Many of the Books of the New Testament are letters sent from one person, sometimes expressing also views of colleagues, to either individuals or groups of individuals. One group is commonly identified as the Church. The letters mean to clarify and teach about issues related to the application of Christianity to life experience with persons of like faith, and secular society as well. There are warnings, mostly about violators of truth, spiritual or secular. There is more that might be added here in observing the importance that letter writing became in history so that by 1000 AD the accent of rhetoric (persuasion) had moved from speech to letter writing. The new emphasis was likely, at least in part, related to the place of letters in Scripture. Ancient Greece and Rome developed rhetoric for approved public speaking methodology, even making it the center of education. (Many of those principles continue as recommended procedure in the current era.) As the Middle Ages emerged, the process extended to letter writing. During recent centuries rhetoric became part of the public press and books of human affairs. Today few public speakers give much time to the excellence of speaking as found in Pericles in Greece, or Cicero in Rome, or Augustine, or even some of the American founders. Rhetoric is now perceived as a literary subdivision, related to persuasion for the good or ill of society. We have no writing from Socrates. The human writing from Jesus was in the sand, erased by sandals. Speech was first.
There is something about letters that may be implied from Scripture. I read a book of letters from the 2,000 years since Jesus. They were all written by persons of faith. Most were sent by ship and horseback. Some of those persons wrote for the encouragement of others, for their faith, for their education and understanding. The purpose was to address their beliefs and practices, to answer their questions about small and large matters. There was an underlying impression of good will, respect, and humility carried by the letters. They seemed to ring with truth related to concern. About the same time that I read the book I happened upon a folder in which I had dropped letters and notes sent to me by persons with whom I worked, or were in audiences I addressed, or from fellowship or business. I was warmed by their gracious comments, and now remember that a few of them came when I was unsure of my work, perhaps of myself. Was I effective enough in service to make a difference in lives? Was that service honoring to God? The letters, I believe, helped me then. The stories can be extended, not only from my own experience, but in the sometimes well-known stories of persons who maintained written correspondence between themselves and others to mutual benefit. We are informed by historians that it was through correspondence that the miseries of soldiers in the Civil War were lightened in family letters. Some of those letters communicate surpassing beauty and emotion fed by lonely persons. Service to others might, in writing, carry truth in their value and worth. My mother told me how my stepfather was changed by my confessional letter to him after I left home. We have inspired letters of the Apostle Paul to persons and churches. Luke’s Gospel and The Acts are letters to Theophilus. Together with Luke, others crafted letters carrying status as holy writ. Write a letter! It may mean life to someone. In the gentle and warm context, that letter may be awarded lasting human inspiration. I was surprised one day when one of my children, then a grandparent, told me how he felt about my respect and love for my mother in that I would not let a week pass but that I wrote to her. He said he never forgot the gesture. Just before she died, my mother said the same words in gracious context to me. Scripture provides letters from the heavenly father to his earth children. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020