Lives of Scripture

Erastus is introduced briefly during Paul's extended ministry in Ephesus: "having sent into Macedonia two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while" (Acts 19:22). The verse gives no further detail about what task Erastus and Timothy carried out in Macedonia, but the fact that Paul entrusted him with a mission ahead of his own arrival places Erastus among the small circle of coworkers Paul relied on to strengthen churches he had planted. Some interpreters identify this Erastus with the city treasurer of Corinth whom Paul mentions sending greetings from in Romans 16:23, and possibly with a first-century inscription discovered at Corinth naming an Erastus who paid for a public pavement -- an identification that, if correct, would place him as a person of civic standing who used his position in service of the gospel. Scripture itself, however, never explicitly states that these are the same man, so the connection remains a plausible but unproven inference rather than a stated fact.