Were there many epistles to the Corinthians?

[rockytopva]

I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: - 1 Corinthians 5:9

He said he wrote to them in an epistle in a book called 1 Corinthians. These seems to indicate that there were more than 2 epistles to the Corinthian church.

 

[junobet]

It’s quite common for writings of antiquity to be either lost either entirely or to only to be known in tiny snippets that other authors quoted.
So I would strongly suppose that Paul wrote more letters that we now no longer have. We’ve got Biblical hints for four lost Pauline epistles, but there may well have been many more. IMHO it’s important to remember that the Pauline epistles in the NT are just parts of a longer correspondence and dialogue. So inevitably we miss out on a wider context that we can only speculate about.

But we should not fret about what we’ve lost, but rejoice and praise the Lord for what we have. How reliably the texts of the New Testament have been preserved for us through the centuries is amazing and unprecedented! The eagerness in which these texts were copied and shared goes to show how special and precious they were to those early Christians and generations of scribes after them. If the lost letters had contained anything we need to know about our salvation, surely God would have granted them the same care.

 

[Wormwood]

Yes, Paul wrote at least one previous letter to the Corinthians that we do not have (which would make 1 Corinthians actually 2 Corinthians or maybe even 3rd. Haha) He also wrote other letters we do not have, such as a letter to the church of Laodicea....

“And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.” (Colossians 4:16, ESV)

As junobet pointed out, we just trust the the Holy Spirit preserved those letters that were needed for us. It is likely that those letters contained similar information, just as the letters to Ephesians and Colossians are very similar and have many parallels.

 

[Dcopymope]

Yes, Paul wrote at least one previous letter to the Corinthians that we do not have (which would make 1 Corinthians actually 2 Corinthians or maybe even 3rd. Haha) He also wrote other letters we do not have, such as a letter to the church of Laodicea....

“And when this letter has been read among you, have it also read in the church of the Laodiceans; and see that you also read the letter from Laodicea.” (Colossians 4:16, ESV)

As junobet pointed out, we just trust the the Holy Spirit preserved those letters that were needed for us. It is likely that those letters contained similar information, just as the letters to Ephesians and Colossians are very similar and have many parallels.

You think its possible at all that he mentioned by name who he referred to as the restrainer?

 

[Wormwood]

I guess anything is possible in what might have been mentioned in the material we dont have :). I guess the important thing is that the Holy Spirit didnt see fit to make it available to us for one reason or another. However, my personal view is that the "restrainer" is God and the "man of lawlessness" is a term used for Satan in general. I think it is a similar concept to the "binding" of Satan that Jesus speaks of, that is mentioned in Revelation 20 (Satan bound in the abyss) and the reference in 1 John 3:8 that refers to Christ's work that "renders powerless" (destroy is too strong a term here) the works of Satan. But I am in the minority and that is a different thread. :)