We all love to get mail. The more people I talk to, the more convinced I become that, as a basic emotional need, correspondence ranks right up there with love, peer group approval, and junk food. Even a fist full of bills earns a better response than having the postman sail by without leaving so much as a “Dear Occupant” to brighten our day.
I love to get mail. I love it so much that when Sindy and I moved to another house and I discovered that I did not have a key to my mailbox, I went charging down to the Post Office to secure one. I spent a good deal of time writing change of address cards to correspondents. I was saying, “I have moved. Send us mail to this new address.” I want mail. Funny, though, for people who love to get letters, we spend little time reading the best ones ever written to us. A large portion of our New Testament consists of letters. Romans, Ephesians, Timothy, and Titus are all letters, delivered by God’s appointed couriers whom neither rain nor snow nor growl of lions could stay from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. But we don’t read them.
Perhaps the problem is that they have someone else’s name on them. But you need to understand that the original earthly recipients merely acted as a forwarding address. They are your letters. God sends them to you.
Bible scholars tell us that the epistle to the Ephesians
originally had no address. The oldest manuscripts begin, “Paul . . . to the
saints who are at .” The theory
goes that the apostle meant to address all the churches in that area of
We need to read our mail! It tells us that the bill is due on our sin, and lets us know how to get it paid. It tells us that we have already won eternal wealth, without entering a sweepstakes or receiving any help at all from Ed McMahon. It contains love poems from the greatest Author who ever lived.
So get out the envelope and dust off the cover. And remember, there’s always a letter for you.