An Open Letter
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood: https://www.pexels.com/photo/shallow-focus-of-letter-paper-1157151/
Letters. I’m not talking about the individual characters in our alphabet, but the other kind: A written, typed, or printed communication, sent in an envelope or electronically.
They range from informal, such as a message between friends or family sharing news, to the formal, from your boss or bank.
For hundreds of years letters were sent via post. The writer would add the address and stamp then trundle off to the nearest post box and send the letter on its way. Days, or even weeks would go by for the letter to get to its recipient and for them to reply.
Things have changed in our digital age where messages, pictures and even videos can be sent and received almost instantly all over the world!
I’ve never been a great letter writer. I sent a few postcards to my Grandparents when I was on holiday as a child, and I wrote a few letters back home when I was at Bible school. I did, of course, write some important ones to Father Christmas, many years ago!
A lot of the New Testament, in the Bible, is made up of letters written by the first leaders to the new churches. In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote about a different type of letter…
“You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 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.”
Paul wrote this because at that time, some people, who were against the church, were twisting what he wrote, as well as bringing false teaching to the Christians.
Paul said it was not his letters that validated what God had done, instead the evidence of his preaching and God’s transformation of people’s lives was the real proof! In other words, the people were the letter of authenticity.
That got me thinking: Is my life an ‘open letter’ of God’s grace, love and transformation? When people interact with me, do they see and experience what God has done? What about you?
God bless you :)
Gary Bastin - Hope Community Church leader