Epistles

The New Testament epistles are letters from apostles and apostolic associates to congregations and individuals. Several of them speak self-consciously about the act of writing — naming earlier letters, prescribing public reading, distinguishing genuine apostolic letters from forgeries, and ranging Paul's correspondence alongside the other Scriptures.

A Letter Earlier than Our 1 Corinthians

Paul refers to a previous communication when he writes to Corinth: "I wrote to you⁺ in my letter not to associate with whores;" (1Co 5:9). The reference shows that the letters preserved in the canon stand within a wider correspondence.

Letters of Commendation and a Living Letter

When Paul defends his ministry to the Corinthians, he reframes the customary letter of commendation as a metaphor: "Are we beginning again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as do some, letters of commendation to you⁺ or from you⁺? Our letter is you⁺, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being made manifest that you⁺ are a letter of Christ, served by us, not written with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables [that are] hearts of flesh" (2Co 3:1-3). The hearers themselves are figured as a letter of Christ.

Letters Read Aloud and Exchanged

Paul charges the Thessalonians that his letter receive a public hearing: "I adjure you⁺ by the Lord that this letter be read to all the brothers" (1Th 5:27). The instruction is broader at Colossae, where two letters are to circulate: "And when this letter has been read among you⁺, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that you⁺ also read the letter from Laodicea" (Col 4:16).

Letters as Apostolic Authority

In 2 Thessalonians the apostolic letter sits beside the spoken word as the carrier of teaching: "So then, brothers, stand fast, and hold the traditions which you⁺ were taught, whether by word, or by letter of ours" (2Th 2:15). And later in the same letter, the letter itself becomes a basis for discipline: "And if any man does not obey our word by this letter, note that man, that you⁺ do not associate with him, to the end that he may be ashamed" (2Th 3:14).

Paul's Letters Counted with the Scriptures

Peter places Paul's whole correspondence on a footing with the other Scriptures, while warning that some passages are difficult: "And account that the long-suffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also, according to the wisdom given to him, wrote to you⁺; as also in all the letters, he speaks in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which the ignorant and unstedfast will wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2Pe 3:15-16).