@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'

Dwell In The Truth

When Pontius Pilate asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) he was expressing the frustrations of a great many, for merely human conceptions of truth are notoriously changeable. Take science for example. When I was a child, the prevailing scientific view was that the planet was entering a new ice age. Today the view is one of global warming! It is only when we come to God that we discover a truth that is forever constant, and in that truth we may safely rest. This is why the Psalmist says, “Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, Who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; Who keeps truth forever” (Psalm 146:5,6). Where shall we make our intellectual home? Will it be in some fashionable view or opinion? Will it be in an attempt to reconcile the often conflicting views of humanity? Will it be in some godless ideology promoted by sinful men? Happy are they that practice the presence of God and who use their Spirit-filled imagination to daily listen to His voice. These are they who have chosen to dwell in the truth. Some dip their toe into the living waters of eternal truth. The wise choose to live there!