Letters

I was thinking the other day as I was rambling on to Court about something and had a new thought (this doesn't happen very often, I almost hurt myself). As I was thinking about the letters in the NT and all the different authors and all the different time periods, I realized that many of the 1st century churches may have never received or read any number of those letters. I wonder what implications that has for the church today? Don't crucify me just yet, let me clarify. For a long time we have looked at each of the NT letters as a comprehensive rule book, or a list of things not to do. And certainly there are some extremely important lessons to be learned from the mistakes they made. But if all the first century churches didn't get to see some of the letters written, what did they do? I have a feeling Acts 15 gives us a hint. It says, "It seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit". These people were arguing over some very serious doctrine and this was the answer they came up-"It seemed good". Not, "Here's what the Torah says". Not, "Here's what Jesus says, or what Moses did". They prayed about it, sought after the Holy Spirit and made a decision based on the information they already knew. I would be curious what our churches would look like if we did this more often; obviously not throwing out our core doctrine. However, we must be careful to discern what is tradition and what is doctrine. I wander what kind of letter Paul would write to our churches today? Whatever would be included in it, I hope we have better luck than the Galatians did.

What do you think Paul would include in his letter?