New Testament Letters: Literary Context (Episode 18)

Near the end of the Bible are 21 letters from leaders of the early Jesus movement. They were written to small church communities in cities throughout the Roman world. Now, writing letters took a lot of money and effort in the ancient world, and so each one was crafted carefully from beginning to end. And that means we should read them as one whole literary work. So let's talk about how to read New Testament letters in their literary context. Of all the early Christian leaders, the apostle Paul wrote the most letters. We have 13 in the New Testament. I often imagine him alone in his study, writing long theological essays. But Paul didn't work or write alone. In fact, he often names people from his team who helped him produce the letters. Oh, right. Like Timothy or Silas. Yeah, Paul was constantly with his missionary teammates on the road, working out ideas as they talked and debated and talked together. Paul would have collected speeches, poems and prayers in notebooks. Like the ones he mentions in his second letter to Timothy. Right. And so Paul would get the right teammates in a room and start pulling together old and new material. Then they would hire a professional scribe and start creating drafts until they were satisfied with how it worked together as one whole. Then mail it off. Yeah, the letter would be given to a trusted teammate who would also be given instructions on how to perform it before the recipients. Perform it, like read it aloud? Yeah, most people back then didn't read. And so Paul mentions this more than once in his letters that they were designed to be heard, which is why they often sound like written speeches. It's important for us to read and listen to these letters from beginning to end, too, so we can appreciate how each part contributes to the whole. Exactly. Now, every culture has its own practice for how to organize a letter. In the first century, there was a standard format. You have the opening, which names the author and then the receiver. Then a prayer of thanks or greeting. Then comes the body of the letter. This part is the main reason for writing in the first place, what the receiver is supposed to know or do something about. Right. Then comes the conclusion, which could have greetings, travel plans, a final request, or a prayer. It's helpful to see how a New Testament letter breaks down into these parts. Let's take, for example, Paul's letter to the Ephesians. Okay, there's the opening. Then a long Thanksgiving prayer to God. In the center of this opening prayer, Paul introduces the main idea of the whole letter. It's about God's plan. To unite together all things in heaven and earth in Messiah Jesus. But what does that mean? Well, as we move into the body of the letter, Paul is going to repeat and unpack this rich idea. Right. But in the body of the letter, it's easy to get lost and lose track of what Paul's even talking about. Totally. I mean, the letter to the Ephesians has about 3,000 words. That one's short compared to his other letters. But remember, Paul wrote these letters to be heard aloud. He usually gives clues to the progression of thought with transition words like therefore or because of this, or so then. Okay. The body of Ephesians breaks down to a lot of paragraphs, but they all begin with these transition words. Right. Each paragraph has its own main idea. The first one is about how the risen Jesus is king of everything and everyone. And as for you, that is, non-Israelites, you are now included in the new humanity God's creating. Therefore, God's one new family consists of people from all nations. God has unified a new humanity in Jesus. That's the core idea here. Right. That theme unites all of the paragraphs in chapters one through three. Then we come to chapter four, and we get a really significant transition. Therefore. Yeah, that transition word is actually a hinge between the first and second half of the letter. God's unified a new humanity in Jesus. Therefore what? That's a great question. Let's keep going, and we'll summarize the paragraphs of chapter 4. God's one new humanity is really diverse, so we must live together as God's new creation. That, therefore, requires that we learn how to love and forgive each other because we are one. This section is all about living in unity. Right. You can see now how all the parts of the letter fit together into one flow of thought. God's unified a new humanity in Jesus, therefore live in a way that fosters that unity. Seeing it broken down like this is really helpful. It's like a roadmap, so I don't get lost. Right. You can read every New Testament letter this way. Break it down into smaller parts to see the message of each paragraph. Then trace repeated ideas and transition words to see how they all connect back together. Then you'll see how the Apostles brilliantly combined all of the pieces into a literary whole that spoke to Jesus's first followers and can still speak to us today.