There is the pile of mail on the coffee table. As it is sorted through, amazing, there is a real letter! In the midst of some super deal from Kohl’s to help you waste your money, the credit card bill which shows how you wasted your money, and the National Geographic, there is a letter. An actual letter that was written on paper, signed by the author, folded, put in an envelope, addressed, stamped, and delivered to your house is waiting to be read.
The envelope is examined. It is a thick one. There may be three whole pages in there! With great excitement and curiosity, the letter is opened. The first page is read. That is nice. It is set aside. Then, maybe, a few days later, the next page is read. That is nice. It is so nice, the next page will be saved for the next day. But, the next day, the alarm clock is not heard and life is busy, so page three will have to wait. After a long day at work, sleep is necessary, so page three is not even thought about in the evening. The next morning, page three finally gets read. Done with letter reading until the next one arrives.
Is that how we read letters? Of course not! Not that anyone literally writes tangible letters anymore. When was the last time you got a letter or a hand written note? When was the last time you wrote one? If by some miracle you received a letter, how would you read it? Realizing the current obsession with texting has put the art of letter writing and reading in danger of extinction, it must be recognized that God’s truth was not given in 160 character misspelled messages. Some of His truth was given to us in the form of letters written to churches and individuals.
So, the question is, how should those letters be read? One page at a time? One chapter at a time? How would the receivers of the original letters have read them? Can you imagine Timothy reading the first two chapters of his first letter from Paul, then setting aside the rest for after he took a nap? There were no chapters or verses then anyway, but it seems like Timothy would have sat down and thoughtfully read the entire letter.
So, how should we read those letters? Should we read them like the three page letter that arrived on the coffee table? Do you read them like the three page letter on the coffee table?
Think about it, God has sent you a letter. For example, the book of Ephesians is a letter from God to you. The letter to the Ephesian church is a letter to you that is sitting on your coffee table. How should you read it? May I make a suggestion? Try sitting down and thoughtfully reading the whole letter. Isn’t that how letters, real ones, are meant to be read?