1.02.02.02 The Epistles
II. THE EPISTLES.
Evidently, since, as we have seen, it is important to take note of the circumstances under which the books we have already had under consideration were written, the same rule must apply with added force to the epistles. By their very form these writings declare themselves to be of a specific personal and local character.
They are letters. A letter implies a sender and a receiver; and we cannot do justice to it until we take into account the circumstances under which it was despatched. In a true letter the personality of the writer is always in evidence. The biographer recognizes this fact by collecting his hero’s correspondence, and in some cases contenting himself with doing little more than adding a connective commentary. The man reveals himself in his correspondence. Thus we know St. Paul as we know no other character of apostolic times, because we have so many of his letters. Then, though there are such things as circular letters,— the Epistle to the Ephesians may be of this nature, — every genuine letter is drawn up with a distinct recognition of the sort of persons it is addressed to and the writer’s relations to them. The letter that would be very suitable to send to one correspondent would be very unsuitable for another. Similarly, the special circumstances under which each letter was written and its specific object must characterize it throughout. From these facts we may deduce certain important conclusions as to the right way of studying the epistles.
1. The Writer.— The first step is to collect all necessary information as to the writer of the epistle we are about to make a subject of study. In the case of the Pauline epistles we have two sources of information, the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles themselves.
Professor Ramsay has recently vindicated the account of the travels and labors of the apostle in St. Luke’s narrative. Where the epistles can be fitted into their places in the narrative, it is very helpful to read that narrative for the light it throws on them. Then, as we possess so many of St. Paul’s epistles, we can use them to throw light on one another. It is well to make a study of all these epistles together, in order that we may learn the whole of the recorded teaching of the writer, and also that we may come to know the man himself. After doing so, when we read any one of St. Paul’s epistles we can throw the light of our knowledge of the apostle and his teaching upon it. At all events, it is absolutely imperative that we should consider whose epistle we are reading, and not fling all our studies into confusion by taking no account of the question whether what we are reading comes from St. Paul or St. James or St. John. Such personal documents as letters must be closely associated with their writers. When we turn from St. Paul to St. James we find ourselves in an entirely different atmosphere. For St. James’s epistle we need to collect all the information that is procurable about the leader of the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem.
So, again, when we turn to the three short epistles of St. John it is quite clear that we have to do with a peculiar class of literature. These epistles should be read together and also in close connection with the fourth Gospel; they will shed light on the Gospel, and it in turn will help to explain them. Therefore let the Johannine writings be allotted a separate reading by themselves. It is study of this kind that makes it certain that the Epistle to the Hebrews could not have been written by St. Paul. The style and character of it are quite different from what we meet in the Pauline epistles. In this case, unfortunately, we cannot obtain light from the personality of the author; he is wholly unknown to us. 1 Peter may be well illustrated from our knowledge of the apostle in the Gospels and the Acts; the genuineness of 2 Peter is very doubtful. Of St. Jude we know but little, and his epistle is not important.
2. The Readers.— In the study of a correspondence, next to some knowledge of the writer, it is most important to be acquainted with the people to whom he is addressing himself. Any information that can be procured concerning the Galatian, the Corinthian, or the Roman Christians will be of the greatest service when we come to read the letters addressed to these communities. The relations of the apostle to his readers are also important factors. We must distinguish between his own converts, such as the Galatians and the Corinthians, and Christians who had been won by the labors of others and whom he had not so much as seen, such as the Romans. The direct personal treatment is natural with the former; in the case of the latter a certain restraint and a studious courtesy are natural to so true a gentleman as the apostle. Accordingly, we meet with these very distinctions of style and treatment in the different letters. The Galatians the apostle rates soundly for their fickleness, and the Corinthians he rebukes for their grave faults, but to the Romans, perfect strangers except by repute, he is very polite and not so personal. This Epistle to the Romans is less of a letter and more like a set treatise than any other of St. Paul’s writings, and the absence of personal connection with the readers explains the peculiarity of it in this respect.
St. Paul’s epistles were addressed to churches consisting for the most part of converts from heathenism; St. James writes his letter for Jews. The Epistle to the Hebrews, as its title declares, is also composed for Jews.
These facts must be remembered in reading the works.
It is especially important in the case of the Epistle to the Hebrews, because the whole argument of the writer is closely related to the nationality of his readers; it is an argumentum adhomines. The Jewish Christians are consoled for the loss of their old privileges occasioned by their expulsion from the synagogue. They are shown that they have the reality of those privileges still, and, more than this, that even in respect to the very privileges they are better off than their brethren of the old religion; they have in a larger and richer and more solid way all that the Jews have in but an imperfect and shadowy form. Step by step, the argument of the epistle demonstrates this great truth with reference to one after the other of the ancient privileges of Israel. This will account for the form of the epistle, as well as for its essential thought. We may say for certain that the argument would not have been thrown into this form if it had not been addressed to Jews. From which position we may draw two conclusions: (1) To understand the epistle we must try to enter into the Jewish mind and read it from a Hebrew Christian standpoint. Its allusions presuppose an intimate knowledge of the Old Testament. We must read it with the Old Testament before us. (2) We need not take its expressions quite absolutely as the very best for setting forth Christian truth. Best for the Jew, they may not always be best for the Christian. The truths themselves are of immense value to us, but we may feel free to recast them into a Gentile form. The epistle teems with allusions to the priestly system and to the arrangements of the tabernacle. It is almost exclusively from the Epistle to the Hebrews that these ideas have passed into Christian theology. Certainly they afford striking illustrations of Christian truth, especially in regard to the mystery of atonement. But we should remember that they are illustrations, and that they were first put forward for the benefit of Jews who clung to their old Levitical system. This fact should make us hesitate before asserting that they must keep the exact form and retain the same prominence for Christians of all ages. The fact of the atonement, if a fact at all, must ever be of transcendent importance; but the sacrificial imagery of the Epistle to the Hebrews need not bind the minds of Gentile Christians to one particular mode of regarding it.
3. Chronological Position. — In the next place, we must arrange these epistles in order of time. It is well to read them all through chronologically. By this means alone is it possible to trace the development of the writer’s teaching. Then let each epistle be taken up with a distinct recognition of its place in relation to the other epistles. While light may be found in the whole collection of the works of the same author, it is only reasonable to expect that those writings that are contemporary will best illustrate one another. For this reason it is desirable to take the epistles in the separate groups in which they appear. There are four of these groups of Pauline epistles: (1) The two epistles to the Thessalonians. (2) The four great epistles— to the Galatians, the Romans, the Corinthians. These belong to the period of conflict with the Judaizing teachers who were undoing much of the apostle’s work. Here the specific theology of St. Paul is most vigorously developed. (3) The epistles of the captivity, calmer and more meditative works. (4) The pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus, the personal character of which is obvious, and which must be read as related to a late period in the apostolic age.
4. Circumstances.— Having cleared the ground by means of these preliminary studies, we are in a position to direct more attention to the special characteristics of the particular epistle we have selected for study.
Now, we must take into account the circumstances under which it was written. These fall into two classes— the circumstances of the writer, and the circumstances of his readers.
(1) The circumstances of the writer. The chronological arrangement will have helped us to see at what point in the life-story of the apostle the epistle comes in, and the epistle itself will go further to show the condition in which he is placed and his state of mind at the time of writing.
(2) The circumstances of the readers. These we may learn to some extent from extraneous sources, such as the Acts of the Apostles. But for the most part we must derive our information from the epistle itself. In writing to the Galatians, for instance, St. Paul lets us see the peculiar danger in which the church is placed from an invasion of the teachers of the Jerusalem party; his letter to the Corinthian church paints the corruptions of that community in lurid colors; and, in fact, all the epistles are well adjusted to the circumstances of the people to whom they are addressed, and therefore they all call for a careful consideration of those circumstances before they can be rightly comprehended.
5. The Occasion.— This is closely connected with the preceding topic. Most of the New Testament epistles, certainly most of St. Paul’s epistles, were called forth by some special emergency. They are as far as possible from being abstract treatises. It is doubtful if many of them would have been written at all if it had not been that the peculiar condition of affairs had in each case called for some action on the part of the writer. The Thessalonians are distressed at the death of some of their number before the return of their Lord, and fear that these deceased brethren may miss the joy of the parousia; the Corinthians have written to the apostle with specific questions, to which he replies seriatim; the Galatians are in imminent danger, and must be warned at once; the Philippians have sent gifts to the apostle, and his heart is moved to acknowledge them in the most affectionate terms; Onesimns, the fugitive slave, bears back with him the beautiful little letter to Philemon as a plea for pardon; the Epistle to the Hebrews seems to be called forth by the troubles that have fallen on the Jewish Christians, to whom it is addressed, from the persecution by their fellow- Jews. Similarly, in nearly every case we can detect something definite in the condition of the people to whom an epistle is sent, that accounts for the writing of it. It is evident that one key to a right understanding of the epistle will be found in the discovery of this fact.
6. The Purpose.— In every case the writer has some object that he wishes to be attained. When we can discover this we are on the road for following his argument. It is through missing the author’s purpose, often because no attempt has been made to look for it, that there is so much misapprehension of the contents of an epistle. The purpose naturally grows out of the occasion. Still, it is not a mere echo. Thought and individuality of mind are exercised in meeting the peculiar requirements of each case. Therefore, when we have seized the occasion we have yet to inquire for the exact aim of the writer. Sometimes this is of a more or less complicated nature. The author may have more than one object in view. Thus in his First Epistle to the Corinthians St. Paul has to correct several distinct faults, which he deals with separately, and then to answer several questions that have been put to him by his correspondents; and St. John, in his first epistle, while wishing to help and uplift his readers generally, has the definite further object of safeguarding them against erroneous and false teaching that denied the incarnation.
7. The Course of Thought— In studying an epistle it is most desirable to read it right through. The selection of a chapter or a few verses here and there may leave the reader in complete ignorance of the drift of the writer’s thought, and even lead to grave misapprehensions of the fragments studied. Each epistle should be regarded as a whole. It has a certain unity. True, it may be more discursive than a set treatise. The Epistle to the Hebrews comes nearer to the form of an essay carefully planned out from beginning to end, and built up as an harmonious structure throughout; and next to this the Epistle to the Romans is conceived and worked out on a definite plan. A letter- writer has the privilege of wandering on from one subject to another; the most charming letters are those which take the form of an easy, unpremeditated conversation. St. Paul’s epistles often betray this character. The apostle will suddenly go off at a tangent on the chance suggestion of a single phrase. He will insert a long parenthesis, and not return to his subject till the readers have almost forgotten where he started. In some cases he will neglect to take up the broken thread. But these indications of a natural, unconventional style must not prevent us from seeing that none of the epistles are wholly disjointed. If the course -of thought is not always perfectly methodical, still it is possible to follow the movement of the writer’s mind, and we must do this if we are to understand him.
It is well to have paper and pencil by our side in reading an epistle, and to note down its several topics as we go along, at the same time observing how naturally they flow one into another, as the mind of the writer moves along in a free and natural flow of thought.
Then, having discovered the principal landmarks, we can proceed with more ease to make an abstract of the whole epistle. It is much better to make it for ourselves than to use an abstract that we have found in some commentary, because half the good advantage is to be derived from the actual process of constructing it. When we have our own abstract before us we are in a position to take a bird’s-eye view of the epistle. It is wonderful what a revelation this will be to us if we have been accustomed hitherto to read the epistle only by chapter and verse. In some cases— preeminently with the Epistle to the Romans— there is a continuous argument running on, and it is absolutely necessary to grasp this as a whole if we would attain to anything like a true understanding of it.
8. Specific Ideas.— After we have traced out the line of argument or the course of the more discursive thought that runs through the epistle we are studying, there is yet another way of treating it. We can now proceed to gather up its specific ideas. If the former process was analytic, this may be called synthetic.
Here we are inquiring, What does the writer teach in this epistle? We want to set out clearly the whole of his doctrine contained in the particular document under consideration. We must bring nothing to it in the form of foreign ideas. Our business must be to ask, What do we learn from this one book? Supposing this were the only book of the Bible that had reached us, what would the revelation amount to? This inquiry involves a negative as well as a positive answer. There are certain truths taught elsewhere which do not happen to be taught here. Let us recognize the fact frankly; let us see the limitations of the epistle as well as its valuable contributions to the sum of our knowledge of divine truth. In this way we shall discover that different epistles are valuable for conveying to us different truths. For example, we go to Galatians and Romans for St. Paul’s fullest teachings of the way of forgiveness; to Corinthians for practical lessons on church life, for the doctrine of the resurrection, etc.; to Ephesians for teaching on the relation of Christ to His church; to Colossians for the glory of Christ; to Philip plans for the joy of personal union with Christ; to the pastoral epistles for the duties of the ministerial office— not, of course, exclusively, but still using each epistle for its specific teaching. In this way we are prepared to take a step further.
Having got the exact teaching of one epistle, all we can see of its contents, with a distinct recognition of its limitations, of what it does not say, we are prepared to compare it with other epistles, especially with those which. come nearest to it in time or those which treat of the same topics. Here our chronological arrangement of the epistles is of immense value. By this means we can trace the progress of revelation. As we proceed we shall see how one idea after another first emerges and then becomes more and more distinct.
Thus the epistles to the Thessalonians do not elaborate any of the deeper doctrines of St. Paul’s theology; these doctrines are worked out in the four great epistles. The epistles of the captivity carry us on further into regions of more intense spiritual experience. In these last epistles, too, and also in the pastoral epistles, the writer is combating errors that threaten to corrupt the truths of revelation, and those truths are emphasized in contrast with the errors.
Lastly, this gathering up of the exact ideas contained within the epistles is invaluable in enabling us to compare one writer with another. From all the epistles of St. Paul we come to know the distinctive Pauline theology. This we must keep quite by itself for a right comprehension of it, separate from the teachings of other parts of the Bible, not because the essential harmony of all Scripture, as of all truth, is to be denied, but because each facet of truth should be looked at by itself if we would not be confused by a blurred image of the whole. Thus we discover St. James’s theology to be very elementary, and his teachings chiefly of a practical character. It is St. Paul, we find, who elaborates the doctrine of redemption. In this he is closely followed by St. Peter, but St. John has his own peculiar way of regarding Christian truth in antithesis to error as light over against darkness, and with a warm sympathy for its relations to life and love. For commentaries on the epistles, see Cassell’s “Commentary for Schools”; “The Cambridge Bible”; Meyer and Godet on most of the epistles; Sanday and Headlam, Vaughan, Liddon, on “Romans”; Edwards, Ellicott, Stanley, on “Corinthians”; Lightfoot on ’’Galatians,” “Philippians,” “Colossians,” “Philemon”; Macpherson, Ellicott, on “Ephesians”; Jowett, Ellicott, on “ Thessalonians “; Ellicott on “The Pastoral Epistles”; Westcott, Vanghan, Delitzsch, on “Hebrews”; Mayor on “James”; Westcott on “The Epistles of St. John.” See also Sabatier, "The Apostle Paul.”