Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Romans 15:11a

There must not have been a lot of Jews within the church at Rome, otherwise Paul would have called them out too. Or perhaps Herodion was special. In any event, Paul names a “brother.” Obviously everyone in this list is a brother and a sister, but Herodion stands out as being Jewish. The “mantle” had been passed to Paul to preach to the Gentiles. In the mix, though, Paul ran across fellow Jews.

Have you ever met someone and immediately you can identify with that person. Perhaps you’re in a business meeting and something stands out about a person that just shouts “Believer!” You’re on the same team even though you may be competitors or in a awkward business relationship. Hopefully you’ll run across more and more of these types of people.

While living in a foreign country I attended a weekly security briefing that helped expatriates understand the security of the country. I walked in with a Believer friend of mine, and within minutes the meeting started. He leaned over and whispered, “don’t you just want to say, ‘hey, you forgot to open in prayer?’” We both knew that most meetings among Christian workers opened in prayer. This meeting, though, with people from dozens of humanitarian and government organizations would not open in prayer and probably never would. As far as we knew, we were the only two Believers in the room.

Rejoice when you run into your fellow Believers and do what you can to minister to one another. For in these latter days, “because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold. . .” Matthew 24:12