Finding joy in a lost art

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Letter writing seems to have become a lost art. Some of us can remember a time when one grabbed a pen and a piece of paper and sat down to pen a letter to a family member or a friend. It took thought. Time. Attention. And a commitment to writing in a way many don’t practice today. Today, a few quick thumb jabs on my iPhone or a quick typed-out email to a colleague is about as far as we get. While such realities make certain aspects of life far simpler than they used to be, it also seems that something has been lost.

I greatly value a small stash of letters that I have kept over many years—letters written to me by my mother and father. Holding the old paper in my hands, seeing the familiar smooth and beautiful penmanship of my mother or the rougher and sometimes hard-to-to read lines from my father never fail to evoke a deep sense of gratitude for all they did for my siblings and me. The letters their hands traced are a treasure to me.

In the same way, through their pens, countless letter writers from yesteryear have left us a legacy, giving us an unparalleled window into their lives. Scholars from within their respective scholarly communities give years to the study of such letters and their respective subjects. Such is the case in the New Testament world. Of the 27 books in the New Testament, 21 of them are letters. Paul wrote most of them, though James and John and one or two others also join him in writing. And the letters that they wrote tend to follow a familiar pattern, a pattern common in the world of their day. To simplify it, that pattern included a statement of who authored the letter, a designation of the person(s) to whom the letter was written, a salutation, the body of the letter, and a conclusion.

The passage over which we linger today is drawn from the salutation of 2 Thessalonians, a letter written by Paul, Silas, and Timothy. For all its brevity, it is pregnant with gratitude and hope, affection and appreciation. It is Paul’s statement—along with his co-authors Silas and Timothy—to the members of the church in ancient Thessalonica, sharing two key reasons for why he and his colleagues feel such gratitude to God for the members of their church.

Here’s what they write:
³We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. (2 Thessalonians 1:3, NIV).

“We are thankful for you,” they write, “because of your faith and love! Both are growing and increasing more and more!” What cause for gratitude! In those simple words, we get a sense of what the church in Thessalonica was like. What better words could ever be written to a church than to say, “You are growing in faith”—that is, in your members’ relationship with God— “and love”—that is, in their relationships with others. If these were the only words we had about the church in Thessalonica, they would be sufficient reason for optimism.

We have access to these words simply because Paul and his colleagues put quill pen to parchment and scratched out a message to their friends. How about doing such today? Why not take an old-fashioned step, pull out pen and paper, sit down at a desk, and begin… “Dear Mom and Dad…” Or, “Dear Gramma…” Or even, “My dear son…” It could be that one day someone will pull out what you’ve written and find comfort and encouragement and hope from it.