Urbanus

Biblical Record

Urbanus is mentioned only once in the Bible, in Romans 16:9. At the close of his letter, Paul sends greetings to a number of believers in Rome, and the following verse appears in that list:

• "Salute Urbane, our helper in Christ, and Stachys my beloved" (Romans 16:9)

The text does not reveal his origins, his office, when he was converted, or when and where he worked alongside Paul. What can be established is that he was among the believers in Rome when Romans was written and that Paul called him a "fellow worker" (one who labors together with others; rendered "helper" in the KJV).

Significance Within Scripture

The list of greetings in Romans 16 includes many believers known to us by little more than their names, such as Priscilla and Aquila, Junia, Apelles, Tryphena and Tryphosa, and Persis. The list is read as evidence that the Roman church was made up of people from a variety of backgrounds and social classes. For the individuals named immediately before and after Urbanus, Paul used the expression "my beloved." For Urbanus, however, he used "our," and on this basis some interpreters regard him as someone who worked not with Paul alone but with a number of ministers.

Interpretations and Debates

The name derives from the Latin Urbanus, meaning "of the city." It was a common name in Rome at the time and is known to have been used among slaves and freedmen as well. Some scholars draw inferences about his social status from this fact, but the text alone does not permit a firm conclusion.

Eastern Church tradition counts him among the seventy disciples sent out by Jesus and holds that he later became a bishop and died as a martyr. This account is a later tradition with no basis in Scripture.

In the Korean Church

Urbanus is rarely treated as a subject in his own right in the Korean church. His name is mentioned mainly in expository sermons on Romans 16, where he is sometimes cited as an example of fellow workers who labored in obscurity or of cooperation within the church community. Both the Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Hangeul) and the New Korean Revised Version (Gaeyeok Gaejeong) render his name as "Ureubano."