So here are the rules:
1) If you have a blog, please advertise this contest on your site. (If you don't, you can still enter the contest.)
2) This contest is only for people who are in the United States or Canada. (Again, overseas shipping costs are a bit too high for me right now. Sorry. Do stay tuned however, since I am planning on doing an outside North America giveway at some point in the coming weeks.)
3) The question you need to answer in the comment box:
What is your favorite epistle in the New Testament and why? Please keep your answer to no more than five sentences. Those who exceed the five sentence limit, or who create some elaborate run-on sentence, will be disqualified.
4) The contest ends on Saturday, July 28 @ 11:59PM EST. I'll announce the winner on Sunday or Monday. At that time, the winner must contact me, via email, with their address within one week to receive their prize.
5) One entry per person. If you post anonymously, you must leave a name at the end of your comment entry.
8 comments:
No elaborate run-on sentences? Well, count me out!
-St. Paul
;)
My favorite epistle is probably Hebrews. I find it comforting that God had a plan for our salvation even before Man was created. The recognition of Jesus as both ultimate high priest and perfect paschal lamb ties together the OT and NT. When we recognize this, we also see that the sacrifice of the Mass is a participation in that same salvific plan.
My favorite epistle is the book of Romans. I love the well developed & clear theology. I also find it very comforting to read. Chapter 8 especially holds several of my favorites passage. Our church is currently enjoying a preaching series going through the whole book.
(Bradford Taliaferro)
2 Corinthians. Because it contains teachings that pick me up and empower me on, especially when I have been tempted to be overcome by my defects and faults, doubting the authenticity of my Christianity. This epistle is so “catholic”, filled with verses that have become inspirational teachings for Christians of all eras and denominations: 2 Cor 3:1-3, 2 Cor 4:7, 2 Cor 4: 16-18, 2 Cor 5:7, 2 Cor 5:17, 2 Cor 5:21, 2 Cor 12:8-10.
I enjoy Paul's first letter to Corinth. Throughout it, you get a glimpse of a church that could be entirely modern: rivalries, divided leadership, misinterpretation, bigotry, lots of sexual immorality, marriages falling apart, etc etc. He addresses each of these in an attempt to set the church back into a right relationship with itself and with God. 1 Corinthians 13 steps back a moment, as Paul reminds us how to love each other. It's great stuff that is still entirely applicable today.
Philemon is my favorite without a doubt. The entire book gives an analogy for Christ's intervention on our behalf with the Master (God) that we have wronged, and shows Christ's willingness to take all the debt for us. It shows the lengths all Christians should go to in order to bring about reconciliation between brethren. It also gives an inspired guilt trip, which I just love (I'm a prisoner, I'm old, I'm sending you my heart, I'm not commanding you, but I know you'll do even more than I ask, by the way you owe me your life, and I'm in chains...).
-Bradley Cobb
Not for the win, but just participating.
I always enjoy reading 1 Peter because, written as it was for groups of Christian "exiles and sojourners" who had been ousted from modern society due to their strange, countercultural beliefs and practices, it reinforces the idea that our individual churches plus the whole Church has become the people of God, "a holy nation," and a family unto ourselves. We are called to be the Church militant, suffering along with Christ. As it is technically the first papal encyclical, I think it would have been appropriately titled "Spe Salvi," anticipating the Holy Father's encyclical of the same name (and similar message) by some 1950 years.
Hebrews. Simply, because it tells the story and the theology of the full redemption and atonement - the reconciliation of man to God, the conquest of God over the forces of evil, and the reconciliation of God to man - of the God-man, Jesus Christ, who appears more fully - as a reality and not a type - in this book than in any other Epistle of the New Testament. It ties the Old Testament to the New; it shows Christ's divinity; it tells of the price that was paid by his Blood, and the infinite sacrifice. No other book before the era of the Fathers weaves these threads together so well.
(Tim attempted to disqualify me because, in past contests, I've written grammatical sentences that were over a paragraph in length.)
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