Most people can name Peter. Most people can name Paul.
Very few can tell you much about Priscilla and Aquila.
And yet this couple appears six times across four different New Testament books, always together, always active, always at the center of something God was doing in the early church.
They were not apostles. They held no official title.
They were tentmakers, refugees, and ordinary believers who chose to make their marriage a ministry.
Their story is compact in Scripture but enormous in implication.
If you are in a Christian relationship and you want a biblical picture of what it looks like for two people to build something for God together, Priscilla and Aquila are your couple.
This post unpacks 10 lessons their lives teach Christian couples today, drawing directly from the six New Testament passages where they appear: Acts 18:2-3, Acts 18:18, Acts 18:26, Romans 16:3-4, 1 Corinthians 16:19, and 2 Timothy 4:19.
By the time you finish reading, you will have a clear, practical, and biblically grounded picture of what a godly partnership looks like when two people decide to stop dating God casually and start building something together with purpose.
Who Were Priscilla and Aquila? A Brief Biblical Portrait
Before the lessons, the context matters.
Aquila was a Jewish man originally from Pontus, a region on the southern coast of the Black Sea in modern-day Turkey.
His Latin name, Aquila, means “eagle.” He and his wife, Priscilla, were living in Rome until the Roman Emperor Claudius expelled all Jews from the city around 49 AD.
They arrived in Corinth as refugees.
It was there that Paul found them, joined their household, worked alongside them as a fellow tentmaker, and spent eighteen months teaching them the Word of God.
From that point forward, Priscilla and Aquila never appear alone in Scripture.
They traveled to Ephesus with Paul. They hosted the church in their home. They risked their lives for Paul. They discipled Apollos, one of the most gifted preachers in the early church.
Notably, in four of the six New Testament mentions, Priscilla’s name appears before her husband’s, which was highly unusual in first-century culture and strongly suggests she held a significant teaching and leadership role in the relationship and in the church.
Here are 10 lessons their story holds for Christian couples today.
The 10 Lessons
Lesson 1: They Were Always Mentioned Together
Every single reference to this couple in the New Testament names both of them.
Never Aquila alone. Never Priscilla alone. Always together.
This is not a small detail. It is a picture of genuine partnership, a marriage where both people are present, involved, and contributing to what God is doing.
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus.”
— Romans 16:3 (NIV)
Paul calls them both his co-workers. Not Aquila, who is helped by his wife. Not Priscilla, who supports her husband. Both, together, are co-workers in the mission.
The first lesson is unity.
A godly couple does not operate as two separate individuals who happen to share a home. They move through life as one, visible together, known together, serving together.
Lesson 2: They Survived Hardship Without Losing Their Faith
When Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome, Priscilla and Aquila lost their home, their community, and likely much of what they had built.
They did not disappear. They did not retreat from God.
They showed up in Corinth, set up their tent-making business, and opened their home to Paul.
“There he met a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome.”
— Acts 18:2 (NIV)
The lesson here is resilience. Hardship will come to every Christian couple in some form. Job loss, displacement, relational fracture, grief.
The measure of a godly relationship is not whether difficulties arrive, but what two people do with them when they do.
Priscilla and Aquila turned upheaval into opportunity.
Lesson 3: They Opened Their Home for Kingdom Purposes
In both Ephesus and Rome, the church met in the home of Priscilla and Aquila.
This was not incidental. In the first century, Christians had no church buildings. The home was the primary gathering place for the early church, and opening it cost something: privacy, resources, time, and comfort.
“Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house.”
— 1 Corinthians 16:19 (NIV)
Hospitality in this couple’s life was not about impressive dinner parties.
It was a strategic, sacrificial decision to make their shared space available for God’s people.
The lesson: a couple’s home is not just a private retreat. It is a potential resource for the kingdom, and how it is used reflects what the couple truly values.
Lesson 4: They Shared a Common Work and a Common Mission
Priscilla and Aquila were tentmakers by trade.
When Paul arrived in Corinth, he joined their workshop because they shared the same craft.
But what kept the three of them connected was not the occupation. It was the shared passion for Christ.
“and because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.”
— Acts 18:3 (NIV)
Their vocation and their ministry were not in separate compartments.
Work was a platform for relationships. Relationship was a doorway to discipleship. Discipleship extended the reach of the gospel.
The lesson for couples is this: your daily work, whether shared or separate, does not have to be disconnected from your spiritual mission.
A couple that sees their ordinary life as an extension of their shared calling for God will look very different from one that treats faith as a Sunday activity.
Lesson 5: They Invested in Other People’s Growth
When Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos preaching in the synagogue at Ephesus, they immediately recognized that he was gifted but incomplete in his understanding of the gospel.
They did not correct him publicly. They did not dismiss him.
They invited him home.
“He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more accurately.”
— Acts 18:26 (NIV)
This is a picture of gracious, humble discipleship.
Apollos went on to become one of the most powerful preachers in the early church, and much of his effectiveness can be traced to what this couple invested in him during those private conversations in their home.
The lesson: godly couples do not exist for themselves. They become a resource for others, investing in the growth of people around them with the knowledge and experience God has given them together.
Lesson 6: They Were Willing to Risk Everything for the Gospel
Romans 16:3-4 contains one of the most striking statements Paul ever made about another person.
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.”
— Romans 16:3-4 (NIV)
The specifics of how they risked their lives for Paul are not recorded.
But the fact that Paul mentions it in a letter read publicly to the Roman church means it was known, significant, and costly.
The lesson is courage. A godly couple does not only serve God when it is convenient or safe.
There are moments when following Christ together demands real sacrifice. The willingness to pay that cost together is one of the defining marks of a relationship built on something deeper than comfort.
Lesson 7: They Studied the Word of God Together
Priscilla and Aquila spent eighteen months in Corinth with the Apostle Paul living under their roof.
Eighteen months with the greatest Bible teacher in the early church, teaching them daily.
The evidence of how deeply they absorbed those lessons is visible in their ministry to Apollos.
You cannot explain something more accurately unless you understand it deeply.
“who for my life risked their own necks, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.”
— Romans 16:4 (NKJV)
The lesson: couples who grow in the Word together grow toward each other and toward God simultaneously.
Shared Scripture study, shared theological curiosity, and shared hunger to understand God more deeply are some of the most underrated investments a couple can make in their relationship.
Lesson 8: They Kept Moving Wherever God Called Them
Priscilla and Aquila lived in Rome. Then Corinth. Then Ephesus. Then Rome again. Then back to Ephesus.
Their address changed repeatedly. Their mission never did.
“Paul stayed on in Corinth for some time. Then he left the brothers and sisters and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.”
— Acts 18:18 (NIV)
In the first century, travel was dangerous, slow, and expensive. Relocating repeatedly meant rebuilding your business and your network from scratch each time.
They did it without a recorded complaint.
The lesson is availability. Godly couples hold their plans loosely, knowing that following God together sometimes means releasing what is familiar for what He is calling them toward.
Security in a godly relationship is not found in a fixed address. It is found in a shared direction.
Lesson 9: They Complemented Each Other’s Strengths
The repeated mention of Priscilla’s name before Aquila’s is theologically significant.
Scholars, including Lynn Cohick of Wheaton College, note that the name order in Acts 18:26, specifically where Priscilla is named first in the context of teaching Apollos, suggests she was the more prominent teacher of the two.
Aquila is never diminished by this.
He is simply partnered with a woman whose gifts are different from his, and he appears to have embraced that fully.
The lesson: a godly couple does not compete.
Each person brings distinct gifts, and a secure relationship makes room for both, without hierarchy based on ego and without the suppression of one person’s calling to elevate the other’s.
Paul’s consistent grouping of both names, never one without the other, suggests the early church received their ministry as a unified offering.
Lesson 10: They Remained Faithful to the End
The final mention of Priscilla and Aquila comes in 2 Timothy 4:19, one of the last letters Paul wrote before his martyrdom.
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus.”
— 2 Timothy 4:19 (NIV)
By this point, Paul was in prison, facing execution, and writing his final words.
In those last sentences, he thought of Priscilla and Aquila.
Not because they were famous. Not because they held prominent positions.
But because they had been faithful, consistently, quietly, and completely, from the moment they opened their tent-making shop to a weary apostle in Corinth until the very end.
The lesson is endurance.
Godly couples are not defined by a single spectacular moment.
They are defined by sustained faithfulness, year after year, city after city, season after season, through hardship and displacement and personal cost.
That is the legacy Priscilla and Aquila left.
That is the legacy worth building.
The Complication: What This Looks Like When Life Is Not a Bible Study
It would be dishonest to read the story of Priscilla and Aquila and not acknowledge the gap between their example and daily reality.
Most Christian couples are not traveling with apostles.
Most are navigating mortgage payments, unresolved conflict, different levels of spiritual maturity, children who demand everything, jobs that drain, and a dozen quiet tensions that never fully surface until they have been ignored long enough to do real damage.
The picture of Priscilla and Aquila is not presented to shame couples who feel like they are barely surviving their week, let alone hosting a church in their living room.
It is presented to show what becomes possible when two people consistently make the same choice: to put God first, to pursue His mission together, and to refuse to let hardship become the end of the story.
Theologian Gary Thomas, in his book Sacred Marriage (2000), makes the observation that God designed marriage not primarily to make us happy but to make us holy.
Priscilla and Aquila appear to have understood this.
Their marriage was shaped by something larger than personal fulfillment.
And the result was a partnership that the early church still speaks about two thousand years later.
What Priscilla and Aquila Show Us About God’s Design for Couples
There is a version of Christian relationship teaching that presents marriage as the destination.
Priscilla and Aquila present a different picture entirely.
For them, the marriage was the vehicle, not the destination.
The destination was the kingdom of God, and they were moving toward it together, in every city, in every home, in every person they discipled and every believer they sheltered.
This is the deepest insight their story offers.
A godly couple is not two people who found each other and stopped there.
They are two people who found each other and together found something larger to give themselves to.
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.”
— Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 (ESV)
That reward is not just personal flourishing.
It is the fruit that remains when two lives, given fully to God, work together in His name.
Three Practical Steps for Couples Who Want to Build Like Priscilla and Aquila
1. Identify Your Shared Mission
Every couple has a household. Not every couple has a mission.
Ask each other this week: what is God calling us to do together that neither of us could do alone?
It does not have to be grand. It might be discipling one younger couple, opening your home monthly, serving in your church’s most understaffed ministry, or simply committing to pray together every day.
Start small. Start specific. Start now.
2. Study the Word Together, Not Just Separately
Priscilla and Aquila’s theological depth was built over eighteen months of learning together at Paul’s feet.
You do not have Paul. You have the same Scripture they had, and the same Spirit to illuminate it.
Pick one book of the Bible and read it together, one chapter at a time. Talk about what you are seeing. Let the Word shape you as a couple, not just as individuals.
3. Treat Your Home as a Kingdom Asset
Your home is more than a private retreat.
Identify one way in the next thirty days to make it available for someone else’s growth: a meal with a younger believer, a Bible study for neighbors, a place of rest for someone in ministry who needs it.
Hospitality on this scale costs something. It also multiplies something that no personal comfort ever could.
A Prayer for Couples Who Want to Build Something That Lasts
Lord, we bring this relationship before You. We want to be like Priscilla and Aquila, not famous, but faithful. Make our home a place where Your kingdom grows. Give us the courage to serve together through hardship, to study Your Word until it shapes the way we live, and to invest in others with everything You have invested in us. Let our love for each other always be fueled by our love for You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Frequently Asked Questions About Priscilla and Aquila
Who were Priscilla and Aquila in the Bible?
Priscilla and Aquila were a Jewish Christian married couple who appear six times across four New Testament books. Originally from Rome, they were expelled by Emperor Claudius around 49 AD and relocated to Corinth, where they met Paul. They were tentmakers by trade, hosted house churches in multiple cities, discipled Apollos, and were described by Paul as co-workers who risked their lives for him in Romans 16:3-4.
Why is Priscilla’s name mentioned before Aquila’s?
In four of the six New Testament references, Priscilla’s name appears before her husband’s, which was highly unusual in first-century Jewish and Roman culture. Most scholars, including Lynn Cohick of Wheaton College, interpret this as an indication of her prominent role in teaching and ministry leadership. It is particularly notable in Acts 18:26, where both teach Apollos, suggesting her gifts in theological instruction were widely recognized in the early church.
What can Christian couples learn from Priscilla and Aquila about ministry?
Priscilla and Aquila demonstrate that ministry is not reserved for ordained leaders. Ordinary couples can open their homes, invest in other believers, study Scripture deeply, and participate in God’s mission through their everyday lives and vocations. Their story shows that a shared commitment to Christ creates a foundation for a marriage that bears fruit well beyond the couple themselves, touching the lives of everyone in their orbit.
Did Priscilla and Aquila have children?
The Bible does not mention children in connection with Priscilla and Aquila. Scripture records their vocation, their travels, their hospitality, their ministry to Paul and Apollos, and their house churches, but is silent on whether they had a family. Attempting to draw conclusions beyond what Scripture states would be speculative. Their significance in the New Testament rests entirely on their shared faithfulness to Christ and their active role in the early church.
How many times are Priscilla and Aquila mentioned in the Bible?
They are mentioned six times in the New Testament: Acts 18:2-3, Acts 18:18, Acts 18:26, Romans 16:3-4, 1 Corinthians 16:19, and 2 Timothy 4:19. They appear across the writings of Luke and Paul, which speaks to the breadth of their involvement in early Christianity. Notably, they are always named as a couple, never individually, reinforcing the consistent biblical picture of their lives as a unified partnership in ministry.
What does it mean that Priscilla and Aquila risked their necks for Paul?
Romans 16:4 records that Priscilla and Aquila “risked their necks” for Paul, but Scripture does not give specific details of the incident. The language Paul uses is visceral and indicates a genuine threat to their lives. Given the context of Roman persecution of Christians, the risk may have involved sheltering Paul during a dangerous period or intervening on his behalf with authorities. Whatever the circumstance, Paul considered it significant enough to credit them publicly in a letter to the entire Roman church.
You Do Not Have to Be Famous to Be Faithful
Priscilla and Aquila never wrote a book.
They never preached to thousands.
No New Testament letter bears their name.
And yet Paul, the greatest missionary in church history, called them his co-workers, credited them with saving his life, and sent them his personal greetings in some of his final recorded words.
Their legacy was built not through visibility but through consistency.
Through showing up. Through opening their home. Through doing the next right thing in the next city God led them to, with the person God had placed beside them.
That is available to every Christian couple.
Not the fame. The faithfulness.
And in the economy of God’s kingdom, faithfulness is the only currency that lasts.
“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!'”
— Matthew 25:23 (NIV)
References
Cohick, L. H. (2009). Women in the world of the earliest Christians: Illuminating ancient ways of life. Baker Academic.
Keller, M. N. (2010). Priscilla and Aquila: Paul’s coworkers in Christ Jesus. Liturgical Press.
Keener, C. S. (1993). The IVP Bible background commentary: New Testament. InterVarsity Press.
Longenecker, R. N. (1981). Acts. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The expositor’s Bible commentary (Vol. 9). Zondervan.
Pauley, S. (2019). New Testament marriage: Lessons from Aquila and Priscilla. Enjoying the Journey Ministries.
Thomas, G. (2000). Sacred marriage: What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? Zondervan.
Witherington, B. (1998). The Acts of the Apostles: A socio-rhetorical commentary. Eerdmans.
Wright, N. T. (2004). Paul for everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians. Westminster John Knox Press.
