1 Thessalonians 5:23-28: in context

These six verses close what is most likely the oldest Christian writing we have. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians around the year fifty, only months after founding their church and being forced to leave the city in a hurry. Everything in the letter is early, worked out before most of the New Testament existed.

The closing is mostly warmth. He prays that the God of peace would make them whole, spirit and soul and body, and reminds them that the one who calls them is faithful and will finish the work. He asks for their prayers. He tells them to greet each other with a holy kiss, the ordinary greeting of the early assemblies. Then one sentence stands apart from the rest. He puts them under solemn command that this letter be read to all the brothers and sisters.

That line is a small hinge in history. A traveling teacher's letter, sent to settle a young congregation's worries, is to be read aloud to everyone when they gather. It is the practice, still forming here, that would eventually make writings like this one into Scripture, read in worship centuries after the man who wrote them was gone. Whose words meant for a passing moment am I holding onto, that were meant to be read to everyone?