***She Already Knew—a series on women who were formed before they were faithful.
What Priscilla teaches us about faithful, invisible labor
Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life. (Romans 16:3-4)
She didn’t have a stage. Didn’t write a book. Had no official title. But she is the most documented woman in the New Testament who doesn’t appear in the gospels.
Her name is Priscilla.
And if you have been doing the work quietly, faithfully, and without a title or a platform, she was written down for you.
She shows up first in Acts 18 without fanfare or ceremony. Luke simply records that Paul came to Corinth, found a man named Aquila, and his wife Priscilla. Because they were tentmakers, he stayed with them and worked with them. That’s it. She is introduced in the way that most faithful women are introduced: in the middle of something already in motion.
She and Aquila were already believers before Paul arrived. She didn't need him to activate her faith. She was already in it. The apostle came into her house. And when he left, he didn't call her a helper or a supporter. He called her a fellow worker — the same word he used for Timothy and Titus, his most trusted lieutenants. Paul didn't diminish what she was. He named it accurately.
She moved from Corinth to Ephesus, back toward Rome, then to Ephesus again — sometimes by mission, sometimes forced out by empire, starting over with nothing and still opening her home. For the woman feeding her kids on the fly, getting homework done in the car, building something that hasn't been given a name yet — she was faithful in the disruption so you could be too.
Four of the six times her name appears in scripture, it comes before her husband's. In that world, that meant something. She used whatever standing she had not to build a platform but to build the church. In a culture writhing with the desire to be seen, she made room for the gospel instead.
God did not miss it. He never does.
At some point in Ephesus, a man named Apollos arrived. Brilliant. Eloquent. Fervent. Already the kind of preacher people stopped what they were doing to hear. But his theology had a gap in it.
Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and quietly explained the way of God more accurately. He received it. Then Apollos went on to become one of the most powerful voices in the early church, shaping the church at Corinth.
She had influence over those who would have influence. She never stood on his stage, but she shaped what came from it. And she didn't ask for credit.
She had influence over those who would have influence. She never stood on his stage, but she shaped what came from it. And she didn't ask for credit.
In a tradition that would have questioned whether a woman had anything to teach at all, she taught anyway. Not loudly. Not defiantly. She didn't let the argument stop the work.
I’ve sat in rooms where my contribution was welcomed as long as it stayed behind the scenes. I’ve had to ask myself the question Priscilla quietly answered with her life: can I pour into something, giving it everything that I have, and let someone else carry it to the stage?
That’s the test. And she’s my example.
Get on the waitlist and be the first to hear when applications are open.
Paul’s last letter is 2 Timothy. He’s in prison and knows he’s near the end. In this final letter from a cold Roman cell, he sends greetings to Priscilla and Aquila. He is still naming her after all of it.
What Paul may have known and what history would confirm, is that she was likely in danger, too. Tradition holds that Priscilla and Aquila were martyred together in the persecution of Nero in 64 AD, the same wave of violence that would take Paul himself. He greeted her from his cell. She may already have been marked.
Neither of them backed down.
She is not in scripture by accident. And neither is your faithfulness lost on heaven.
Whatever you are building in your home, your family, in your community, or beyond, keep going. Don’t ease up when it seems no one notices or that it doesn’t matter.
We keep a fixed gaze on Jesus, who authors and finishes our faith. And we trust he sees—the crumbs you kindly sweep up, the weariness you take to bed, and the thankless moments of contributing what seems otherwise unnoticed.
Heaven notices. And you don’t need a stage. Priscilla didn’t have one either.
If you're a woman doing the work without a title, building something that hasn't been named yet, and you're ready to do it alongside other women who understand that, you're in the right place. The mentoring program waitlist is open.
