@FirstChurchofJerusalem
Today's Early Church Wisdom
“I shall not hesitate also to put into ordered form for you, along with the interpretations, everything I learned carefully in the past from the elders and noted down carefully, for the truth of which I vouch. For unlike most people, I took no pleasure in those who told many different stories, but only in those who taught the truth. Nor did I take pleasure in those who reported their memory of someone else’s commandments, but only in those who reported their memory of the commandments given by the Lord to the faith and proceeding from the Truth itself. And if by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice.
~ Papias of Hierapolis (c. 60–130 AD) From the Preface to his lost ‘Expositions of the Sayings of the Lord’
This week's Psalm is Psalm 31 'My Rock, My Shield, My Song'

Be Fully Resourced

There are many insufficiencies in this life, but there is one resource that will always be sufficient for every situation and every need: the grace of God. The apostle Paul writes: “And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Whatever strength, power, or personal resources we may have, God’s grace is the only resource upon which we may safely rely. Therefore, let us submit and subjugate our strength and our resources to God, acknowledging our utter weakness and impotence without Him. Speaking of Jesus, John the Baptist said, “He must increase but I must decrease!” (John 3:30). Let this be our motto, for His strength is made perfect in our weakness. The mother of Oral Roberts, America’s great healing evangelist, said this to him: “Son, always be small in your own eyes!” What true words. By emptying ourselves of all but love, we become supremely and supernaturally resourced for life. This is the way of all those who, like Christ in His humanity, know that of themselves they can do nothing. Choosing daily to walk and talk with Him, they are those through whom God’s strength is wonderfully expressed.