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 the letter from Laodicea. – Colossians 4:16

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 25, 2015): Colossians 4

Ideas are important, but only if they connect with others. And sometimes the connecting is the problem. In ancient times, the transfer of an idea was done basically by word of mouth. A teacher would tell his colleagues and his students, and from there they would be told to other interested parties, and, if the idea had traction, then the idea would slowly reach out into the people of the community. But there were probably a number of important ideas that were lost – they just didn’t have traction. Sometimes ideas were written down in book – or a letter. But even then, someone had to read it – and agree that the ideas it contained were important.

This letter to the Colossians is important because of the ideas it contains, but it also tells us how Pauline ideas travelled through the early Christian world. It is extremely unlikely that Paul knew he was writing a Christian version of the Bible. He probably would not have even understood the need, after all, Paul believed that Jesus was on his way back soon. But because of that, Paul needed to keep in touch with the churches and let them know what it was that he was thinking. And so he wrote letters, and those letters were passed around to various churches. Soon, they started to make copies of them. Small bundles of Pauline letters began to circulate – and the ideas had traction. And so these letters, handed from church to church, began to shape the young Christian movement. The critics have called this movement Paulianity because it was Paul’s letters that were the root cause of the change, but supporters just recognize the great practical theologian that the early church had in Paul of Tarsus.

So letters were written and then shared throughout the known world. Ideas were transferred from city to city defining this Christian faith and how it would interact with the world. The letters were important. Paul wrote to churches, and to individuals. He encouraged them to keep the faith and finish the race. It is likely that the thirteen letters that we have in our Bibles are just a fraction of the letters that Paul wrote. Many were lost. Among the ones that we believe were lost are two more letters to the Corinthian church, often labeled as first and third Corinthians (making the two existing letters to the Corinthian Church really second and fourth Corinthians), at least one more letter to the Ephesians and the letter to the Laodicean Church mentioned here, but there are probably many more.

Some experts have speculated that the lost Laodicean letter may have been the letter that we know of as Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, but many disagree. While the cities exist in the same area, the Ephesian letter that we have was written close to the same time as the Colossian letter, and so they argue that Paul’s mention of a Laodicean letter seems to have been written at an earlier date.

But, whether we have the letters or not, the ideas contained in them, shared among people, changed the world. And those ideas are still bringing change to our world.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Philemon 1