God: Chapter 4 (The Lost Letter)

“I wrote you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people.” (1st Corinthians 5:9, The Net Bible). The “first” letter to the Corinthians mentions a previous letter to the Corinthians. We don’t have it. Why? Was it not inspired? More importantly, what would we do if we found it and could authenticate it? Certainly the Church isn’t unified enough to agree, but some would add it to their Bible. I suppose most wouldn’t. But why? The argument would be that it wasn’t inspired because if it was, then we would have had it from the beginning. So that is an argument against it based on time. Well, suppose humanity goes on for another 20,000 years. What is 2,000 years in that time frame? So then does eschatology effect our view of Inspiration?

Think about Corinth. Paul wrote them a letter that isn’t in the Bible. Paul wrote them a letter that we can’t read. Imagine Paul wrote your home church a letter and no one else has it. Is that a good thing or a bad thing. Paul doesn’t just shoot the breeze or puff the ego. His modus operandi is to tell you all the things you’re doing wrong. What would your “Lost Letter” look like? What would it say?

I can’t help but think about this in the context of “prophecy.” I am Pentecostal, so I still believe in the gifts of the Spirit. One of these is the gift of prophecy. Our local church has an Evangelist who comes to speak every few years. She gives “words” in three ways. 1. With the microphone for the whole church to hear and anyone who listens to the tape later on [local church + global church]. 2. With no microphone but all those close enough can hear [local church alone]. 3. With no microphone via whisper into your ear [only you]. The books of the New Testament fit into scenario one. This “lost letter” fits in with scenario 2 (and sort of 3 if you think of the “smallness” of a single church in the history of THE Church). It was the private letter. It was the personal letter. It was for their ears alone unless of course it is found and authenticated. So what do we do with it then? Does this change the way we look at it? A personal letter/personal word should only be made public by the volition of the original receiver. I don’t think Paul’s letter was “personal” in the sense that he was against their making it public. He not only mentions it, but he also says what it was about. It seems to only be personal by wirkungsgeschichte (sort of the history of effects/interpretation). That is, it seems to be anachronistic to say it was a personal letter. I still relate it to the prophecy/private word I wrote of above via the Evangelist because that is the way history has effected the letter. However, this “personal” nature would be no reason to disqualify the book from the canonical question since it is invalid to call it personal the moment it is discovered. So we’re left where we began. What would we do? Would we add it? What if it had no “controversial” doctrine? How much would that help for it to be added? Again, I think it wouldn’t be added, but it certainly would sell. I’d like the book rights to that deal. This should really challenge the way we look at Scripture unlike the bogus “Gospel of Judas.”