On Either one of the Prison Epistles or one of the Pastoral Epistles Research Paper

On Either one of the Prison Epistles or one of the Pastoral Epistles and on one of the General Epistles - Research Paper Example Lastly, it discusses one important lesson learned from each letter and the impact of the lesson learned to someone’s life. Epistle means a literary letter which was planned to be published and read by the general public. The Prison Epistles are the letters that can be found in the New Testament of the Holy Bible. One of the Prison Epistles written by Paul during his imprisonment in Rome is the Prison Epistle to the Philippians. According to the New International Version Holy Bible (1984), Paul had been mobbed in Jerusalem, arrested there, and transferred to Caesarea, and finally, when he requested to the Roman imperial court that a decision or judgment to be changed and appealed as a Roman citizen, he had been removed to Rome for trial. When the Philippians heard this situation, they prepared to stand by him, raised some money for him to use in his trial and sent Epaphroditus, a member of the church in Philippi in Macedonia, to wait on Paul, to devote one’s services to Paul, and to stay with him until his problem were solved. So Epaphroditus went with the gift given by the church and for the purpose of telling Paul about the interest and excitement of the church to know some news about his situation and the result of his trial before the Roman imperial court. Paul took this chance and this occasion to write to the Philippians with three reasons namely: (1) to thank them for their gift and thank them for their fellowship in the gospel, (2) to tell and comfort them about his situation in Rome and about his trial, telling them that the effect of his imprisonment has turned out for the advancement of the gospel, and lastly (3) especially to encourage them and strengthen them in the hope and joy that was theirs in Jesus Christ. He also wrote that he is going to send Timothy soon, that he may know of their condition and send Epaphroditus back to them because Epaphroditus longs for all of them and that he has the feeling of great worry or unhappiness bec ause the church heard that he is ill but God has been so merciful to him. He told them that he is more excited to send Epaphroditus back to them so that they may be glad that Paul might have less worry or fear. The other purpose of the letter was to stop the Judaizers from encouraging the Philippian Christians to submit to circumcision and the last purpose why Paul wrote to them was to encourage the Philippian believers to stop the misunderstanding among them especially the two women involved namely, Euodia and Syntyche that they need to agree with each other as sisters in the Lord or be united. He also asked his faithful partner to help these two women for they have worked hard with him to spread the gospel. The key characteristics of the letter were (1) the Epistle is a letter and not a long and serious piece of writing on a particular job. It is just a simple letter to personal friends which has no theological discussions, no fixed outline and no formal development, (2) it is a l etter of love, Paul’s message has nothing but praise or the Philippians and prayer that their love may be rich, (3) it is a letter of joy, despite being imprisoned, he is still full of joy. After reading the book of Philippians, 20 times that Paul uses the words joy, rejoice, peace, content, and thanksgiving. It is a