(1) / commend unto you Phehe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea. Corinth, being situated on a narrow isth- mus, had two ports, one towards Europe, and the other towards Asia. The latter was called Cenchrea, where a church had been organized, of which Phebe was a servant, i. e. deaconess. It appears that in the apos- tolic church elderly females were selected to attend upon the poor and sick of their own sex. Many ecclesiastical writers suppose there were two classes of these female officers ; the one (corresponding, in some measure, in their duties to the elders) having the oversight of the con- duct of the younger female Christians; and the other whose duty was to attend to the sick and the poor.
(2) That ye receive her in the Lord. The words in the Lord may be connected either with receive, ' receive her in a religious manner, and from religious motives ;' or with the pronoun, her in the Lord, her as a