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Show By DK; KENHETH J. FOREMAN SCRIPTURE: Phlllpplans: I Timothy; I John. DEVOTIONAL READING: EpheslanJ 3: 13-21. Letters in the Bible Lesson for December 12, 1948 A LETTER In the mail! Those are exciting words. It was so when the Babylonians chipped open their dried clay envelopes, it is so when we rip the end off our pa- JST?V1 per envelopes, it 7 A was so when the if , yy, marooned and homesick Timothy JjpZi broke the seal on 's?ytA the papyrus notes Mw that his old friend : and teacher Paul 'f$ sent him. Most let- tA.6l ters reach the Dr. Foreman wastebasket, and we know that some of Paul's did. ; But fortunately his friends thought I enough of about a dozen of his letters let-ters to save them and copy them and file them with some others and pass them around. And so we got more than a third of our New Testament Testa-ment and perhaps a good deal more than a third of our theology. Yesterday in Television TpHESE letters that have come down to us from so long ago are not only keenly interesting, they are immensely valuable. An honest Informal letter is like an open window. win-dow. We see into the writer's mind and life, we see the life of his times. Any historian feels lucky when he lights on a packet of old letters. Here is yesterday in television. tele-vision. The letters of the New Testament, Testa-ment, especially Paul's, are not propaganda literature. Paul was not writing for publication or for posterity. He would be bothered by a problem; be would think and pray about it, and then he would sit down and write about It. However trivial the problem might seem, such as a local church quarrel, Paul never wrote trivially about it He would pour out his mind on papyrus, usually dictating his letters to a secretary and sometimes some-times so fast that the secretary obviously ob-viously had a hard time keeping up. If you want to know how an Apostle's Apos-tle's mind worked, here It Is. If you want to know how an inspired religious genius, one of the great of all time, planned and grieved and hoped and rejoiced, read these letters. Further, these letters televise tele-vise for us the early Christian church. This Is not a view of the church on parade, this is a glimpse of the church as it was "on the hoof." struggling, quarreling, ignorant, ig-norant, scarce one step removed from raw heathenism, and yet with the root of Christian faith in its heart, the seed of the great church .that has grown up through the centuries. cen-turies. Friend to Friend THE letters in the New Testa-ment Testa-ment are of various kinds. The letter to the Philippians from Paul was written, from prison, to some of his best friends. Recently they had sent him not only money but a man named Epaphroditus to stay with Paul and help him, Paul being In constant bad health. But Epaphroditus Epa-phroditus himself had fallen ill. and when he grew better he was still homesick. Paul, generous as always, decided decid-ed to send his sick friend home to convalesce, and by his hand sent the letter which the Philippian church loved, saved and copied, so that it eventually made its way into the New Testament collection. There Is some high theology In the letier; but there Is also some warm human friendship, and some of the best advice Paul ever gave. It Is In this letter we discover Paul's secret of happiness. I have learned (he wrote) in whatsoever state I am, therein to be content. (See chapter 4.) When you read those paragraphs, simply glowing with happiness, remember re-member they were written by a sick man. in jail, facing a serious charge on his forthcoming trial. Paul had actually discovered a joy which is trouble-proof. Father to Sons PAUL knew he would not live forever for-ever on this planet and could not live everywhere. So he spent much effort training helpers and successors. succes-sors. Some of these disappointed him sorely: but he was never disappointed dis-appointed In Timothy His letters to Timothy are personal, per-sonal, but they are more than that They are advice from an older minister min-ister to a younger one. from a veteran vet-eran missionary to a fresh recruit. In I John we have another kind of letter, from an old. perhaps retired re-tired minister to a congregation he knows and loves Again In 1 John the reader gets the impression of reading a family letter from father to sons and daughters. (Copyright by tbt lattrattlewal Council ot Rtligiova Education oa bthall ot 40 Protestant dtaomiaatioas, Rtliasad by WNU iaaturaaj |