Session 4

New Testament Letters

As the Jesus’ first followers began to migrate around the Mediterranean and start faith communities, they did so without much direct guidance. it took some time before they even went from calling themselves “Followers of the Way” to being “Christians.” Leadership, when it came, was often in the form of wandering apostles who were often sent out from communities to support others’ work in sharing the message of Jesus Christ and building enclaves of people who were “called out” to follow him. Our original term for “church” comes from this notion of a community that was “called out” in this way. As Christianity spread, the more noteworthy apostles found themselves pressed to be able to lead so many diverse communities at one time, and often took to writing letters and sending envoys to share their teachings. Communities would later collect these letters and pass them around, creating the basis for a new set of scriptures based in these letters: Paul’s letters foremost among them.

The letters that were eventually accepted as the basis for the New Testament were collected over the first century or so of the Church’s existence, to be joined at some point by various gospels and other resources that more directly spoke of Jesus’ life and earthly ministry. Over a period of hundreds of years, the collected works became the new Testament that we know today.This session centers on those letters and how we developed the basis of a new religion called “Christianity” through the work of those first believers.