Paul's Ministry in Corinth

What is the purpose of writing letters, writing emails, sending texts? Why do you do that? All right, Rita.

Well, in its broadest sense, it's to communicate, that you could be communicating anything.

I mean, I've sent a message to my brother today just to say happy birthday.

Mm-hmm.

Or you might be having communications to discuss a problem, just to pass news, all sorts of things.

All right.

Why do lawyers write letters, Bob?

Well, I was actually gonna bring up the fact that you want to document your position at a certain point in time to confirm an agreement, to avoid ambiguity.

In the current state of the law, an exchange of emails can constitute a contract or an agreement.

That wasn't always as clear, but an exchange can confirm things.

I really appreciate where you took that question because the whole idea of documenting, I mean, that's so important for us here in the New Testament.

The New Testament is almost three-quarters made up of letters.

There are some documents that somebody sat down and says, "I'm gonna write a book," Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Revelation, perhaps.

But most of the New Testament is private letters or letters from one person to a group of people, and they document the things that went on in New Testament times.

If it wasn't for these letters, we would basically have the Book of Acts to try to figure out what the history was there.

But there's so much in Paul's letters and some of the others that document what was going on and also what they were thinking, et cetera.

So we are really grateful for these letters because some of Paul's profoundest thoughts made their way into letters.

Henry.

I understand Bob's comment from the attorney position of documentation, but I don't really write letters and emails just to keep track of everything that has been said.

If I need to keep documentation every conversation that I have had with my wife, that would be, like, something very concerning, right? So I think that in the case of Paul, that he multiple times puts on his letters, it's because he wants to communicate with people that is far away, that is there is distance, there is a barrier, and he cannot communicate face to face.

I will rather communicate face to face with people so they can read my body language, they can see my expressions, they can see that I am not coming harsh.

All of these different elements that now that you cannot see me, you can only imagine how my face is looking now that I have no ability to connect my camera right now.

So I think that in the case of Paul, he wasn't actually thinking that he was writing Bible, that he was leaving something behind.

He wanted to share something with his friends, and we are taking advantage of that without asking him for permission.

It's the theme of unintended consequences, where things happen that you didn't intend, and I think you're probably right.