I solemnly charge you by the Lord that this letter be read to all the holy brothers.
The earnestness of his adjuration implies how solemnly-important he felt this divinely-inspired message to be. Also, as this was the FIRST of the Epistles of the New Testament, he makes this the occasion of a solemn charge, that so its being publicly read should be a sample of what should be done in the case of the others, just as the Pentateuch and the Prophets were publicly read under the Old Testament, and are still read in the synagogue" (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown 393).