[Part One,
Part Two]

I began to tell him that from what I can tell so far, the book is a fictional exchange of letters between residents of the First Century Mediterranean region.

Hoping I could manage my excitement over the topic matter, I explained that basically, Letters provide a detailed account of first-century culture, and a particularly peculiar group of people within it. These people, I explained, had begun treating one another like a close-knit family, to the point of calling one another “Brother” and “Sister” to express it. They shared everything they owned for the Good the Whole, provided food for the hungry, raiment for the naked, and home for the orphan.

I went on to explain that these people shared a unique Purpose which led them to do so, that it had been handed over by One who’d gone before embodying and proclaiming it. By it they remained committed to the reconciliation they had already begun to experience, seeking to create community in their homes by offering an Open Door and sharing meals with whomever would want to share.

It became quickly apparent that these people lived as if a new Way of life had been inaugurated, and they held on to it with desperation. They had quickly begun to redefine First Century life to the extent that they subverted social codes, and since they lived in the expectancy that History was soon coming to its End, their behavior made them appear radically different than the majority of the Roman Empire.

The crux of the letter exchange is the story of this New People, between the two letter writers – one which already belonged to the group and one which was outside the group. I told Steve that at the beginning of the book, both letter writers wrote from particularly different perspectives, but by the end of the book – I explained excitedly – the worldview of one to the other was not discernibly different!

I would have liked to explained the “how” to that final statement a bit more, but I thought to end it there in an effort to avoid overwhelming the guy.

Internally, I gathered my final comments. And again, he inquired a little further.