Letter

Letters (Hebrew sepher; Greek epistole) served diplomatic, administrative, and personal functions throughout the biblical world. Notable letters in Scripture include Uriah's death warrant carried by Uriah himself (2 Sam. 11:14–15), Jezebel's forged orders in Ahab's name (1 Kgs. 21:8–9), Sennacherib's threatening letter to Hezekiah (2 Kgs. 19:14), and Nehemiah's royal letters of safe passage (Neh. 2:7–9). Paul theologically contrasts "letter" and "spirit" — the externally written code versus the inner renewal of the heart by the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:6; Rom. 7:6) — and his own correspondence constitutes the largest single genre in the New Testament.