Posted: 21 October 2024

From a sermon given on 20 October 2024:

Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
(2 Corinthians 3:2-3)

You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

Paul had brought the gospel to Corinth and through his preaching many people's lives had been changed. "By the power of the gospel, men and women had been turned from darkness to light. This was Paul's letter of recommendation. And it was a letter that was known and read by everybody" (Applied New Testament Commentary - Thomas Hale)

Paul was asserting that he did not need any letter of recommendation to this church. The Corinthians were his "blood and flesh" letters. The spiritual transformation of the Corinthians was endorsement enough. Written letters with ink on paper could not compare with changed lives. Unlike the Old Testament’s letters that were written on stone tablets, the New Testament letters are written in men's hearts by the Holy Spirit. What is written in human hearts does not fade but remains forever.

Believers are supposed to clearly reveal Christ by their motives, words and actions. Our inward change must be reflected on the outside. One of the most effective tools of Evangelism is our lifestyle. Your life is an open letter. Let us allow people to see Christ through us.

Further readings:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
(Jeremiah 31:31-34)

And I will bring you out of the midst thereof, and deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you.
(Ezekiel 11:9)

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
(Hebrews 8:10)