My college admission likely hinged on the quality of recommendation letters written by personally selected alumni. My grades were far from impressive, reflected in my ACT scores. I was an academic bubble risk because I was an ADHD/dyslexic kid before ADHD was diagnosable and dyslexia was understood. Reading and reading-comprehension, with an inability for rote memorization, all but doomed my hopes of a college experience. Truth be known, some even told me to quit dreaming of going to college. I needed help getting into my college of choice, because I was not getting in on my own merits.
I sought out my high school principal, my cross-country coach, and my preacher – all whom graduated from the school I was sending my application to – and asked them to write a letter of recommendation. They agreed. I never knew what they wrote. They never shared, and I never asked. All I knew was that I needed someone to go to bat for me. I needed someone to speak for me if I was going to have a chance to begin my academic studies.
Letters of recommendations help in introductions, giving credibility to the one whom the letter is written about. They are a common practice and have been around for a very long time. You have probably written one or have had someone write one for you. They are a staple in society. They are a staple in almost every society.
The letter connects three points of a triangle. The first point is the subject or whom the letter is about. The second point is the recipient of the letter who does not know the subject personally. The third point is the author of the letter who knows the subject and the recipients, and acts as a mediator to introduce the two. The one writing the letter pours his/her own credibility into the subject since the subject has no credibility with the recipients. Essentially, letters of recommendation sound like this: “Hey guys, Jon here. I know Joe and I think Joe is a good guy who does good work. You guys ought to give Joe a look, or a second look.”
Since letters of recommendation introduce people and give an endorsement to lay a foundation for believability, they are commonplace and, as said earlier, have been around for a long time. Long before access to the internet, or making a quick phone call for verification, or dropping a quick text to a friend, carrying a letter endorsed by someone else or a group of people was crucial in establishing credibility.
No better example of this can be found than in Acts 18. Apollos, who was in Ephesus at the time, wanted to preach in Corinth. So, the church in Ephesus wrote letters to the church in Corinth on behalf of Apollos (Act. 18:27). The church in Ephesus knew Apollos, but the church in Corinth did not. With a letter from the Ephesian church, the Corinthian church welcomed Apollos with open arms. From 1 Corinthians we know that many came to love Apollos and his preaching (see 1 Cor. 1:12; 3:4-6, 20-22).
Letters of recommendation played an important role and function in society, especially in the early days of the church. Having some proof of who you are goes a long way in establishing trust, rapport, and credibility.
One of the issues Paul was facing was that the Corinthians were seeking letters of recommendation from him. Supposedly, some individuals had arrived in Corinth carrying such letters. Who they were, what the content of the letters were, and who authored the letters are all unknown. The simplest answer is that the individuals and letters originated from Jerusalem. If that is the case, we are likely not talking about James, the brother of Jesus, or Peter, or one of the other apostles, but a faction group in Judea that resisted Paul, his teachings, and his mission.
So, a group of individuals carried letters of recommendation to establish their credibility with Corinth. Paul had no such letters. Paul needed no such letters. But the group infiltrating the church began using Paul’s lack of letters against him. They had letters, he didn’t. They had credibility, he didn’t. They had authority, he didn’t. They had support from Jerusalem or Judea or whoever penned the letter, Paul didn’t. And that became their point of entry into undermining Paul’s ministry. He had no letters.
Paul had no letters of recommendation because Paul needed no letters. He came to Corinth empty handed, except for the message of Jesus to share with people. No church existed in Corinth when Paul arrived. Working bi-vocationally he set up a tent business to support himself, while speaking, teaching, and preaching in the Synagogue on the Sabbath. He planted the seed and started cultivating the church in Corinth. Nurturing their faith, he led them through the waters of baptism and out of the darkness of paganism. They knew him. They worshipped with him. They walked with him. He had no reason to carry letters of recommendation as the Corinthians probably knew him better than people in Jerusalem.
Thus, when Paul probes the Corinthians, he asked them rhetorically, “Do we need . . . letters of recommendations to you or from you?” (2 Cor. 3:1b). Of course, he doesn’t need such letters. But then he turns the issue on itself, stating in the next line, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody” (3:2). The proof of Paul’s credibility and ministry is not based on a letter written by someone a thousand miles away who never ventured into Achaia but written by the church themselves through their faith and growth in the Spirit.
Paul places the burden of proof, not on someone else, but on them. When people look at Paul’s ministry, he will not allow them to judge it by his personal credentials. He does have them: a Hebrew, an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham (2 Cor. 11:22-23), circumcised on the eighth day, tribe of Benjamin, Pharisee, and faultless in regard to legalistic righteousness (Phil. 4:4b-5), and schooled in Jerusalem under the feet of Gamaliel (Act. 22:3). Paul neither relied on those experiences to garner his credibility, nor flaunt them as a means to strengthen his standing. Looking at his people in the pew, he implored, “You are my letters of recommendation. Your lives, changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ, are the proof to validate my ministry.”
If you ask me, the easy step is to provide a letter from someone verifying your credibility. Letters are a dime a dozen. I once wrote a letter for a young man I knew six months so that he will get into a school. I questioned why he should ask me; I barely knew him. He said, “It’s just formality, I’ve been accepted into the school already.” Drumming up a letter to provide as proof of ministry is easy in and of itself. The hard step is to look at the people we minister to and allow them to be the proof of our ministry. Has the body produced the Fruit of the Spirit? Has harmony replaced dissonance in the community? Has love, forgiveness, and grace switched with hate, bitterness, and legalism? Is the community marked by being a place of healing or a place where pain festers? Is the community caring for the marginalized or consumed with serving their own people? The hardest part in all of this is the trust one must have in a community to place one’s credibility with their behavior.
For our hospice care, the most important letter we write is the one on the heart of our patients and their families. What they say about us and about our service is the letter worth reading. We make that happen by how we engage and serve our patients and their families.
I once experienced a profound letter of recommendation. It wasn’t written on paper, nor was it about me. It was penned in and from the heart of my sister.
Deanna and I were playing under the dining room table on a Sunday afternoon. We were in the third grade and were reflecting on Sunday school class hours earlier. I don’t remember what were playing or why we were under the table. I don’t remember what time of year it was, but I suspect it was summer since our Sunday school teacher did a no-show at church. With no back up teacher in play, Deanna and I were sent up a grade for Bible class. I can’t remember if we were sent to the 5th and 6th grade class or the junior high class, but I do remember the classroom was among the upper rooms of the church building, a place I rarely ventured to. I remember climbing the stairs to the classroom like we were climbing steps of a mountain to visit the wise guru. We entered the room where a handful of children were being taught a Bible lesson from their teacher. The teacher was our mother.
I don’t remember what the lesson was that morning as most of that day is a memory fog. What is clear, as if it said it yesterday, was the comment my sister made to me under the table in the privacy of our own little world. Deanna looked at me and said, “When mom teaches, she makes you want to be a better person.” Mom did not have a lot of credentials as a teacher, but she had biblical knowledge, a passion for the Scriptures, and a heart for storytelling. She made the text come alive with clear application for our lives. Thus, it was an easy step to be a better person because she showed us how.
What Deanna stumbled across that Sunday afternoon under the dining table sits at the core of Paul’s thought in 2 Corinthians 3. Teaching, preaching, or ministering is less about crossing denominational doctrinal “T’s” or doting “I’s,” and more about whether the person teaching, preaching, or ministering is inspiring you, motivating you, or modeling for you to become a better person, to become a better version of “you,” who reflects Jesus Christ. And when you are that better person, God gets the glory while your source of inspiration is validated through your life. And no letter of recommendation can substitute for a transformed follower. As Paul concludes, “You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor. 3:3).
Soli Deo Gloria!
(i.e., only God is glorified!)