Quotes about Letters

When Paul talks in his letters about 'the gospel', he doesn't primarily mean 'the way you too can get saved'. He means 'the message that says that Jesus, the crucified and risen one, is the Lord of the whole world'.

The young church was nourished spiritually by apostles who set down their beliefs and messages in a series of letters. The first 13 such letters (Romans through Philemon) were written by the apostle Paul, who led the advance of Christianity through the non-Jewish world.

Needless to say, the dynamic of the resurrection and a God who cannot be buried for long is the dynamic of a child's jack-in-the-box writ large in golden cosmic letters.

By the way, I like letters. Letter writing has been an important pasttime for the church. I can't promise I'll write you back, but I will read your letter, and I'll do my best to reply. Right now, I'm running about six months behind on writing. And I prefer old-school snail mail: Shane Claiborne, PO Box 12798, Philadelphia, PA 19134.

Moreover, these nobles kept reporting to me Tobiah’s good deeds, and they relayed my words to him. And Tobiah sent letters to intimidate me.

Now if the ministry of death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at the face of Moses because of its fleeting glory,

I do not want to seem to be trying to frighten you by my letters.

Indeed, "theory" is a poor word to choose when seeking to understand the testimony of the Bible. The Old and New Testaments do not present theories at any time. Instead, we find stories, images, metaphors, symbols, sagas, sermons, songs, letters, poems. It would be hard to find writing that is less theoretical.

In the letters she wrote: “Proclaim a fast and give Naboth a seat of honor among the people.

So the couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his officials, which read: “Children of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, so that He may return to those of you who remain, who have escaped the grasp of the kings of Assyria.

Also in those days, the nobles of Judah sent many letters to Tobiah, and Tobiah’s letters came back to them.

The point is this. Paul's letters are highly energetic. Filling translations of his works with stodgy, chewy words and phrases will give the reader indigestion. They may be 'accurate' in one sense, but they are inaccurate in another. Such challenges mean that translation remains exciting, demanding and never-ending.