Theological Term of the Week: Epistle

epistle

A  letter from a New Testament author to a church, a collection of churches, or an individual. Of the New Testament books, all but Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and Revelation are epistles. 

• From the Epistle to the Galatians, Paul’s greeting and closing blessing:

Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers who are with me, 

To the churches of Galatia: 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen (Galatians 1:1-5 ESV).

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen (Galatians 6:18 ESV).

• From the glossary of the Literary Study Bible:

[An epistle is] a NT letter that possesses the usual ingredients and structure of letters generally. An epistle is not a sermon or treatise. Most NT epistles are occasional letters, meaning that specific questions or crises gave rise to them and shaped their content. NT epistles, except for Romans, are thus not freestanding treatises; they are embedded in a specific occasion and setting. NT epistles follow the customary conventions of Greek and Roman letters of the same era, with modifications. Three of the stock ingredients of NT epistles correspond to the letters of the day: salutation, body, and conclusion. But even here we find innovations, as the salutation, for example becomes a theologically charged “grace and peace” formula, and the body deals specifically with moral and religious issues. Additionally, NT letters have two unique units: a thanksgiving that consists of a liturgically formulated statement of thanks and praise for spiritual blessings, and a paraenesis composed of lists of virtues and vices, or moral commands.

• From 40 Questions About Interpreting the Bible by Robert Plummer, page 282:

The letters in the New Testament are not abstract treatises of systematic theology. They are often passionate appeals, written to specific persons in particular situations in the first century A.D. In a word, they are occasional—addressing specific occasions.

At one level, the occasional nature of the New Testament letters makes them challenging to apply. The writer of 1 Corinthians, Paul, is long dead, along with all the believers in Corinth whom he addressed in the letter. Furthermore, while we find analogous situations in modern times, none of the matters addressed in the letter are exactly the same as those today. Yet, even in these occasional letters, we see intimations that the original authors and recipients saw a timeless authoritativeness in their compositions. Paul’s letters are called “Scripture” by Peter (2 Peter 3:16). Paul insists that his letters be copied and read by churches to which they were originally not addressed (Col. 4:16). Furthermore, the authors of New Testament letters write authoritatively (1 Cor. 5:4-5), presenting their teaching, not as ad hoc suggestions, but as passing on “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). Even letters to individuals, such as Paul’s letters to Philemon and Timothy, give intimations that the broader church is intended to hear and heed the personal letters’ instructions (Philem. 2; 1 Tim. 6:21; 2 Tim. 4:22).

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is an epistle?
2. Christianity.com: What is an epistle? What are the epistles in the Bible?
3. Benjamin L. Merkle: Introduction to the Epistles and Revelation 
4. NET Bible Study Dictionary: Epistle

Related terms:

• biblical hermeneutics
• exegesis
• literary genres of the Bible
• mirror reading

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Sunday Hymn: I Saw One Hanging On a Tree

I saw One hang­ing on a tree,
In ag­ony and blood,
Who fixed His lan­guid eyes on me,
As near His cross I stood.

Refrain

O, can it be, up­on a tree,
The Sav­ior died for me?
My soul is thrilled, my heart is filled,
To think He died for me!

Sure, ne­ver to my lat­est breath,
Can I for­get that look;
It seemed to charge me with His death,
Though not a word He spoke.

My con­sci­ence felt and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in des­pair,
I saw my sins His blood had spilt,
And helped to nail Him there.

A se­cond look He gave, which said,
I free­ly all for­give;
This blood is for thy ran­som paid;
I die that thou mayst live.

—John Newton

By Faith Moses's Parents

The Finding of Moses by Gustave Gore

Recently a friend emailed me a birth announcement for her first child. She sent the announcement and a large photo of her hours-old son to a long list of friends around the world. Like most new parents, she and her husband couldn’t wait to show their baby to everyone they knew.

When the Old Testament leader Moses was born, there was no public announcement. His parents didn’t show him off to all their neighbors and friends, but kept him hidden instead. Do you remember why?

 At the time of Moses’s birth, the Hebrews, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, lived in Egypt. They were not simply immigrants there, but slaves. The king of Egypt had enslaved them because he was afraid that as their numbers grew, they might become a threat to him and his Egyptian subjects. But despite the brutal conditions of their slavery, the Hebrew population continued to grow.

The king then devised an even more ruthless plan. He commanded the Hebrew midwives to kill any sons born to Hebrew women. This plan failed, too, because the midwives didn’t comply with his order, so he doubled down and gave an order to all the citizens of Egypt. “Every Hebrew boy that is born,” he decreed, “you must throw into the Nile” (Exodus 1:22 NIV). 

It was during this time, when no Hebrew baby boy was allowed to live, that little Moses was born. His parents hoped to keep him from certain death by hiding him after he was born. 

According to the author of Hebrews, hiding Moses was an act of faith. Here’s what he wrote about Moses’s parents in the hall of faith found in Hebrews 11: 

By faith, Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict (Hebrews11:23 NIV).

Moses’s parents risked serious punishment by defying the king’s order. The decision they made to keep their son secret secured them a place right after Abraham, his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob on the list of faithful Old Testament people. That’s quite the commendation for a couple whose names, Amram and Jochebed, are not even mentioned in the story about them in Exodus, but only in two Old Testament genealogies.

If you’re familiar with their story, you know that in Exodus the act of hiding baby Moses is attributed to his mother alone (2:2), but according to the author of Hebrews, it was both parents who hid him. These two versions of the story don’t necessarily contradict each other. Would the plan have worked at all if both parents hadn’t agreed to it?  Moses’s mother would have been the one who kept him well fed and happy so he didn’t cry and draw attention to himself. She would have done most of work to keep him hidden from outsiders, so the narrative of Exodus focused on her role. But at the very least, Moses’s father approved of the plan to hide him, and he would have shared the punishment if little Moses had been discovered.

Amram and Jochebed hid Moses “because they saw that he was no ordinary child,” or, as other Bible translations put it, because they saw that he was beautiful (Hebrews 11:23 NET, ESV, CSB, for instance). Of course, most parents think their babies are beautiful—or at least, better than average. But the biblical descriptions of Moses’s parent’s feelings about their son may hint that what they felt was something more than the usual pride all new parents feel. We know the author of Hebrews carefully edited the stories of the people he included in the hall of faith, choosing to include those details necessary to support his conclusions. So why did he choose to include this particular detail about Moses’s appearance when he commended his parent’s faith? Why did he think it was important? 

Some Bible scholars think the wording of the text in Exodus suggests that Moses’s parents hoped God would accomplish something significant through their extraordinary son. In Stephen’s speech to the Sanhedrin before he was martyred, he retold the story of Moses following the Old Testament account of his life closely, but instead of saying that Moses’s mother saw that he was beautiful, he said that Moses was beautiful “in God’s sight” (Acts 7:20). Stephen, it seems, concluded that there was something about baby Moses’s appearance that demonstrated the remarkable favor with which God looked on him. Is this what Moses’s parent’s thought, too? Did they look are their baby boy think that perhaps God would use him? Did see their present circumstances, remember God’s covenant promises to Abraham and his descendants, and hope their son would grow up to deliver God’s people?  

One thing we know for sure is that Amram and Jochebed chose to hide Moses rather than let him be killed because “they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” I don’t think this means they had no fear at all. Who wouldn’t have been at least a bit afraid of what might come from their disobedience to the king’s command? If they had been caught, they would certainly have been severely punished or even killed. But rather than acting from fear, they acted in faith, and defied the king. Like all the other people listed in Hebrews 11, they looked forward to the heavenly reward God gives to those who please him by their faith (Hebrews 11:6), and they set their fear aside and did what was right.

They couldn’t know, of course, how crucial to God’s plan their courage would be. The baby they saved became the man Moses, who eventually delivered the Hebrews from slavery. He is also the one whose commendation follows theirs in the Hebrews hall of faith. 

And because Amram and Jochebed remained faithful when they were threatened by those in authority over them, the author of Hebrews used them as examples of faithfulness in his letter to early Christians who were facing persecution. They were afraid of what the authorities would do to them if they kept following Jesus. The story of Moses’s parent’s faithfulness reminded them that they were not the first ones to face possible punishment for doing what was right. Here was one historical couple who didn’t draw back in fear, but risked everything by disobeying their ruler and obeying God instead.

The repercussions you and I face for being Christians are small compared to those faced by the first readers of Hebrews. When we identify as followers of Jesus and seek to live lives that please him, we aren’t risking death or loss of property, but we may be risking other things, like, for instance, the disapproval of coworkers, friends, or family. The faith of Amram and Jochebed reminds us to face our fear of what others may do to us—or even just think about us—and do what is right anyway. And who knows what might come from our small acts of faithfulness.

Remember, too, that the main message of the book of Hebrews is as true for us as it was for the early Christians to whom it was written. Jesus really is better—a better deliverer than Moses, a better priest than Aaron, and a better sacrifice than that of bulls and goats. He is the complete and perfect Savior. Because of Jesus, what Amram and Jochebed could only hope for is our present reality. And the promise of finally seeing him face to face is more than worth any trials we endure as we follow him.

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Previous post in this series:

• By Faith the Ancients
• By Faith Abel
• By Faith Enoch
• By Faith Noah
• By Faith Abraham and Sarah
• By Faith These All
• By Faith Abraham