Amy and to All God’s Beloved
To All God’s Beloved
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:7)
Do you like to write letters?
Do you like to get letters in the mail?
I don’t write as many letters as I used to these days. I’m more likely to dash off a text or an email, but I still love stationery and fine pens, and I love to collect cards, especially hand made ones or ones created by local artists.
There are 21 letters in the New Testament, many of them written by Paul to fledgling church communities, and they mostly all start and end just like you and I would start and end a letter.
They begin with a greeting, and end with a farewell.
Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome contains the longest farewell in the New Testament, with his bidding to greet by name and send peace and love to many sisters and brothers in Christ by name. (Romans 16: 1-17)
There are 29 individuals listed – many women, people with Jewish, Greek and Latin names, many of them slaves or were once slaves, some of them wealthy patrons - all of them united by their common bond in Christ Jesus.
As we at St. Francis Episcopal continue to be physically separate from one another, I long to write you all a letter and send grace and peace to each one of you. I’ll return in a few weeks from vacation. Blessings on your August!
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Or call:
+1 402-759-9284
PIN: 262 761 680#
