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Seven of the Shorter Epistles
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First Reading for Daily Mass
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Weeks 27 - 32 in Ordinary Time, Year II
OVERVIEW
Over these weeks, we hear from 7 of the 21 New Testament letters in the order they are placed in the Bible. The 21 letters can be broken into a variety of categories:-
The vast majority of biblical scholars believe Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon are Pauline epistles, written by St. Paul the Apostle himself.
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There is no such consensus about Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus. With each of these six letters, some biblical scholars argue that it was written by Paul, and others argue that it was written by a follower of Paul, perhaps a generation later. Therefore, these 6 letters are often called the deutero-Pauline epistles.
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James, 1 & 2 Peter, 1, 2, & 3 John, and Jude are called the “catholic” epistles. While these books are introduced as letters, they seem to have been written to a universal (i.e., catholic) audience, rather than to a specific community or person.
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Hebrews is a genre unto itself. Despite its title, the consensus of biblical scholars is that Hebrews is not a letter, it was not written by St. Paul, nor was it written to an exclusively Hebrew-speaking audience. It is a theological treatise intended for a universal audience.
No matter how these books were written, edited, redacted, and promulgated, the early Church reached a consensus that each was created by the guidance of the Holy Spirit as the inspired Word of God, worthy of inclusion in the biblical canon.
How did the Church determine the order in which to place the 21 letters? First, the 13 Pauline and deutero-Pauline letters are arranged in order of length, from longest to shortest. (There are exceptions so that 2 Corinthians, 2 Thessalonians, and 2 Timothy follow directly after 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and 1 Timothy.) Hebrews comes next. Finally, the seven "catholic" letters are ordered by a methodology similar to that of the Pauline and deutero-Pauline letters.
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Galatians
Galatia was a province within Asia Minor near what is now Ankara, Turkey. It seems as if Paul intended to pass quickly through the region, but he fell ill and was nursed back to health by the Galatians. During his convalescence, Paul established at least one Christian community in the province. Paul writes back to the Gentile Galatians in alarm because he has heard that other Jewish-Christian missionaries have since visited them and upset the unity of the church(es) there by teaching that Gentile men must be circumcised in order to be fully integrated into God's family. It is implied that observing Jewish dietary restrictions, eating kosher, is also an issue. Paul rejects this as a "different gospel." He argues that requiring the Gentiles to observe the "works of the law" – specific identity markers that separated Jews from Gentiles in a visible and public way – would nullify the power of the Gospel to draw different people into one family, the Church. Paul points out that God “justified” Abraham before his circumcision and intended for Abraham's "seed," the Christ of Israel, to draw all nations to the singular family of God. He then explains the difference between what he calls “life in the Spirit” and “life in the flesh,” laying out some key concepts on the theology of justification. In his final list of exhortations, Paul names the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit (5:22-23).
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Ephesians
In Paul’s time, Ephesus was a major urban center in Asia Minor. Paul based much of his later missionary work in Ephesus (see Acts 19), but it is not clear whether this letter was written by Paul and/or written directly to the Ephesians. Nevertheless, it is a magnificent exhortation to both Jewish and Greek Christians to see themselves as belonging to one united community in Christ. Today, Ephesians is cited frequently in the work of ecumenism, striving toward Christian unity. Chapters 1-3 lay out a beautiful view of God’s “calling” of the Church, and chapters 4-6 articulate how we are to live out that calling. This vision includes 5:22, a verse that troubles many Christians today: “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands.” For an explanation of the context for these household codes, please refer to Margaret Y. MacDonald’s Colossians and Ephesians volume in the SACRA PAGINA commentary series from Liturgical Press.
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Philippians
It was in the city of Philippi in what is now northeastern Greece that Paul and Silas established the first Christian community in Europe, aided by the generosity of Lydia, a prosperous businesswoman. (See Acts 16.) Even after Paul left the city, Lydia and other Philippian Christians continued to provide the financial support necessary for Paul to continue his missionary work. What we call the Letter to the Philippians is a bit disjointed; it may be the combination of three separate letters. The tone is remarkable in expressing Paul’s affection for the Philippian community, even though 3.2ff hints that they face the same dangers as the Galatians. Paul is writing to the Philippians from imprisonment somewhere else (perhaps Rome) and in danger of dying, but he encourages the Philippians to persist in acts of generosity, hospitality, humility, and service. Perhaps the best-known passage is 4:4-9, beginning with the exhortation, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!”
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Titus
The Letter to Titus, along with 1 & 2 Timothy, are called the “pastoral” letters. While biblical scholars are divided about the authorship, the three letters each focus on questions of leadership in the Christian community. Titus, we are told in the letter, was given charge of the pastoral leadership of the Christian communities on the island of Crete, a place we have no record of St. Paul himself visiting. The pastoral letters each detail the qualities needed for good pastoral leadership. Many scholars believe that the structures hinted at in these letters – an episkopos (bishop, overseer) as the local leader of teaching and worship, assisted by diakonoi (deacons) in carrying out service to the community, and advised by a council of presbyteroi (presbyters, elders) – were established later in the first century than the time of Paul. Given the size of first-century Christian communities, the role of episkopos was probably more equivalent to the role of a parish pastor today than to a bishop.
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Philemon
Unlike the other known Pauline epistles, the Letter to Philemon is addressed to an individual. Philemon is a wealthy member of the Christian community In Colossae. Paul writes from prison (presumably in Ephesus), sending back Philemon’s runaway slave, Onesimus. While Paul acknowledges in Galatians 3:28 that “there is neither slave nor free person… in Christ Jesus,” Paul recognizes that he has no power to upend Greco-Roman society’s rules about slave ownership. Nevertheless, in a masterful awareness of the political situation, Paul finds a way to exhort Philemon not to mistreat Onesimus, fully aware that this private letter will be read aloud to the entire Christian community in Colossae.
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2 & 3 John
While the Gospel of John, the three Letters of John, and the Book of Revelation have many similarities in themes and phrasing, most biblical scholars do not consider them all to be directly written by the Apostle John. They all seem to come from an early group of Christians in Ephesus we call “the Johannine community,” that may have been established by the apostle himself. 2 & 3 John are very short letters, less than 20 verses each, perhaps each written to fit on a single piece of papyrus. Both letters are concerned with later teachers who are downplaying the incarnational (experiential) aspects of Christianity. 2 & 3 John, like all the Johannine books of the Bible, urge the community to build up the bonds of love among themselves.
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