1. Why are Paul’s letters arranged the way they are?

The letters of Paul in the NT are:

• Romans
• I Corinthians
• II Corinthians
• Galatians
• Ephesians
• Philippians
• Colossians
• I Thessalonians
• II Thessalonians
• I Timothy
• II Timothy
• Titus
• Philemon

Most people think these letters are arranged in the order that Paul wrote them, but these letters are not arranged chronologically. The first letter Paul wrote was probably Galatians, and the last letter Paul wrote was II Timothy. So why are the letters of Paul arranged this way if they are not chronological? Simple: they follow two rules:

1. The first group is letters to cities and the second group is letters to individuals.
2. Within each of those two groups, the letters are arranged from longest to shortest.

For example, Romans is longer than I Corinthians, which is longer than II Corinthians, which is longer than Galatians, etc., with II Thessalonians being the shortest of the letters to cities.

**Note: Galatia was not a city but a region. We will discuss this in more detail in Galatians.

2. Why do some people think Paul did not write some of the letters?

• Not all NT scholars believe that Paul wrote all these letters. Most NT scholars believe that Paul wrote the first four letters, Romans to Galatians, but, after that, NT scholars are divided. Of the remaining 9 letters, some scholars believe Paul wrote all of them (this is what I believe), some believe Paul wrote some of them, and some believe Paul did not write any of them.
• Using one of the letters as an example: I Timothy. This letter mentions leadership roles in the church, specifically overseers (some translate the Greek word as “bishop” or "elder") and deacons.
• The ideas behind those who say Paul did not write I Timothy: Paul died in the mid-60s, and church leadership had not developed in the 60s to the point where a church would have a pastor, overseers, and deacons. This is a highly functioning system, and a movement such as Christianity, which spread mainly among poor people over a wide area (the Roman Empire), would not have had the time to create such a system. The letter must have been written at a later time, sometime after the year 100, and after the church had time to develop those leadership roles. Therefore, someone wrote the letter in the 100s and put Paul’s name on it. (This was a common act in those days when plagiarism was not seen as wrong but as a way to recognize someone’s influence,)
• Those who say Paul did write I Timothy: The fact that those leadership roles had not developed by the early 60s is not a problem. The Holy Spirit guided Paul to write the letter so that the early church leaders would understand how God wanted the leadership of the churches to be organized.
• Basically the issue is this: How much role did the Holy Spirit have in influencing the author of I Timothy?
• Those who believe that Paul did not write I Timothy tend to believe that Holy Spirit had a reduced role, or even no role at all, since they believe the unknown author (after A.D. 100) explained a leadership situation that had naturally developed.
• Those who believe that Paul did write I Timothy tend to believe that the Holy Spirit had a prominent role, since Paul was writing about a leadership role that did not exist (A.D. 62), and so God was giving Paul instructions on what leadership roles should look like.

Each of the 9 letters after Galatians could be examined from those different opinions, that Paul didn’t write it or that Paul did write it. But for the purposes of this class, and to keep the information simpler, I will present each of the letters as if Paul wrote them.

3. Copying letters

In those days it was common for important people to write letters and for the letters to be copied and spread around. This happened with the books of the NT (including the Gospels and Acts). Although hiring someone to copy by hand was expensive, all of the books of the NT were copied and passed to other house churches. That is one way we can take confidence in what is written in the NT: scholars have discovered a large number of copies, copies of copies, etc. and they all agree (except on some very minor points).

4. What are “house churches”?

The instructions above state that Paul wrote letters to cities. To be more specifi,c Paul wrote letters to house churches in those cities. When Christianity first developed after Jesus, Christians gathered in each other’s homes. These are called "house churches." As a house church grew, it split and two homes hosted Christian gatherings, and on and on they grew. This process continued and eventually Christianity consisted of hundreds and perhaps thousands of “house churches” across the Roman Empire. How many people belonged to one house church? No one knows, but think about it this way: how many people can comfortably fit in your house? That is how large they were. Therefore, when a lesson mentions that Paul wrote letters to cities, you know that he wrote letters to house churches in those cities.

• As Christianity grew in the first century, Christians probably considered dedicating buildings as a church building. But that idea most likely stopped in the mid-90s when Emperor Domitian began to persecute Christians. (Remember that the persecution under Nero in the mid-60s was limited to the area around Rome.) At that point, Christians realized that having a church building was like putting a target on themselves because it would make it easy for the Romans to find them and persecute them. Therefore, Christians continued to use house churches for many years.
• The first church building that has been discovered dates from the year 250. Optional: to learn more about it, go here.