Charles Ellicott Commentary Romans 16:5

"and [salute] the church that is in their house. Salute Epaenetus my beloved, who is the first-fruits of Asia unto Christ." — Romans 16:5 (ASV)

The church that is in their house.—A group of Christians seem to have regularly met in the house of Aquila and Priscilla to worship at Rome, as they had previously done at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 16:19). Similar instances may be found in Acts 12:12; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 1:2.

Salute.—The same word in Greek is translated interchangeably as “salute” and “greet,” an unnecessary caprice.

Firstfruits of Achaia.—For “Achaia” we should certainly read “Asia”—i.e., the Roman province of Asia. This province was a broad strip of territory covering the entire western end of the peninsula of Asia Minor, from the Propontis in the north to Lycia in the south.

Ephesus was its capital, and the seven “churches in Asia” to which St. John wrote in the Apocalypse—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea—were the most central and important of its cities.

The term “firstfruits of Asia” refers to one of the first converts to Christianity in Asia. (Compare to “firstfruits of Achaia” in 1 Corinthians 16:15; the text of our own passage likely became corrupted through this parallelism.)