Wsup’ good people!
The 17th is upon us again and I couldn’t be more happy.
In my last musings, I mentioned that Romans cost a pretty penny to produce and that God provided wealthy patrons for Paul, Phoebe among them. I said “Go Phoebe!” and kept it moving. The more I dug, the more I found women in Scripture who earned their own money, owned their own property and ran their own operations, and then put all of it in God’s hands. So let’s talk about them. 💅🏾
The Blueprint: Proverbs 31
Every Mother’s Day, Proverbs 31 gets quoted like she’s a quiet lady folding laundry in the corner. Please. Read her résumé:
“She considers a field and buys it; out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.”
Proverbs 31:16 NIV
She bought land with her own earnings. She’s a real estate investor and a vineyard owner. And it gets better:
“She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies the merchants with sashes.”
Proverbs 31:24 NIV
She has a wholesale contract with the merchants. She wakes before dawn to feed her household and her staff (v. 15), her lamp doesn’t go out at night because she’s working (v. 18), and she still opens her hands to the poor (v. 20). She dresses in fine linen and purple (v. 22), which is worth remembering because purple will come up again. The writer sums her up like this:
“She is clothed with strength and dignity”
Proverbs 31:25 NIV
Fun fact: the Hebrew for “woman of noble character” is eshet chayil. Chayil means strength, valour and even an army, and it’s also used for wealth. She is a woman of valour, not a woman folding laundry. 😌
That is the blueprint. Now watch it walk straight off the page and into the New Testament.
Phoebe: The Benefactor with the Package
In Romans 16:1-2, Paul closes his letter by commending Phoebe. She’s called a diakonos (deacon, servant-leader) of the church in Cenchreae and a prostatis (patron, benefactor).
“She has been the benefactor of many people, including me.”
Romans 16:2 NIV
That “including me” is Paul admitting that a woman funded him. Our resident tentmaker, the man who worked with his own hands, had a sponsor. 😎
The Bible doesn’t tell us what Phoebe’s business was, but her address is a clue. Cenchreae was the eastern port of Corinth, a thriving town with a large trade with Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus and other Aegean cities. A growing number of scholars argue that Phoebe was a woman of wealth and influence in her community, and others speculate that she was a well-educated Gentile widow of ample means, a businesswoman in her own right, with a church meeting in her large home. One study calls her probably a well-to-do businesswoman travelling on business, since Corinth and Rome had close trade ties. Shipping, import-export or trade through that port is plausible, though nobody can say for sure. Paul even asks the Romans to help her with “whatever matter she may need,” which suggests she had business or legal affairs of her own in Rome. So Phoebe was no lady of leisure. She was a Cenchreae CEO. 💼
A woman of her standing would not have travelled alone. She likely took a team: a few household slaves or attendants, probably a trusted freedman to manage money and negotiate, and someone to guard the luggage. With a party of four to six, the costs add up fast:
- The sea passage (Cenchreae to Puteoli): There were no passenger liners back then, so she’d negotiate space on a merchant ship, feed her whole party and wait on the wind. That’s roughly 7 to 21 days depending on the weather, and only during sailing season, because winter storms shut the seas down.
- The road to Rome (about 150 miles from Puteoli): Inns, pack animals or carriages, and food for everyone.
- Baggage and extras: Gifts for her Roman hosts, goods or documents for business, and emergency money.
Here’s my rough estimate (and I do mean rough; please don’t quote me as a published scholar 😅): somewhere between 150 and 500 denarii each way. For context, Stanford’s ORBIS model reconstructs what travel across the Roman world cost in denarii, but it leans on prices from a price edict issued in 301 AD, roughly 250 years after Paul, so everything here is ballpark. A denarius is usually described as one day’s wage for a labourer, and at a modern figure of $80 to $100 a day, that’s roughly $12,000 to $50,000 for the round trip. We don’t know her party size, her route or how long the voyage took, so the range is wide. But even at the low end, this woman was comfortably funding that trip.
And she wasn’t carrying just luggage. Nothing in the text says how Romans reached Rome, so scholars think Phoebe took it herself. In the ancient world, the carrier often read the letter aloud and answered questions. That means the first person to read and explain Paul’s most theologically dense letter to the church in Rome may have been a woman. Paul wrote it, but Phoebe delivered it because her money made that possible. Go Phoebe! (Again.) 🙌🏾
Lydia: The Purple Girlie Boss
Remember the purple? Meet the woman who sold it.
In Acts 16, Lydia is from Thyatira, a city known for its dyeing industry, but she has relocated her business to Philippi, a Roman colony in Greece. She is a seller of purple goods, and since purple dye was a luxury item and expensive to produce, we’re talking about a woman who dealt in high-end merchandise. 💜
She was a worshipper of God who sat by the river on the Sabbath, and the Lord opened her heart to Paul’s message. She became the first recorded convert in Europe, and her whole household was baptised. And then she did the most Lydia thing ever. She didn’t say a prayer and go back to work. She said:
“Come and stay at my house.”
Acts 16:15 NIV
Her house became the base for the church in Philippi. When Paul and Silas were later released from jail (long story, read Acts 16 and thank me later), that is where they went to encourage the believers (v. 40). And the church in Philippi is the one that later sent financial support to Paul (Philippians 4:15-16). I think I see where that generosity started. 👀
Chloe: The Woman with a Good Network
Chloe gets one verse. ONE.
“Some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.”
1 Corinthians 1:11 NIV
We don’t know much about her. She was probably a woman of some means who ran a household with servants, family members or business agents travelling between cities. But look at what she did with that influence. Her people carried the truth to Paul even when it was uncomfortable, and that report became the occasion for one of the most-read letters in the New Testament. Some women host the church in their living room. Others make sure the right information reaches the right person. That is ministry too, and Chloe did it without asking for a podium. 🙏🏾
The Takeaway: God Raised Up Mighty Women
Let’s put the whole lineup on the table. The Proverbs 31 woman bought land, planted a vineyard and supplied the merchants. Phoebe had a business, a ship and a team, and she carried Romans across the sea. Lydia built a luxury trade in purple and turned her house into the first church in Europe. Chloe ran a household with a network wide enough to get the truth to Paul. 💅🏾
If you want proof of how He feels about women, look at the most important moment in history.
The first people to see the risen Jesus were women.
Matthew and John tell us that Mary Magdalene was at the tomb that morning, along with other women (Matthew 28:1-10; John 20:1-18). Luke adds that Joanna was there too (Luke 24:10). You may remember Joanna from earlier in Luke. She was married to Chuza, a steward in Herod’s household, and she was one of the women who supported Jesus’ ministry:
“These women were helping to support them out of their own means.”
Luke 8:3 NIV
So the women who funded the ministry were also the ones who showed up at the tomb. They didn’t just bankroll the mission. They stayed for the hardest part of it.
Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene first, and He gave her an assignment:
“Go instead to my brothers and tell them…”
John 20:17 NIV
She ran back to the disciples and said:
“I have seen the Lord!”
John 20:18 NIV
Think about what that means. In the first-century world, a woman’s testimony was often treated as unreliable in legal settings. If the early church had been making up a story, they would never have chosen women as the first witnesses. Jesus did. The most important news in human history, that death was defeated, went to the men through women. Mary Magdalene has been called the “apostle to the apostles” for good reason. 🙌🏾
God did not just allow women to be involved in the work of the Kingdom. He commissioned them. He assigned women to the empty tomb, to the church in Philippi, to the road to Rome and to the vineyards and markets of Proverbs 31. He raised up mighty women in every generation, and He’s still doing it. Here’s what the Word says about a woman like that:
“Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.”
Proverbs 31:31 NIV
Ladies…and gentlemen, if this article spoke to your heart and you are not yet born again, would you like to give your life to Christ? If yes, please repeat the prayer below out loud:
Dear Lord,
Thank You for dying on the cross for me. I believe in my heart that you died and rose again and I confess with my mouth that You are Lord and Saviour in my heart and in my life. I denounce my former ways and choose to be Your child. Thank You for setting me free. I am now born again.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen
God loves you, God favours you and He has a plan for everything in your hand.
You are blessed.
XO,
That Lady
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