@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'

Knowing God’s Love

It’s a wonderful thing to know God’s love. Healing grace flows within our souls when we understand that our heavenly Father loves us more than we can ever know in this life. It is a wonderful thing to discover that God loves us. Many times, the Lord has told me how He feels our pain. God is not the author of evil, He is its number one enemy, and He feels all our pain. When his twenty-one-year-old daughter was tragically drowned in a yachting accident, William Barclay, a man whose ministry touched the lives of millions, and whose brilliant New Testament commentaries are still touching lives today, said: ‘The day my daughter was lost at sea there was sorrow in the heart of God.’ (A Spiritual Autobiography, p.52). The Lord sees and knows all the hurting people in the world. He knows our pain and suffers with us, though we may know it not. He loves each one deeply, He feels every tear we have cried, and longs to make everything better. But that healing process can only begin in earnest when we come to Him. If the Doctor can help us, we must go to the Doctor. If there is effective treatment available at the hospital, to the hospital we must go. God, the Divine Physician, is calling you to come and be healed. Perhaps you have not yet received Jesus as your personal Saviour. If that is so I want to invite you now to become a friend of Jesus.