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My new book, available now! Take a journey through the first 400 years of Church History in only 40 days!

Take a journey through the first 400 years of Church History in only 40 days! "40 Days with the Fathers" is a daily reading plan/devotional spread out over forty days; and over the course of this reading plan you will read extracts and commentary on 23 different early Church texts from a selection of some of the most influential Church Fathers, such as: Didache, Diognetus, Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, and Leo the Great. These people who came before us, those great men of faith, many of whom suffered persecution and martyrdom to preserve the Church and Christ's mission, bridge the gap between th...

Lent: Day 5 - Ignatius to the Ephesians

Day Five: St. Ignatius of Antioch: Letter to the Ephesians (full text) Who: Ignatius converted at a young age and later became Bishop of Antioch. A friend of Polycarp and fellow disciple of John, there is a long standing tradition that Ignatius was the child that Jesus held in his arms and blessed in Mark 10:13-16 What: The letter has a strong call to and for unity within the church, along with respect for their bishop. Why: Ignatius wrote a series of letters to the churches in Asia Minor whilst en route to Rome to face martyrdom by wild beasts in the Colosseum around 108 AD. When: Around 107-108 AD There is a strong theme to this letter from the outset, an...

Lent Day 25: Athanasius: Life of Anthony: Chaps. 41-50

...esire for martyrdom at Alexandria during the Persecution (311 AD) The Church came under persecution from Maximinus II, who took many Christians away to Alexandria to be martyred. Anthony, having not been caught, followed anyway hoping to either be a witness or to at least minister to those who had been taken, and ended up going to those in the mines and the prisons. The judge who was overseeing the martyrs, saw this fearless zeal from Anthony and his companions, and “commanded that no monk should appear in the judgment hall, nor remain at all in the city” which led to many Christians going into hiding at that time. Life after the persecutions After the...

John Chau, missionary to the Sentinelese: martyr or madness?

...You've probably seen it in the news lately: John Chau, the American guy who tried to evangelise the secluded Sentinelese tribe off the coast of India. Much of the debate in secular media has centered around the grief of his friends and family; how he could have brought outside disease to the tribespeople and potentially killed them all (despite this not being their first contact with outsiders, with no known ill effect), or that he ventured there completely in ignorance with no preparation or wisdom — something which the missionary agency, All Nations, has recently debunked. But the question I want to look at is this: was Chau's mission total madness or is...

The Gospel of Jeffrey Dahmer

...ephen’s martyrdom (Acts 8:1). Paul acknowledges his sin but recognises that God saved him as a testimony to the abundant goodness and mercy of God, so that if even Paul can be saved, then so can anyone. 1 Timothy 1:16But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate His extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Jeffrey Dahmer was definitely “the worst of them”, yet not beyond the reach of our ever-loving saviour, Christ Jesus. I understand the human desire to want to see the vilest of people punished or condemned to hellfire, and even the Apostles and...

When did Christians become so whiny?

...equal of martyrdom. They heathen behaved in the very opposite way. At the first onset of the disease they push the sufferers away and fled from their dearest, throwing them into the roads before they were dead and treated unburied corpses as dirt, hoping thereby to avert the spreading contagion of the fatal disease; but do what they might they found it difficult to escape. Here, Dionysius wrote a tribute to the efforts and labours of the Christians who literally risked their lives to aid others during great epidemic. Emperor Julian is also known to have made a comment about this aspect of the Christian life and faith too: Emperor Julian (AD 361-363) [...