The church that is in their house. — A party of Christians seem to have been in the habit of meeting in the house of Aquila and Priscilla for purposes of worship at Rome, as previously at Ephesus (1 Corinthians 16:19). Similar instances may be found in Acts 12:12; Colossians 4:15; Philemon 1:2.
Salute. — The same word in the Greek is translated indifferently by “salute” and “greet,” an unnecessary caprice.
Firstfruits of Achaia. — For “Achaia” we ought certainly to read “Asia” — i.e., the Roman province of Asia, a broad strip of territory including the whole western end of the peninsula of Asia Minor, from the Propontis in the north, to Lycia in the south. Ephesus was the capital, and the seven “churches in Asia” to which St. John wrote in the Apocalypse — Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea — were the most central and important of its cities.
By “firstfruits of Asia” is meant one of the first converts won over to Christianity in Asia. (Comp. “firstfruits of Achaia,” in 1 Corinthians 16:15, through the parallelism of which the text of our own passage became corrupted.)