Scripture: Ephesians 1:1-2 (text at the bottom of the post)
Imagine you live in the city of Ephesus, you are a member of the Church in Ephesus,1 and you know Apostle Paul. He came to Ephesus many years ago and started the church you currently attend. He stayed with your church for a while but then left to visit other churches and to preach the gospel in other cities. Later he came back and stayed longer. For over 3 years, he taught you and the church many things about God and Jesus Christ. Then because of his concerns for other churches and his burden for spreading the gospel, he left again.
And then you heard that he was put into prison because of the gospel.
Then about two years after his imprisonment, or maybe a little longer than that, you heard from your church elders that they had received a letter from Paul! Let’s say this just happened last week. The church leaders are going to read his letter to the congregation in the next meeting of the church.2
How are you going to listen to the letter? How do you expect the elders or leaders to read the letter? Or if you are a leader yourself and have access to the letter, how are you going to read it yourself?
For one thing, you are probably not going to read 2 sentences from the letter, wait for 1 or 2 days, read 3 more sentences, and maybe wait for a week, then read 3 more sentences. This is not how we read a letter, yet this seems to be how we read letters of the Bible3. Think about this: this is a letter from someone who brought you the gospel, a missionary that you know, or a church pastor! Aren’t you interested in knowing what is happening to him? Aren’t you curious about what he might be saying about the church or whether he mentioned you in the letter?4
I hope you can take some time to read the book of Ephesians (or an epistle that you happen to be reading) in longer sections, say a chapter or two. As a letter, the book of Ephesians is considered long in today’s practice,5 so you don’t have to read the whole book in one setting (although that would still be a good exercise). Try to think about the background that I have mentioned in this post, and try to imagine that you are indeed reading a letter from someone you know.
That sense of reading a letter as a letter is very important for us to understand the epistles. The Bible is the word of God to the people in the past; it is also the word of God to us today; but the Bible did not drop down from heaven to earth as a book. There were real people and real events associated with each book in the Bible, and we need to be consciously aware of it.6
May our Lord richly bless you as you dwell in His words!
“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To God’s holy people in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 1:1-2 TNIV)
- This will be discussed a little more in another post. ↩
- This is a rough reconstruction of history based on time line of Paul that we know today. Details in timing are not important here. The point is to sense that this is a real letter to real people. ↩
- Letters in the Bible are also called epistles. This will be discussed later. ↩
- In the case of the book of Ephesians, there isn’t much personal information in the book, but again, think about how you normally read a letter. ↩
- Part of the reason is due to ease of transportation and communication in modern world. ↩
- This post is not meant to be a criticism on how we read the Bible, but it is an attempt to bring out the awareness of different forms and genres in the Bible. ↩