Paula Gooder Phoebe - A Story
I remember how 101 Best Bible Stories first got me reading Scripture. Where someone honours the biblical accounts by rewriting them imaginatively yet faithfully they engage a wider readership. In Phoebe Paula Gooder opens up the world of the first Christians using her New Testament scholarship to bring scripture alive through writing a life of Paul’s coworker Phoebe. You can engage in the book in two ways. Two thirds of it is a well written 32 Chapter story centred on Phoebe. The last third reflects back on the story providing notes on the chapters. Besides explaining or justifying the plot, the notes further open up the world of the first century and the emergence of Christianity within it. Rome, Corinth and Jerusalem are principal places of interest. Gooder builds from the verses that mention Phoebe in Romans Chapter 16: I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in