Recommend (Moffatt and An American Translation* “introduce”) is rendered by most translations as “commend.” Letters of “recommendation” were well known in the ancient world and Paul himself alludes to them in 2 Corinthians 3.1.

In some languages there is no technical term such as recommend. It may, therefore, be necessary to use a phrase: “I want to say to you that our sister Phoebe is a fine person,” “… Phoebe, who also believes as we do, is a fine person,” or “… is to be trusted.”

The word sister (like the word “brother”) is used in the sense of “fellow believer.”

Phoebe is mentioned only here in the New Testament.

Who serves (New English Bible “who holds office”; An American Translation* “who is a helper”) translates a noun (Revised Standard Version “a deaconess”). It is doubtful that this had become a technical term for an office in the church at the time that Paul wrote, and it is better to use a general term rather than the specific term “deaconess.”

Cenchreae was the seaport of Corinth on the eastern side of the isthmus (see Acts 18.18).

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .