@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'

Where Love Finds You

Church?

What’s the number one characteristic of Christianity in your view? If we asked this question to a number of people, it would be interesting to hear their replies. We might get answers like, “It’s a religion whose adherents follow Christ,” or “They meet in churches,” or simply “It’s a religion, but I don’t know much about it.” We can only guess at the kind of answers we might get, but we can be sure of the defining characteristic presented by Jesus. John reports Jesus as saying to His followers: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Love was always to be the most prominent evidence of true Christian faith, but it's not the first thing that strikes a visitor to many churches today. Jesus taught love above everything else, making it clear that all God’s commandments rested on love for God and for one another (Matthew 22:40). He pointed out that its highest expression was found in the giving of one’s life for another (John 15:13) and He modelled this by giving His own life for humanity at the Cross. Yeshua intended that His ekklesia would be a place where love finds us.