Electrifying Work
“It is surely a remarkable incident, if it is not the Providence of God, that these human, un-selfconscious letters of the very early days of Christianity should have been preserved. What is even more remarkable is their astonishing relevance today. It seems that the men who wrote these letters concentrated upon the essential spiritual core of human life. They provide that spiritual vitamin, without which human life is at best sickly, and at worst dead. While scarcely touching on any “modern problem” they yet manage to give pointers of principle which show the way, and the spirit, in which the problems of even a highly complex age such as ours may be tackled successfully.
The present translator who has closely studied these letters for several years is struck by two things. First, their surprising vitality. He is continually struck by the living quality of the material on which he is working. Some will, no doubt, consider it merely superstitious reverence for “Holy Writ”, yet again and again the writer felt rather like an electrician re-wiring an ancient house without being able to “turn the mains off”.
From the Translator’s Preface to Letters to Young Churches (The New Testament Epistles) by J. B. Phillips
Read Translators’ Impressions:
http://www.bullartistry.com.au/pdf_bestill/037BeStill.pdf
