I will meditate on Your precepts and thoughtfully regard Your ways [the path of life established by Your precepts].
I will delight in Your statutes;
I will not forget Your word. – Psalm 119:15-16

One of my favorite times of the day covers those few minutes – usually around 7:15 or so – when I have returned from my walk, I am enjoying that first cup of coffee at the kitchen counter, Max is laying at my feet and I am wrestling with some scripture or devotional thought to set the coming few hours in the appropriate context.

This particular morning I am reading through the first few chapters of Second Corinthians. A few days ago the men’s Bible study discussed two key ideas from the first chapter:

• “God comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God” (v. 4).
• “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God” (v. 20).

Now I am preparing for next Tuesday, where our focus will be:

• “We are all letters from Christ… written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (v. 3).
• “We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory” (v. 18).

Many scholars believe that Second Corinthians is likely a compilation – a mash-up – of fragments from two or three letters.

Paul’s ideas and instructions and concerns seem to be all over the place in Second Corinthians, giving credence to the “several letters” theory. But then, scattered through the thirteen chapters, we find some of the most inspirational and powerful thoughts in the New Testament.

First Century Writing

Thinking about that tumultuous time I find it remarkable that we have any extant writings from the First Century today. Travel was tedious and arduous, literacy was not common, and the tools needed to write were both cumbersome and not that readily available.

Note the following:

In the first century, writing materials were dominated by papyrus, parchment and wax tablets. People wrote on these using sharpened reed pens or metal styli, utilizing ink made from soot, gum, and water.

Often, rather than duplicating (copying by hand) the writing, letters were literally passed around in segments. Or the original was read aloud then carried to the next location to be read aloud again.

I learned to understand this when traveling with a group of 37 pilgrims through Europe and the Middle East (we were on a bus and camping in tents for three months). One person had the seven-book Narnia series and the stories did the 1975 equivalent of “going viral.”

At first, someone read Book One (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), passing it on when they started Book Two. It quickly became apparent that was not going to work, so the second person finishing the first chapter tore it out and passed it on – launching a chain sequence of rip, paperclip and share.

By the second month this kind of conversation/announcement was ubiquitous.

• “Hey! I just finished Chapter Four of ‘The Horse and His Boy’ – who has Chapter Five?”
• Or, “I have two chapters from the ‘Voyage of the Dawn Treader’ – I can trade but only if I can get my hands on Chapter Seven.”

Sometimes a paperclip would fail and pages would get out of order. Or, worse, a page from The Last Battle would show up in Prince Caspian. Then there was that time the last three chapters of “The magician’s Nephew” were missing for almost an entire week.

What we have in the Bible is nothing short of a miracle. What a priceless treasure! – DEREK