Lives of Scripture

Priscilla and her husband Aquila, both tentmakers, met Paul in Corinth after the emperor Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome; Paul, sharing their trade, stayed and worked with them (Acts 18:1-3). The couple accompanied Paul to Ephesus and remained there when he moved on, and it was there that they encountered Apollos, an eloquent and scripturally learned preacher who nonetheless knew "only the baptism of John" -- an incomplete understanding of the gospel; "they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately" (18:18-26), a striking picture of a husband-and-wife team correcting and completing the theology of a gifted public teacher, done privately and without public embarrassment. They hosted a church in their home, first apparently in Ephesus and later again in Rome once they had returned there (Romans 16:3-5; 1 Corinthians 16:19). Paul calls them "my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their own necks for my life," indicating some unrecorded moment of real danger they faced on his behalf (Romans 16:3-4). Notably, Priscilla is named before her husband in four of the six New Testament references to the couple, an unusual ordering by ancient convention that many readers take as a sign of her particular prominence or giftedness in teaching and ministry alongside Aquila (Acts 18:18, 26; Romans 16:3; 2 Timothy 4:19).