Letters or Epistles

The majority of writings in the New Testament is in literary form of a letter or an epistle.  Epistles are intended to be for a more public or wider audience than a letter.  Just like our letters today, ancient letters follow a standard form.  Since the author is not bound to follow such form, it would help to take note when the author deviate from it.

An epistle (1 Corinthians) consist of a salutation that includes the name of the writer and the recipient, greeting (e.g., "grace and peace to you from God..."), prayer and/or thanksgiving (e.g., "I always thank God for you..."), body, then the closing comments (e.g, "finally brothers....greet one another...May the grace...").  Recognizing the form of an epistle will help you in reading it in context and following the flow of the authors thought.

It is important to find out as much background that you can about the author, the recipient, and their relationship to each other.  Most of all, you need to know the reason why was the letter written in the first place.  Is it to correct a problem in a local church?  Is it an instruction that they need, or to combat a heretical teaching?  What is the mood of the author in writing the letter?

Just like when you receive a letter, you must start by reading the whole letter before going back and studying parts of the letter.  Remember to pay attention to details as you read and reread.

A word can have different shades of meaning and you cannot assume that Peter, John and Paul meant the same thing every time they would use a particular word.  You must first look at the immediate context,  that is, the sentences surrounding the word.  If needed, you can refer to another letter that the same author wrote.  Lastly, you can refer to other books in the Bible.  This last step should be done with much care because this can result in misunderstanding what the author originally meant with a particular word.  The farther you get away from the immediate context, the meaning that you get for a word become less reliable.

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