The bulk of the New Testament is composed of epistles – what we would today call letters. These letters contain a wealth of different things that are helpful to Christians, but they have the following things in common:

• They were written to a specific person or group of people (although they were evidently ‘passed around’ – indeed Paul commands this on at least one occasion¹)
• They were written for a specific purpose or occasion.
• They were all written in the 1st Century AD.

Biblical epistles followed the same conventions as other letters of the 1st Century. Much like we are taught to write letters today, with our address, the date, greeting etc., 1st Century letters had a common form. The Microsoft Office AD letter template would have looked something like this (the examples are taken from 1 Corinthians):

1. Name of writer e.g. “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes” (1:1)
2. Name of recipient e.g. “To the church of God in Corinth” (1:2)
3. Greeting e.g. “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (1:3)
4. Prayer wish or thanksgiving e.g. “I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus…” (1:4-9)
5. Body e.g. (1:10-16:22)
6. Final greeting and farewell e.g. “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love to all of you in Christ Jesus. Amen.” (16:23-24)

This is the general form, although there are some variations, particularly in #4 – for example it is missing in Galatians, 1 Timothy and Titus; in a number of Paul’s letters both thanksgiving and prayer are found; and in 3 of the New Testament epistles (2 Corinthians, Ephesians and 1 Peter) the thanksgiving leads into a doxology, which is an expression of praise to God.

Reading a Biblical epistle

The first and best thing you can do with an epistle is to read it through in its entirety, preferably in one sitting. This may involve setting aside an hour or more, but it is worth it to get the big picture. As you do, jot down your initial impressions and observations, but don’t get too distracted from the flow of the epistle by details – there will be plenty of time for these things later as you study smaller segments in depth. Here are some of the things to note:

• Recipients, author etc.
• The author’s attitudes
• Comments and references to specific events/occasion for writing
• The letter’s natural and logical divisions

The answer to the last question will help you to form a plan of attack for in-depth study. If the structure of the letter isn’t clear, many modern Bibles will include an ‘outline’ at the start of the book, which may be useful in formulating your plan. As you read each individual section, then, try asking the following questions:

• What is the historical context? Why was the epistle written? What were the author’s circumstances? What about the circumstances of the recipients? The answers to some of these will be readily apparent from the epistle itself (e.g. most of the epistles directly identify both author and recipients), but some will not. For these you may want to consult the introduction to the epistle found in most modern Bibles, or a Bible Dictionary.
• What is the argument? To find this out, you will need to trace the argument being made, paragraph by paragraph. For each paragraph ask:
  • What does the paragraph say?
  • Why does it say it at this point?

Sometimes you will come across ‘problem’ passages, which make little or no sense, or are ambiguous. I believe that, sometimes, the reason for this difficulty is that that portion of Scripture is not written to us, or perhaps is not written for us at that moment in time. As I said earlier, don’t panic if you don’t understand something as you’re certainly not alone in that. Where there are ambiguous or uncertain details, I’d suggest that you look for certainties first, before wondering about the merely possible. Sometimes we need to be satisfied with our own ignorance. I’d also recommend consulting a good commentary or a more experienced Christian friend, but do this once you’ve done your own thinking, rather than as a first resort.

Applying a Biblical epistle

One of the biggest problems in applying the epistles (and arguably any portion of Scripture) is the question of whether a given text is applicable to us in the first place, and if so to what extent. The reason that this is such a big problem is that everyone seems to have a different answer, and indeed a different method for arriving at that answer. For example, consider the following instructions from the book of 1 Timothy. Which ones do you consider applicable today? Why or why not?

• 1 Timothy 1:3
• 1 Timothy 2:1
• 1 Timothy 2:8
• 1 Timothy 2:9-10
• 1 Timothy 2:11-12
• 1 Timothy 3:4-7
• 1 Timothy 4:12-14
• 1 Timothy 5:9-14
• 1 Timothy 5:23

Get the picture? All of these are written by the same person, to the same person and at the same time. Yet there is such a variety of opinion what is universally applicable, and what is only applicable to the original recipient. Some are easily decided – none of us, for example, have ever felt called to make a special trip to Troas in order to deliver Paul’s cloak²! Similarly none of us would have any problem accepting 1 Timothy 6:10 (“The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.”) as being true today. But what about the more ambiguous statements? How shall we resolve them?

To help develop a consistent approach to answering this question, I want to suggest the following guidelines:

• As we discussed earlier, a given text cannot mean for us what it never could have meant for its author and/or readers.
• Whenever we share comparable situations, God’s Word to us is the same as God’s Word to them.

That seems straight forward enough, right? Well, perhaps, but there are still a few problems that need to be addressed.

Firstly, be wary of extended application. Here’s an example. Consider 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 – “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” This text is directed to the local church (“you yourselves”, plural), but some would look for a more general application (i.e. an extended application) here e.g. your body is God’s temple and so abusing your own body brings you under God’s judgment. In this case the extended application is correct, because it is spelled out in other passages where that is the intent of the passage³. Generally I would say that if you are only taught something by extended application, then it is probably not God’s Word.

Sometimes we find that a clear principle is being articulated, which is being applied to a specific historical circumstance. We should not necessarily throw away the principle just because the application seems, to us, irrelevant. Having said that, neither does such a principle become timeless, to be applied to any and every situation. Instead, it should only be applied to genuinely comparable situations. For example in 1 Corinthians 8, Paul forbids participation in temple meals based on the “stumbling block” principle. Some will interpret this to mean, “Don’t do anything that will offend another believer.” But this is not really comparable because the situation Paul was describing was one where the other person would be “destroyed by your knowledge” (11), not simply offended.

When it comes to questions of cultural relevance, you need to be consider what the New Testament sees as inherently moral and what is simply cultural. Those items that are moral are universally applicable, and those which are cultural may vary from culture to culture.

It is also worth considering whether there is a consistency across the New Testament. For example, the New Testament consistently teaches love as a Christian’s basic ethical response, non-retaliation etc. It is not quite so consistent when it comes to questions of women in ministry⁴, politics⁵ or wealth⁶.

Finally let me say that your best tools in resolving any of these issues will be common sense and Christian charity. We need to recognise that there are difficulties, communicate with one another, and have love for those with whom we differ.

Further Reading

• Gordon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart, “The Epistles: Learning to think Contextually” and “The Epistles: The Hermeneutical Questions” in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (3rd Edition, Zondervan, 2003) pp. 55-87
• E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing, (InterVarsity Press, 2004)

Endnotes

1. Colossians 4:16
2. 2 Timothy 4:13
3. See, for example, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20
4. See, for example, Romans 16:1-3 vs. 1 Timothy 2:12
5. Romans 13:1-5 and 1 Peter 2:13-14 vs. Rev 13:-18
6. Luke 12:33 & 18:22 vs. 1 Timothy 6:17-19