@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'

Lucifer’s Fall To Earth

When Lucifer rebelled against God, a third of the angels joined him, and there was war in Heaven between Satan and his angels, and the Archangel Michael and his angels. God prevailed in this conflict, and Satan was cast out of Heaven along with those angels that had sided with him. This was the prelude to the events that we read at the beginning of the book of Genesis. Jesus says of Satan, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from Heaven” (Luke 10:18). And of his character He says: “He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44b). This is the being who assumes the form of a serpent and appears in the Garden of Eden. This is he who succeeds in tricking the first humans into sin, thus robbing them of their idyllic home, their perfect health, and their boundless happiness. Let us be watchful, staying close to Jesus, for Satan still does his infernal work today, seeking to lie and deceive. 