Grace and peace. These words, though they are typical of the greetings, the opening of most of the epistles are very special.
You know, when I was very young I was given a book ‘The Divine Cordial’ by Thomas Watson, still in print today, he was a great 17th century Puritan and writes in an amazingly modern style. Don’t be afraid of Puritans. If you want to get into them, try Thomas Watson, he is not long-winded and he has a very modern sort of style. Well, I read this book and it was about comfort and I rather expected it to be a book that would say, ‘There, there. When you feel like this, here’s some words of encouragement for you’ and it didn’t proceed along those lines at all. You know how it went? Well, when you are down, or sad, or you are under pressure, or your assurance is being eroded away, or you are very sick, or you are full of grief over some trial and tribulation, here are the doctrines of the faith. It is a doctrinal book. Believe this, believe this, believe this and I realised this, yes, that’s biblical comfort, it comes from Christ. Of course you can say to each other, there, there, I feel very much for you in this particular trial or problem. That is good, that is legitimate sympathy but the greatest comfort comes from reminding yourselves of the doctrine of salvation and the power of God and his plans and purposes and future life and I learned a great lesson. This is the way to give comfort.