@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'

Returning to Our Roots

The timelessness of love

 I’m not sure that many of us would want to return to the first century, fascinated though we may be by the period. Every age has its challenges, but today we benefit from many developments and advances enabling us to potentially live better and longer. Life for the early disciples in first century Jerusalem would have been both exciting and challenging. They witnessed the inception and early expansion of what was then known as the ‘Way’, but they also had to face opposition from the religious establishment and the persecution that it spawned. Thankfully, we do not have to return to the first century to learn from it. We have a written record of the early years of the church, the New Testament book of Acts put together by Luke, as well as additional historical and archaeological evidence, from which we can build a fairly accurate picture of what first century church life was like. One of the most prominent features of that picture is the love of the first disciples. The first church at Jerusalem offers a timeless model of love-driven community, eternal principles as relevant today as they were then. These are roots worth returning to! 