NT Letter and their Literary Context

Brief Review of NT Letters

Four types of context that we need to keep in mind as we read NT letters:

Biblical Narrative Context

Historical/Cultural Context

Situational Context

Literary Context

We’ve spent time at length working through applying three of these contexts. Last week we applied them to Romans.

Can you remind me of what the first three contexts are and how they relate to the letter?

Narrative Context

Where do the New Testament letters fit within the narrative context of the larger biblical story? Can a better understanding of that context help us in ‘translating’ their message into our own day?

Let’s look at the summary of the biblical story up to this point:

• Creation and Image of God

• Rebellion, the fallout, and Babylon

• God’s mission through Israel

• Israel’s exile and the hope for God’s kingdom

• Jesus: the true royal-priestly image and the Kingdom for Israel

• Jesus’ kingdom for the nations through the apostles

• Consummation of the kingdom in new creation

Within the storyline of the Hebrew Bible, three important themes are developed that set the context for the international spread of the Jesus movement and the movement of the letters.

1. The Image of God

2. The Family of Abraham

3. The Messiah

Historical/Cultural Context

What is happening in world history and in specific areas to which the letters are being written? These will likely have significant impact on the assumptions made, or what is taken for granted in the writing of the author. Without understanding the culture to which a letter goes we can’t understand how to translate it to today’s culture.

Greco-Roman culture

Honor-shame

Patriarchy

Context particular to the city (Revelation is a masterclass on this)

Situational Context

This is the situation that the letter addresses. Sometimes it is one broad or specific issue that is being addressed (Romans or Philemon) or it could be a bunch of things, a hodgepodge of questions or concerns being addressed (1 Corinthians).

We’re reading someone else’s mail

We don’t have the situation clearly spelled out in a corresponding letter

we only have half of the information (maybe even less!)

We are invited to develop skills to read the letters that help fill in the gaps.

Today we’re going to look at the literary context of the NT letters, or rather the literary conventions used to write the letters.

[watch video]

Overview

1. The Opening Address

• Sender, receiver, greeting:

2. The Thanksgiving

3. The Body of the Letter

4. The Closing

• Greetings to people; travel arrangements, prayer/ praise to God, final note

These are really easy to figure out by simply reading. We’re going to walk through 2 Timothy and figure out the sections and how they fit together.

Part 1: The Opening

This section usually includes the sender, the recipient and a greeting of some sort. Each of these can be brief or include an additional comment.

Part 2: Thanksgiving

Many ancient letters begin with a thanksgiving, usually offered to the gods, for something to do with the recipients

“Each of the thanksgivings...is designed to attract the goodwill of the readers and make them more attentive and receptive. But there is no false flattery. The variety of compliments accurately reflects Paul’s estimations of the qualities of the different churches. Each thanksgiving also fulfills an introductory role in that it evokes themes which will turn out to be central to the letter.” JEROME MURPHY-O’CONNOR, PAUL THE LETTER WRITER, 62.

Part 3: Body of the Letter

Quote and figure from Randolph Richards, Paul and First Century Letter Writing, p. 163. “Paul’s letters were inordinately long. The typical papyrus letter was one papyrus sheet. In the approximately 14,000 private letters preserved from Greco-Roman antiquity, the average length was about 87 words, ranging in length from 18 to 209 words. The letters or literary masters like Cicero or Seneca were considerably longer. Nonetheless, Paul stands apart from them all.”

Pauls shortest letter (Philemon) has 335 words, and his longest (Romans) has 7114.

As modern readers, we must remember three things when coming to the body of a NT letters:

1. These letters are written as oratory speeches, they were designed to be read aloud and heard as one coherent statement. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:27 After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read aloud the letter from Laodicea. COLOSSIANS 4:16

2. The New Testament letters show all the signs of the Greco-Roman tradition of rhetoric: the art of persuasive communication aimed at eliciting a response from the audience. .

3. The NT letters were designed to accomplish something, not just communicate information.

The transitions serve to unite the thoughts and contribute to the overall flow of the letter.

Part 4: The Closing

The apostles use a standard series of conventions when closing their letters. There were four common elements in letter closings:

• The peace benediction

• Final exhortation

• Final greetings

• The autograph

Steps for Tracing the Main Idea and Rhetorical Flow of a New Testament letter

• Step 1: Isolate the main paragraphs (= thought units) of the body

• Step 2: Study the main ideas/points of the opening paragraph (Thanksgiving paragraph typically)

• Step 3: Identify the main ideas and rhetorical goal of each paragraph [repeated words]

• Step 4: Identify the relationships between the paragraphs [logical connectors]

Step 1: Isolate the Main Paragraphs

Paragraphs are marked by a complete unit of thought that begins and ends with a “logical” connector:

POINT 1 - Feeling healthy is great

Logical connector - “And”

POINT 2 - Taking vitamins improves health

Logical connector - “Therefore”

POINT 3 - I should go get some vitamins

Step 2: Study the Main Ideas/Points of the Opening Paragraph

Usually, the author will pack the opening movement of thought with the core themes, points, and vocabulary that will be developed through the course of the letter.

Analogy: Beethoven was known for perfecting the technique of the “germ motif” that begins in the opening movement of a work, which is never repeated identically, but developed and repeated with variations throughout the work.

Example from Scripture: Ephesians 1:3-14 is a three-step poem of praise to the Father, because of the work of his Son Jesus and the Spirit. The first and last movements explore the unified work of the Father-Son-Spirit in rescuing and creating a new human family, while the central movement focuses on God’s plan revealed through Jesus: The summing up of all reality as a unified whole in the Messiah.

A 3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Messiah, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every Spirit-given blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him… 6to the praise of his glorious grace...

B 6...he freely bestowed [that grace] on us in the Beloved…. 8...In all wisdom and insight 9He made known to us the open-secret [Grk. mysterion] of His will, according to His kind intention which He purposed in Him 10in accordance with his purpose which he pre-planned in him, for the purpose of arranging the fullness of the times, that is, to head-up all things in Messiah, things in the heavens and things on the earth….12so that we who were the first to hope in Messiah would be to the praise of His glory.

A’ 13In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

Step 3: Identify the Main Ideas and Rhetorical Goal of Paragraph

Repeated Words: After you identify the main points in the opening paragraph, do the same for each following paragraph. A key to this task is looking for repeated words or “lead-words”:

A “lead-word” (German leitwort) is “a word or word-root that repeats significantly in a text or group of texts, and by following these repetitions, one is able to decipher or grasp a meaning of the text… The repetition may not be of the same exact word, but of the word-root…which intensifies the dynamic action of the repetition… if you imagine the entire text stretched out before you, you can sense waves moving back and forth between key words, matching the rhythm of the text… it is one of the most powerful means of conveying meaning.” MARTIN BUBER, SCHRIFTEN ZUR BIBEL, P. 1131.

When looking for repeated words, first start in a single paragraph or chapter, then through the whole letter.

Romans 8:1–16 (ESV)

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

2. Look for repeated words/motifs throughout a series of paragraphs or the entire letter

Step 4: Identify the Relationships Between Paragraphs

Using logical connectors see how the paragraphs or larger thought units are connected.

Things like: for this reason, therefore, you then, so then, understand this, however, I charge you, but as for you, for.

Once you have worked through the relationships you can begin to see the literary design of the letter and begin to understand the letter as a whole.

Walk Through 2 Timothy

Sender? Paul. Additional comment? apostle of Christ Jesus...

Recipient? Timothy. Additional comment? My beloved child

Greeting? Grace, mercy and peace...

Thanksgiving is where? What are the themes of the thanksgiving?

Where does the body start?

What are some of the divisions? (the subtitles don’t necessarily account for all the thought units)

Where does the closing begin?

What are the elements of the closing?