People! Changed lives! Heart memories! Paul says people are our "letters of recommendation" (2 Cor. 3:1). The expression "recommendation letters" (συστατικῶν ἐπιστολῶν), was a technical term for a common practice in the ancient world. An influential person would write a letter on behalf of someone else. Such letters were a form of credentialing. The recommended person would carry the letter with him to validate his request for help, hospitality, acceptance or employment (Witherspoon, Conflict & Community, p. 377).
Paul writes to the Corinthians, "You, yourselves (ὑμεῖς ἐστε) are our letter!" The pronoun is emphatic. People were his letter of recommendation, "having been written" (ἐγγεγραμμένη) on his heart. The verb is a perfect passive participle indicating the writing took place in the past with ongoing results in the present. The hand moving the stylus to write this letter on his heart was Christ himself because they were Christ's letter (v.3 ἐπιστολὴ Χριστοῦ, subjective genitive). He changed their hearts and wrote their story on Paul's heart.
Does Paul say they were written on "our" (ἡμῶν) hearts or that he was written on their ("your" - ὑμῶν) hearts? The best manuscript evidence reads "our" (ἡμῶν) hearts (Metzger, Textual Commentary, p.577). Paul carries the letter of recommendation wherever he travels like a man carrying a papyrus to authenticate his credentials (Rienecker, Key, p.459). He later writes that they were in his heart to live and die together (2 Cor. 7:3) - a beautiful expression of the Christian bond.
Paul's credentials were people, not paper, and they were written on his heart (and perhaps much maligned Timothy's heart as well since the pronoun is plural). The letters were written (v.3) not with "ink" (μέλανι) on "stone tablets" (πλαξίν λιθίναις) - a mixed metaphor - but with the "Spirit of the Living God" on "fleshy heart tablets (πλαξὶν καρδίαις σαρκίναις). The ending ιναις as opposed to ικος on the word "fleshly" (σαρκίναις) indicates the raw material used for writing rather than an ethical description of the writing (Moulton, Grammar, 2:378). Human hearts are the paper on which God writes his greatest masterpieces!
Everywhere Paul goes their letters are being known (γινωσκομένη) and being read (ἀναγινωσκομένη). The verbs are present tense participles indicating a continuous and repeated reading "by all men" (ὑπὸ πάντων ὰνθρώπων). Paul's heart is an open book for others to read the stories of God's grace written in human lives.
How does God confirm our confidence to "keep on keeping on" in the face of conflict and disappointment? God confirms our confidence as we remember the lives of those He has changed through us. God uses His people, and our good memories of people, to replenish our discouraged hearts for His work.
Lord, remind me of your converts when I am tempted to obsess about my critics!
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