Conversation Point

In This Moment

If Paul Had Email

Email has become the easiest, fastest way to communicate with loved ones at a distance, and busy colleagues ten feet away. What did we do before email?

Before email we talked to each other and we wrote things down, two sources that created our oral and written histories. While email is a brilliant solution to many communication problems, this technology does have its limitations. A friend who happens to be a church historian posed one of those problems several years back: What are we losing in personal connectedness, and historical records of relationships, documented in electronic missives that are routinely evaporated with a click on the delete button?

What would have happened to the gospels if Matthew, Mark, Luke or John had had access to high speed internet email? People may have received the message more quickly, but would anyone have felt the need to save these words on their PC before moving onto the next message advertising a good deal on sacrificial animals down at that little shop outside the temple? What would we know of the epistles, the letters Paul wrote to the churches of Corinth, Rome, Galatia and Ephesus, and his colleagues Timothy and Titus? Would a church secretary or office administrator have glanced over them, forwarded them to the appropriate parties and then hit the delete button as well? Would we know these congregations and their lessons of faithful community building in the same way, or at all, if Paul had booted up his computer and dashed off a quick email or two?

My gratitude for the consideration of time and thought with which these Biblical texts came to us extends back to these words from Psalm 102:8: "Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord." I am grateful because memory and memories fade over time, and are reshaped by this dimming light, if we do not record events as they occur, or soon after. I am grateful because writing a letter is a different process than emailing. Emailing is quick, easy and can include up-to-the-minute details. That is its hallmark. Letters produced by hand are time consuming, somewhat laborious and not particularly efficient. But letters do create a framework around paying attention to the details at hand, and in heart and faith. There is time to consider the ingredients individually, and as a rich, synergistic blend. I am grateful for this legacy carried out from the Psalmist, to Paul, to us, because without it, we would not know nearly as much as we do about Paul as a leader in the early years of our faith, or about the communities of faith our of which our own have grown.

So, what do future generations have to rely on as their legacy from us? Email is here to stay, as well it should. It is a generous advantage of our modern world. But how do we want to make sure we do not break this ancient connection to our modern faith legacy? We have a responsibility to carry our faith forward, embodied in a way on which the next generation may build on as well.

Until next time, God's blessings.

posted by Cory L. Kemp @ 3:16 PM