The Letter

With less than a week before Christmas I had no time to shop for Christmas cards, or colorful holiday stationery. I simply wrote my Christmas letter, photocopied in onto generic white paper, put it in a business security envelope, and stamped it with US Forever flag postage. I trust the recipients will read the letter even though it isn’t decked out with holiday colors, style, or images. My NIV Study Bible, with all its chapters and verses, footnotes, commentary, and references may add color and explanation to the narrative, but I wonder if that might somehow detract from the Epistles. Rather than studying Paul’s letters, it might behoove us to read the letters as he intended…a personal letter. To the Corinthians Paul said, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:2-3 NIV).