@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'

Build Your Life on the Eternal Word

It’s not something that people like to dwell on, but the truth is that unless Jesus returns in our lifetime, we’re all going to die, some sooner, some later. Someone once said that selling life insurance is the hardest job on earth. Why? Because people do not like to face their mortality. The result of this dislike is that the fear of death is one of the most repressed fears we see. Given the unavoidability of death, sensible people face it and then seek to make good choices as to how to live. The best choice that someone can make in this respect is, of course, to receive Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. This, and this alone, guarantees eternal life, a life with Christ now in this mortal life, and a life with Him forever in eternity. Isaiah well describes the contrast between mortality and God’s living word when he writes, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever” (Isaiah 40:8). Only a mortal life grounded on and in Jesus, the living the word of God has permanence. Flowers, grass, and physical human bodies will all die, but not the word of our God. It is through the Word that we are both saved and sustained. Let us not be like those who, once saved, neglect the Word that saved them, but let us be still (Psalm 46:10) and listen daily to Jesus.