Relationships Changing Over Times

When we hear of the married couple, Aquilla and Priscilla in the New Testament, they worked as tentmakers with the Apostle Paul (his side gig while planting churches). Over time, they became church leaders in their own right - and Priscilla became the lead in the couple. It was SO rare in the ancient NearEast for a woman to be named first in a couple - a sign that she was the leader in the relationship - and yet 5 times after they first show up in Acts 18 the scripture lists them as “Priscilla and Aquila.”

There’s a modern parallel in the sports world, when the Major League Baseball team call the Anaheim Angels renamed themselves “The Los Angeles Angles of Anaheim” because they were legally required to have ‘Anaheim’ in their name but the lawyers had failed to require ‘Anaheim’ to be first… and soon they were commonly called the LA Angels. All kinds of people were upset, and even now it’s key part of the team’s history.

For Priscilla and Aquila, the change of the sequencing of their name demonstrated a crucial change. She was a leader - she had authority. And that’s a big deal in a marriage relationship. We don’t know any of the details - but we know something changed. And, as we see from Paul referring to them decades later at the end of his life (“Greet Priscilla and Aquila…” - 1 Timothy 4:19), they figured out how to make it work.

What friendships do you have that have managed to survive a significant change? What was it that helped them endure the upheaval? What might the Spirit be saying to you about that?