@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'

Sin Is A Choice

There’s an enemy that has claimed the lives of millions, ruining health, destroying relationships, and killing businesses and careers. The name of this enemy is ‘sin.’ When & where did sin originate? Life in a world of suffering and sin was not always the experience of people on earth. We read in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, that in the beginning “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Adam and Eve, the first people, lived in an idyllic world, in which they lacked for nothing. They had everything they could ever need. But something went tragically wrong with the world God made, and this damage was the consequence of sin. Sin did not start with Adam and Eve but was already present in the universe at the time of their fall. As far as we can tell, it first appeared in the angel Lucifer, whom we now know as Satan. Lucifer was a mighty angel in Heaven, and pure in heart, until a day came when sin was found in him. Speaking through the prophet Ezekiel, God says of him “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; you were on the holy mountain of God; you walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, till iniquity was found in you” (Ezekiel 28:14,15). God did not create sin, and He did not put sin into Lucifer, but as a being with the capacity for free moral choice, Lucifer chose sin, and attempted to overthrow God in Heaven, desiring to take His place and reign in His stead. When we are tempted to sin today, let us remember that sin is a choice, and choose the good.