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We got a new mail carrier some time ago, and I keep getting letters that are clearly intended for someone else, judging by the names and addresses clearly<\/em> marked on the front<\/em> of every piece of mail. This is a problem, big enough, perhaps, for even the US Postal Service to take notice. \u201cYeah, hi. Listen, I have a letter and small package here for Mary P. Thompson of 987 Chestnut Avenue, which does not remotely resemble my name or address. Please advise.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s what I\u2019d like to say if I ever actually get a live person on the phone at the good local branch of the USPS. My realistic options are either to lurk in the bushes and pounce or, if pressed for time, simply stuff it all back in the mailbox and hope the new guy figures it out. Still, in an act of petty vengeance, I dug up my curbside mailbox and affixed a new one fifty feet farther away at my front door. That\u2019ll learn \u2019em.<\/p>\n Reading someone else\u2019s mail is a bit tempting, I have to admit, but if you stop to think about it, apart from being illegal, it is a complete waste of time. Even if the letter lets you in on some sordid personal details, it doesn\u2019t matter. What good does it to know that, say, someone\u2019s marriage is falling apart or that they had a great time at Six Flags?<\/p>\n Letters have a context that the sender shares with the addressee. You are neither. The information does you no good. Cut it out.<\/p>\n It has struck me over the years that some of the most important pieces of literature in the entire Bible are\u00a0<\/p>\n personal letters<\/p>\n written two thousand years ago<\/p>\n by people I\u2019ve never met named Paul, Peter, James, John, and some others<\/p>\n and intended for people I absolutely know nothing about<\/p>\n in places I am not remotely familiar with<\/p>\n in a culture I really cannot hope to grasp.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As one of my seminary professors said, \u201cReading the New Testament is like reading someone else\u2019s mail.\u201d That might be the most valuable thing I ever learned in seminary. And now I pass it on to you, at a far lower cost.<\/p>\n And yet, this is not mail we are supposed to stuff back in a mailbox. We are supposed<\/em> to read these letters\u2014and not only read them, but find some way to draw them into our own lives.<\/p>\n Think about that for a minute. I think about it a lot.<\/p>\n And it doesn\u2019t really help make this any easier to say these letters are inspired by God. That still leaves the question of why God would decide to inspire context-dependent personal correspondence and expect us to \u201cget it\u201d two thousand years later in a very\u2014I will say it again, very<\/em>\u2014different time and place.<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t God realize that we don\u2019t share the common understanding that, say, Paul shares with the people in Corinth or Thessalonica? Doesn\u2019t God realize that making twenty-two of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament letters means that we will have to think\u2014really think\u2014about what these letters were meant to do and then be really thoughtful and intentional, maybe even humble, about how to engage them for ourselves?<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t God know that we will have to exercise tremendous\u2014what\u2019s that word again? Oh, yes\u2014wisdom in order to know how or even if<\/em> these words will apply to others in their own context-dependent situations?<\/p>\n Leaving the snark aside, I think that letters are the perfect format for a sacred book that is not intended as a helicopter-parenting manual, but as a source of wisdom. We can\u2019t simply just drag these letters into our own life as is. We have to work at finding the connection between then and now.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think the value of these letters lies in our ability to ignore their time and place and make-believe they were written with us in mind every bit as much as the ancient Jews or Roman citizens they were written to. We get something out of them only by wrestling with their \u201chistorical particularity\u201d (as some put it) and then doing the hard work of accepting the sacred responsibility<\/a> of discerning how all of that works out here and now in whatever situation we find ourselves.<\/p>\n The letters of the New Testament are wisdom documents. <\/p>\n When we read these letters we are watching wisdom in action.<\/p>\n These letters are not one-size-fits-all documents detached from their ancient moments, ready to touch down just anywhere and anytime without a moment\u2019s reflection. We read these letters wisely not when we simply graft the words before us onto an entirely different time and place, but when we study them to see what they are about for there and then so we can see more clearly, guided by wisdom, how we are to bring that biblical wisdom into our here and now.<\/p>\n Of course, this brings us to the apostle Paul, who wrote perhaps as many as thirteen of the twenty-two letters and who is always easy to understand and never ever says anything controversial. See, I left the snark aside for almost a whole page.<\/p>\n This post is an adapted excerpt from How the Bible Actually Works.<\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n If you enjoyed this blog post and\/or How the Bible Actually Works, we\u2019ve developed a 6-part video series<\/a> based on the book that we think you\u2019ll enjoy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
We are watching some of the earliest followers of Jesus working out what it meant to walk with God in their moment in time. <\/h2>\n