting out the Word of God.

All of us are “spiritual mail carriers.” We have the good news that Paul wrote about so many centuries ago. And like Phoebe, we should assist in delivering it by word and deed to people around us who need its life-giving message.