4Such confidence before God is ours through Christ.
“Such letters were common and necessary in the early church. A false prophet or apostle could travel from city to city and easily say, “Paul sent me, so you should support me.” To help guard against problems like this, letters of recommendation were often sent with Christians as they traveled.” (Guzik)
“The best analogy in today’s world might be a certificate of ordination. Many people think that a certificate of ordination means that you have the credentials of ministry. While there is an important purpose in a public ordination to ministry, a piece of paper in itself never is a proper credential. The true credentials of the ministry are changed lives, living epistles. We might almost say, keep your paper to yourself and show us the changed lives from your ministry.” (Guzik)
I remember making my rounds as a volunteer chaplain at the Arizona State Veterans Home and running into another chaplain in the hallway. We introduced ourselves and the first thing he says is, I received my certificate of ordination at such and such seminary and asks where did I get mine? I commented, I received mine at the School of Moses.
2You yourselves are our letter, inscribed on our hearts, known and read by everyone. 3It is clear that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
There’s nothing wrong with a letter or certificate of ordination, it’s how we use it that matters. Is it inscribed on our heart ❤️ with the Spirit of the living God or on our lips?
If the Spirit of the Living God is in your heart ❤️ others will see it by the changed lives, you will be a living epistle!
Blessings
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