The great difference between present-day Christianity and that of which we read in these letters is that to us it is primarily a performance, to them it was a real experience.
We are apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code, or at best a rule of heart and life. To these men it is quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether. They do not hesitate to describe this as Christ “living in” them. Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men’s lives-even if we could prove a motive for such reformation, and certainly the world around offered little encouragement to the early Christian) We are practically driven to accept their own explanation, which is that their little human lives had, through Christ, been linked up with the very Life of God.
There is one other point that should be made before the letters are read. Without going into wearisome historical details, we need to remember that these letters were written, and the lives they indicate were led, against a background of paganism. There were no churches, no Sundays, no books about the Faith. Slavery, sexual immorality, cruelty, callousness to human suffering, and a low standard of public opinion, were universal; traveling and communications were chancy and perilous; most people were illiterate. Many Christians today talk about the “difficulties of our times” as though we should have to wait for better ones before the Christian religion can take root. It is heartening to remember that this faith took root and flourished amazingly in conditions that would have killed anything less vital in a matter of weeks. These early Christians were on fire with the conviction that they had become, through Christ, literally sons of God; they were pioneers of a new humanity, founders of a new Kingdom. They still speak to us across the centuries. Perhaps if we believed what they believed, we might achieve what they achieved.
from “Letters to Young Churches” by J.B. Phillips.
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