Section 13
regards hospitality. "Gaius, my host, and of the whole church, greets you" (v. 23). Without hos pitality there is something lacking in the prac tical church life. If there is no hospitality in a certain church, that church must be poor. How ever, the more hospitality you have, the richer your church life will be. Gaius was not only the host of one apostle, but the host of the entire church. I do not believe that he rendered hospi tality to the whole church all at once, but that probably the saints who traveled to his city and perhaps remained there for a while, received hospitality from him. His home was open and available to all the saints. The genuine church life depends upon this kind of hospitality. When a home is open to hospitality, it will be filled with the blessing of Christ. We praise the Lord that the more hospitality we render, the greater will be our experience of the church life. This is practical.
In his greetings recorded in Romans 16, Paul unveiled the crucial indicators of the proper church life both in a particular local church and among the churches. His greetings also under score the qualities of many of the dear saints. Thus, in Romans 16 we see the churches in local ities and the details of the genuine church life