In | Reading Someone Else’s Mail

It’s a crime today, but some of the best reading we do in the Bible is “reading someone else’s mail.” The biblical Epistles are letters. Paul’s letters, and the letters of other apostles in the New Testament, are the personal correspondence of those apostles who knew and encountered Jesus. 

Epistles are first-hand accounts of Christian expectations and trials in the years following the ascension of Jesus. Through these documents we’re able to see the church in its infancy—as organic communities laying the foundation of Christian faith for millennia to come.

The Gospels were meant for a broad audience and distribution. In contrast, the Epistles were mainly communicating with individual people and congregations in light of their unique problems and contexts. This difference is evident in their opening lines: