A letter of love

I have a beloved relative that I have been exchanging letters with for the sole purpose of sharing more of our lives with each other. This modern world we live in gives us so many opportunities to talk to one another, most of them done through an electronic screen that often sums what we want to say into a few short sentences or even just a mere handful of words. Now, we can even reply with nothing more than a digital thumbs up sign. Where has our communication gone? What has happened to our speech patterns? And what has become of our relationships with far off people that get short, electronic comments in between phone calls?

So I set out to remedy this situation with at least one person. In doing so I have been blessed beyond measure. I look forward to receiving my relatives letters. Seeing the envelope mixed in with all the junk mail and bills makes me smile and brightens my day long before I begin to read the letter.

I am no artist, although my relative is, but we both have begun to add a bit of cheer to our letters through drawings on them. I must admit I get the better end of this deal because my drawings leave a lot to be desired. My relatives on the other hand are great.

And so the letters flow between our homes, both of us writing as time allows. In one letter from this relative I was asked several things that left me answering in what was almost a blog post on paper. I have decided to share a bit of that here.

In my relatives letter I was told how they read a Bible verse that spoke of "tablet'' and their mind went to the electronic form of tablet first.

Here is my response:

"I smiled at the 'tablet' of your heart. Modern life has conditioned us to see certain words in ways they were never meant. Just as a tablet is now a handheld computer type device therefore we no longer see 'tablet' as the rock slabs they once were, nor can we imagine our hearts as a tablet.

Church is another word that our modern lives have conditioned us to see in a way Scripture never meant. Do you know church wasn't even in the original writings of the Bible? Where we read 'church' today, the word that used to be in Scripture is Ekklessia. Ekklessia meant- the called out ones. It doesn't refer to a building and it doesn't refer to a group of people led by a preacher. Verses that tell us to do things with or for the 'church' are literally saying to do them for the called out ones. Scripture says 'wide is the path that leads to destruction, narrow is the gate and few be that find it' to heaven. All these 'chruches' promote the idea that the Bible speaks of 'church' when it does not. It speaks of 'the called out ones'. I know most 'church' people will say the 'church' isn't the building, the people are. That's true in a sense, but that's not what the Bible talks about either. The 'called out ones' means those that belong to Christ. In John 6:37 Christ says, "all that the Father (God) gives me will come to me' and they won't be cast out. Those are the 'called out ones', the ones God gave to Christ. Those are the true definition of 'church'. They aren't people that chose Jesus and go to an organized meeting place. They are people that God chose- the people that were called out from among them, them being the rest of the world. In John 15:16 Jesus said, "You have not chosen me but I have chosen you". When the Bible speaks of 'church', it speaks of Ekklessia, 'church' is a man made term added to Scripture to support the organized 'church' rule in the 1500's, before that 'church' did not exist in Scripture. So the Bible talks of 'church' meaning 'the called out ones', people that were chosen by God to belong to Christ and 'few be that find it'. Not masses of people in 'church' buildings promoting something the Bible does not mean."

Let me add a quick note in here to say that this relative loves 'church' and I was walking on thin ice in writing this. I probably shouldn't have written it. I didn't mean to write it. It just sort of happened. Sometimes my fingers write things my brain doesn't think I should. It's kind of the equivalent of opening my mouth and sticking my foot in.

I should probably admit that I had to add a disclaimer on this letter. It went like this:

"P.S. If you talk to your preacher or Bible study teacher about any of the Bible study topics I went over (or ever go over) they will tell you I am wrong. Their beliefs are quite a bit different than mine. You can test what I say by the Bible. It's all in the Bible."

There is more in this letter that I will be sharing but I will leave all that for later as it's on a different topic and I think it best if I write it out in different posts.