Greet Apelles, whose fidelity to Christ has stood the test.
Romans 16:10 (NIV)

During the holidays my niece excitedly announced to the family that she’d purchased her first vinyl record. I find it both fascinating and wonderful that vinyl records are making a comeback. Years after most of us trashed our collections of 45s and LPs, sales of vinyl records experienced double digit sales growth in 2018. It’s a good trend.

Growing up I remember that “High Fidelity” was a tag that graced most album covers, especially the old Dave Brubeck, Frank Sinatra, and Stan Getz LPs my parents still had sitting around. Just say the words “High Fidelity” and it conjures up images of a mid-century modern font and little starburst graphics.

Fidelity is kind of an old fashioned word. It comes from the Latin fidelis which we usually translate as “faithful.” In the world of music, the connotation of “High Fidelity” (sometimes abbreviated as “Hi-Fi”) was that it was “true to sound.” In other words, the music you hear on the record is a true reproduction of the music as you would have heard it had you been sitting in the studio listening to the band.

In today’s last chapter of Romans, Paul offers personal greetings to numerous individual members of the Jesus followers in Rome. I was struck when I read his greeting to Apelles “whose fidelity to Christ stood the test.” I thought it odd that the translators chose to use the word “fidelity” rather than the more common “faithfulness.”

As I’ve been mulling it over in the quiet this morning I love the connotation in relationship to a musical recording. Apelles was an authentic replication of Jesus; A reproduction that is “true to sound” with the original. What a great word picture, and what a compliment to Apelles.

As I get ready to enter into my day, I’m mindful of the ways I want to tangibly be a “Hi-Fi” follower Jesus (complete with mid-century modern font and graphics).

Rock on, my friend.