Given, then, that NT letters are of the genre of real letters—though letters that were sent with apostolic authority to various congregations of Christian believers and that reflect many of the epistolary and rhetorical conventions of the day—the question remains: How should they be read by us today? Broadly speaking, I suggest that they can be read in three ways: devotionally, homiletically and academically. My thesis is that each of these ways of reading a NT letter is legitimate in its own right,