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7.Salute Andronicus Though Paul is not wont to make much of kindred, and of other things belonging to the flesh, yet as the relationship which Junia and Andronicus bore to him, might avail somewhat to make them more fully known, he neglected not this commendation. There is more weight in the second eulogy, when he calls them his fellow-prisoners; (476) for among the honors belonging to the warfare of Christ, bonds are not to be counted the least. In the third place, he calls them Apostles: he uses not this word in its proper and common meaning, but extends it wider, even to all those who not only teach in one Church, but also spend their labor in promulgating the gospel everywhere. He then, in a general way, calls those in this place Apostles, who planted Churches by carrying here and there the doctrine of salvation; for elsewhere he confines this title to that first order which Christ at the beginning established, when he appointed the twelve disciples. It would have been otherwise strange, that this dignity should be only ascribed to them, and to a few others. But as they had embraced the gospel by faith before Paul, he hesitates not to set them on this account before himself. (477)
(476) It is not certain to what the Apostle refers; for we have no particular account of him hitherto as a prisoner, except for a short time at Philippi, Act_16:23; and it is probable, that it was on that occasion that they had been his fellow-prisoners; for it appears from the narrative, that there were more prisoners than Paul and Silas, as it is said that the “” heard them singing, Act_16:25; and Paul’ saying to the jailer, in Act_16:28, “ are all here,” clearly implies that he had some with him besides Silas. — Ed.
(477) The words ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις noted among the Apostles, can hardly admit of a meaning different from what is here given, though some have explained the sense to be, that they were much esteemed by Apostles, or that they were “ in the Apostles’ judgment,” or that they were well known to the Apostles. But as “” in some other instances mean teachers, as Barnabas was, (Act_14:14,) the explanation here given is most to be approved. — Ed.