All that we may legitimately infer from this passage is that the apostle urged an

exchange of letters. It is pure assumption to say that the epistle from Laodicea was that

known to us as the epistle "to the Ephesians". It may have been so, for some copies

contain no name and suggest that the letter was copied and sent to several churches, but

the suggestion is simply a theory without foundation.  All we can say is that the

Laodiceans had a letter, presumably from Paul, which would have been helpful to the

Colossians. In the same chapter we read that Tychicus would tell the Colossians of

Paul's state (4: 7), information most interesting and necessary for Colosse, but of no

lasting service for the church of all time. So we have not only an epistle that was never

preserved as a part of "all Scripture", but many oral messages that were never recorded.

The reader will call to mind other statements, such as that in II Thess. 2: 5:--

But God has not seen fit to place these things on record. In Heb. 9: 5 the apostle,

speaking of the ark and the cherubim, says:--

While we may entertain the thought that we should value the apostle's opening up of

the meaning of the cherubim, God has not seen fit to allow him to go further with the

subject. None of these things are "lost"; they were never included in the Canon and

consequently have gone the way of all the earth.

It is worthy of remark that the actual statement of Col. 4: 16 is "the epistle from

Loadicea", ten ek Laodikeias, which, according to Calim, was "an epistle which had been

sent from Laodicea to Paul, and which he thought it desirable to be read by the

Colossians".  The considered opinion of such a scholar as Calim cannot be lightly

brushed aside, and if this be the true meaning of the apostle, it destroys the last shred of

argument in favour of the suggestion we have been considering, and Col. 4: 16 does not

refer to an epistle that has been "unfortunately lost".

Another epistle that is said to have been lost is one sent to the Corinthians. Before

examining the passage, we may remark that what has been said above applies equally

here. Supposing the apostle did write an epistle to the Corinthian church, before that

which we call "The first Epistle to the Corinthians", this would not mean that a book of

the sacred Canon had been lost, for we have no reason to believe that such an epistle

was ever included. That the Corinthians were acquainted with some of Paul's "epistles"

(hai epistolai) II Cor. 10: 10 shows, but as to how many they were, or to whom

addressed, nothing is clearly related. The passage under consideration is I Cor. 5: 9-11:--

Before we can deal justly with this statement, we must be more accurate in our

translation. For example, the English reader would assume that "I wrote" in verse 9, and

"I have written" in verse 11, represent two tenses of the verb, but this is not so. The verb