Priscilla and Aquila: The Biblical Power Couple Bob Thiel Can’t Quite Spin Into Submission

Priscilla and Aquila: Partners Who Actually Did the Work

In the mid-first century, while Emperor Claudius was busy expelling Jews from Rome, a married couple named Priscilla (also called Prisca) and Aquila packed up their tentmaking business and headed east. They landed in Corinth just in time to meet a traveling tentmaker-preacher named Paul. The three of them hit it off immediately. Same trade, same faith, same willingness to work with their hands so the gospel could keep moving. Paul stayed with them, and they worked side by side (Acts 18:1-3).

That was only the beginning of their remarkable mobility and ministry. 

They later traveled with Paul toward Ephesus. In that city, they encountered the eloquent but incompletely informed Alexandrian preacher Apollos, who was boldly proclaiming Jesus in the synagogue while still knowing only the baptism of John. Priscilla and Aquila heard him, took him aside, and together “explained to him the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:26). Apollos went on to become a major force in the early church. The couple who quietly corrected him never asked for credit.

They hosted house churches — first in Rome, later apparently back in Ephesus. Paul calls them his “fellow workers in Christ Jesus” who “risked their own necks” for his life, adding that not only he but “all the churches of the Gentiles” owed them thanks (Romans 16:3-4). When Paul writes from prison, he still sends greetings from “Aquila and Priscilla… with the church that is in their house” (1 Corinthians 16:19). Near the end of his life, he greets them again in Ephesus (2 Timothy 4:19). They were mobile, courageous, doctrinally sharp, hospitable, and apparently tireless.

Notice something the text itself keeps doing: Priscilla’s name appears first in several key references. In Romans 16, in the common modern rendering of Acts 18:26, and elsewhere. In the ancient world, name order was not random. It often signaled prominence or initiative. The biblical authors were not shy about letting Priscilla’s name lead.

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Enter Crackpot Bob's VersionWriting on his COGwriter site, he writes about what he calls “The Christian team of Priscilla and Aquila.” He correctly notes that the Bible sometimes lists Priscilla first and graciously allows that this “is not to say that she was necessarily superior.” He recounts their tentmaking partnership with Paul, their move from Rome, and their instruction of Apollos. He even mentions that they hosted churches in their home and risked their lives.

Then comes the familiar pivot.

When Crakcpot Bob reaches the scene with Apollos, he writes that when “Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside…” — conveniently flipping the order that appears in many English translations and in the Greek text itself. He is quick to stress that Priscilla did not instruct men. 

The “team” framing does a lot of heavy lifting here. It allows acknowledgment of Priscilla’s presence while ensuring no dangerous ideas form about a woman actively participating in the theological formation of a prominent male teacher.

It is a neat bit of theological footwork. Celebrate the couple. List Priscilla first when it costs nothing. Then, the moment actual teaching happens, quietly put the husband’s name in front and remind everyone it was a joint operation. The underlying message is clear: whatever Priscilla contributed, it must be understood as safely under male headship so no one gets ideas about women teaching men — even privately, even alongside their own husbands, even when the text itself refuses to bury her name.

This is the same interpretive instinct that turns every New Testament example of women in ministry into an exception that proves the rule rather than evidence that the early church operated with more flexibility than later systematizers prefer.

Crackpot Bob's article also folds their story into the larger Continuing Church of God narrative about the “true church” being located in Ephesus rather than Rome. That is his prerogative, of course. But it means the couple’s actual lives — their bravery, their doctrinal precision, their willingness to host churches wherever they landed — become supporting evidence for a particular denominational claim rather than a straightforward celebration of two remarkable disciples who simply did the work.

The flaws are not in the facts that Crackpot Bob reports. The facts are mostly there. 

The flaw is in the anxious framing: the immediate qualification that Priscilla listing first does not mean superiority, the reordered names when teaching occurs, and the insistence on “team” language that functions less as description and more as damage control. It is the rhetorical equivalent of praising a woman for her contributions while making sure everyone knows she stayed in her lane.

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What the Text Actually ShowsPriscilla and Aquila were genuine co-laborers. They shared a trade that funded ministry. They shared a home that became a church. They shared the risk of protecting Paul. They shared the responsibility of correcting and equipping Apollos. The New Testament writers felt no need to constantly insert “under her husband’s authority” disclaimers because the partnership was obvious and functional.

Their story does not require modern readers to choose between “team” and individual contribution. It simply shows two people whose gifts and courage complemented each other so well that the early church remembered them together — often with Priscilla’s name leading. That is not a threat to a healthy marriage or sound doctrine. It is an example of what fruitful Christian partnership actually looked like before centuries of later tradition tried to flatten it.

Crackpot Bob is free to read the story through the lens of his cult gender assumptions. The rest of us are equally free to notice that the biblical text itself is considerably less anxious about Priscilla’s prominence than some of its later interpreters appear to be.

Priscilla and Aquila risked their necks for the gospel. The least we can do is let them keep the order of their names.