Luther was a confirmed bachelor until he was 41. He resisted marriage, and only chose to marry after he had preached on the need for the young ministers of the reformation to get married, against the unbiblical practices of Romanism (how romantic!).

On June 13, 1525 Luther married Katharina Von Bora, a former nun who had fled the convent with a group of nuns who had been convinced of the truth of the reformation. Katie was 26.

Luther was already very famous and a wanted man outside of Saxony. It was an overwhelming thing for Katie to be instantly known as Luther’s wife, but she took up the task with vigor.

A biography of Luther describes the woman behind the great Dr. Luther: “Katharina immediately took on the task of administering and managing the vast holdings of the monastery, breeding and selling cattle, and running a brewery in order to provide for their family and the steady stream of students who boarded with them and visitors seeking audiences with her husband. In times of widespread illness, Katharina operated a hospital on site, ministering to the sick alongside other nurses. Luther called her the “boss of Zulsdorf,” after the name of the farm they owned, and the “morning star of Wittenberg” for her habit of rising at 4 a.m. to take care of her various responsibilities….In addition to her busy life tending to the lands and grounds of the monastery, Katharina bore six children: Hans, Elizabeth, Magdalena, Martin, Paul, and Margarete. The Luthers also raised four orphan children, including Katharina’s nephew, Fabian.”

What is the saying? Behind every great man… It is also true of Martin Luther. Martin and Katie were so close, their hearts so knit together that Luther called Katie “my rib.”

In the New Testament we also find a couple who serve alongside one another. They pop up in six places in the New Testament, and always together. Their names were Aquila and Priscilla.

Acts 18:2 tells us that Aquila was a Jewish native of Pontus, which is in Asia Minor. They lived and worked in Rome until 49 AD when Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, which sent them to the city of Corinth. It was in Corinth that they met the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey. We don’t know for sure, but it might be that Paul led this couple to salvation.

From this amazing couple, I’ve chosen Three Lessons We Can Learn Regarding Ministry Together in Christ.

1. Ministry Together Means Ministering Where You Are (Acts 18:1-3)

Here is the first occasion that the New Testament gives of this ministry couple, and we find out a little about them—they shared the same trade as the Apostle Paul, they were tentmakers or leather workers.

Acts 18:3 says that the Apostle stayed with this couple and he worked with them. Paul worked by day in the trade of tanning hides and sewing together awnings and tents, possibly in the shop that Aquila and Priscilla owned.

At the end of a long work day they would retire to their home, which Paul shared with them while he was in Corinth. On the Sabbath, verse 4 tells us that Paul would move into the synagogue and would reason (lit. dialogue) with those gathered there, mainly Jews and some Gentile God-fearers who had converted to Judaism. Paul also ministered in the agora, the marketplace where all the merchants gathered.

What I want you to see is the way that Aquila and Priscilla were so key to this situation, right where they were. Their whole life, both work and home-life was sanctified for the sake of the gospel. Not only did their business help support Paul and his ministry, it must have been a place of wonderful theological training and edification!

Can you imagine the conversations around the dinner table? Aquila and Priscilla took advantage of the circumstance they were in and used it for the glory of God; using their lives together as a place of ministry help and fellowship for Paul as well as edification and spiritual growth for themselves.

Luther used his dinner table as a mighty tool in the church. It rivaled his pulpit in influence as he gathered theological students around his table to hash out the implications of the gospel. He called them “table talks.” A table and a meal became a place for the mighty Spirit to move.

What could your home and workplace become for Christ? You don’t need to change jobs, or go into full time ministry to be used mightily for God. You and your spouse can look at where you are right now and ask God to take your circumstance and use it mightily for him.

2. Ministry Together Means You Need to Be Both a Student and a Teacher (Acts 18:4, 24-26)

Because we are told that Aquila was a Jew, it is highly possible that so was his wife. They would have gone with Paul to the synagogue every Sabbath and listened to the debates that Paul brought to the people.

Over time, this couple became very well equipped in the gospel and doctrine. They knew their stuff! Their time with Paul was not spent in chit-chat and trivialities. They were focused on learning as much as they could about the Christ.

Acts 18:18-21 teaches us that Paul and Aquila and Priscilla went on to Ephesus together where they had to part ways.

Then in verses 24-26 Aquila and Priscilla met up with a man named Apollos who was a powerful preacher, but his theology was lacking in some areas that are pretty important. Verse 26 says that when this couple heard him, they took him aside and taught him “more accurately.”

If you think about it, every teacher was at one time a student. And that is where everyone needs to begin—sitting under the authority of the Word of God and walking in obedience to what it says. Priscilla and Aquila sat patiently under Paul, soaking up what he offered to them. They saw the need to be students first.

I once had someone in our church who said that they didn’t feel like they were being spiritually fed at our church. But here was the problem—our church has three preaching services a week (Sunday morning and evening, and Wednesday night) along with Sunday school classes, Bible studies, discipleship groups, and other ministries, all of which were available to this person. But he didn’t take advantage of any of them except for Sunday mornings, and at this service his attendance was sporadic. I told him, “We’re serving up the Word, you’re just not coming to supper.”

What about you? Are you a student of the Word? Husband, are you stopping your wife from getting fed under the guise of wanting “family time?” You’ll regret it. And wife, are you dragging your feet about your husband being at church so much? You’ll regret it.

And beyond your own spiritual benefit, the church will be poorer for it. Because you cannot give what you do not have. You can’t teach what you don’t know. You can’t lead where you have not first gone yourself.

Sometimes church members complain about the ministries of the church, but they don’t see their own part in it all. How can the Lord use you in your immaturity?

And those who are laboring need you! The church needs godly couples who love Christ and His Word. We need more people like Aquila and Priscilla who can come alongside the Apollos’ of the church and teach them more accurately.

Are you a student of the Word? Could the leaders of our church ask you to come alongside them to help teach and lead this church?

3. Ministry Together Means Working with a Kingdom Focus (Rom 16:3-4)

At some point Priscilla and Aquila moved back to Rome and became an active part of the church there. According to Romans 16:5, they used their home as a meeting place for the church.

Paul called them sunergos, fellow-workers. These two were more than a couple, they were team workers. They didn’t see their part in the church as building up their own little kingdom. They were part of something much bigger.

That meant that their view of this life was much more than living to make a buck. Even though we were told that they were tentmakers back in Acts 18, it is never mentioned again. I’m sure they kept practicing their trade, but they weren’t defined by that fact. Their life wasn’t about being the pre-eminent tent-makers of Rome. They were part of the mission of the Church, and that was where they focused their love and energy.

This is shown in what Paul says about them in verse 4. He tells that whole church something that we wonder how many knew before he wrote it—that Aquila and Priscilla risked their necks in order to save Paul’s life. We don’t know how they did this or any of the circumstances, but it is there, locked into Scripture for all eternity. Priscilla and Aquila were bold enough to be willing to die for the sake of the gospel, and they knew that Paul was a key player in God’s plan. They were so sold out that they would rather have died than to see Paul die. It didn’t happen, but they were ready to take a bullet, so to speak. That’s how focused they were.

They didn’t let pettiness, selfishness, career, ambition, or anything else derail them from the mission. They didn’t care who got the credit, they were working for the same goal—to see Christ magnified through the proclamation of the gospel to the whole world.

In her book, One with a Shepherd, Mary Somerville describes the attitude that God calls us to. Writing from the perspective of ministry together, she writes: “My marriage is unique in that I am one with God through Jesus Christ and that makes me uniquely one with Bob [her husband]. We have a complete oneness that those outside of Christ cannot experience. We have one Savior and Lord, one name, one new family, one goal, one Word to guide us, and one focus of our lives—to glorify God. We have the Holy Spirit living within both of us to empower us to love each other sacrificially and to help us work through all hinderances to our oneness. With Christ in our lives there is hope for any difficulty we face. By his grace we can forgive as we have been forgiven. The Spirit knits us together and gives us a new heart that desires to serve Christ and give sacrificially to one another in love.”

And even though Mary Somerville is writing as a pastor’s wife, there is nothing that she wrote that isn’t true of all Christian couples serving God in all capacities from the perspective of either husband or wife.

If God calls you to any ministry, he calls you together. You may not serve together (i.e., elder, teacher, nursery, etc.) but you’re marriage brings you together to mutually support and care for one another in every ministry.

Ministry together means:

1. Ministering Where You Are

2. You Need to Be Both a Student and a Teacher

3. Working with a Kingdom Focus

What are some steps you can take to make these things happen?

1. Begin developing a family culture around the Word of God. Not just reading but discussing the Word. Husbands with wives. Moms with children. Dads do this with the family. Grandparents with children and grandchildren. Use that dinner table for the glory of God. Discuss the sermon on Sunday. Make your meal a theological feast, even if its around peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

2. Tolle lege! Take up and read! We all need to be better students of the Word. That is primary. But after you have feasted on the Word, you cannot stop. Pick up good theological books. I know that many people think that they don’t have the time, but I will let John Piper convince you that you really do:

Now, I know what you are thinking: I don’t have the time or the ability to get anywhere in books like that. So I want to show you something really encouraging. When this was shown to me about four years ago by my pastor, it changed my life. Most of us don’t aspire very high in our reading because we don’t feel like there is any hope.

But listen to this: Suppose you read about 250 words a minute and that you resolve to devote just 15 minutes a day to serious theological reading to deepen your grasp of biblical truth. In one year (365 days) you would read for 5,475 minutes. Multiply that times 250 words per minute and you get 1,368,750 words per year. Now most books have between 300 and 400 words per page. So if we take 350 words per page and divide that into 1,368,750 words per year, we get 3,910 pages per year. This means that at 250 words a minute, 15 minutes a day, you could read about 20 average sized books a year!

3. Come alongside those already serving, including your spouse. Support them in regular prayer. Provide them resources that will help them and give them plenty of encouragement. In this way, you will have a part of their ministry.

May the Lord take all of us and make us into more Aquila’s and Priscilla’s. O how the church could use more like them. Focused not on our own agenda, but on the greatest mission this world has ever known, making our great God known to every corner of the earth!