When was the last time you wrote a letter to someone?

Picture that moment for a second.

Was it written longhand, pencil and paper, and mailed?

Was it typed out on a computer?

Or punched out on your phone with your thumbs and sent as an email?

Throughout history, readers of the New Testament letters

have tended to take their experience

in practice of writing a letter that they've been taught in their culture

and assume that that's what the apostles were doing.

When you think of Paul writing one of the letters,

what the least modern Westerners tend to do

is imagine Paul sitting by himself

where a room where he has like privacy

and he's producing a single unedited draft

that he's got to get out the door.

So that's the mental image.

Today we're going to look at how the early apostles

would have written their letters.

While letter writing is something seemingly simple for us,

for those in the first century, it was a much harder feat.

The skills required is significant.

It was a significant undertaking.

...