SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/21/2017 7:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 They Were an Attractive Church
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts 2:47b
Message of the verses: “and having favor with all the people”
I thought for today’s SD that I would give the quote from
Aristides who was the second century philosopher who wrote on the early church.
“Now the Christians, O
King, by going about and seeking, have found the truth. For they know and trust in God, the Maker of
heaven and earth, who has no fellow.
From him they received those commandments which they have engraved on
their minds, and which they observe in the hope and expectation of the world to
come.
For this reason they do not
commit adultery or immorality; they do not bear false witness, or embezzle, nor
do they covet what is not theirs. They
honor father and mother, and do good to those who are their neighbors. Whenever they are judges, they judge
uprightly. They do not worship idols
made in the image of man. Whatever they
do not wish that others should do to them, they in turn do not do; and they do
not eat the food sacrificed to idols.
Those who oppress them they
exhort and make them their friends. They
do good to their enemies. Their wives, O
King, are pure as virgins, and their daughters are modest. Their men abstain from unlawful sexual
contact and from impurity, in the hope of recompense that is to come in another
world.
As for their bondmen and
bondwomen, and their children, if there are any, they persuade them to become
Christians; and when they have done so, they call them brethren without
distinction.
They refuse to worship
strange gods; and they go their way in all humility and cheerfulness. Falsehood is not found among them. They love one another; the widow’s needs are
not ignored, and they rescue the orphan from the person who does him
violence. He who has gives to him who
has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting.
When the Christians find a stranger, they bring him to their homes and
rejoice over him as a true brother. They
do not call brothers those who are bound by blood ties alone, but those who are
brethren after the Spirit and in God.
When one of their poor
passes away from the world, each provides for his burial according to his
ability. If they hear of any of their
number who are imprisoned or oppressed for the name of the Messiah, they all
provide for his needs, and if it is possible to redeem him, they set him free.
If they find poverty in
their midst, and they do not have spare food, they fast two or three days in
order that the needy might be supplied with the necessities. They observe scrupulously the commandments of
their Messiah, living honestly and soberly as the Lord their God ordered them. Every morning and every hour they praise and
thank God for His goodness to them; and for their food and drink they offer
thanksgiving.
If any righteous person of
their number passes away from the world, they rejoice and thank God, and escort
his body as if he were setting out from one place to another nearby. When a child is born to one of them they
praise God. If it dies in infancy, they
thank God the more, as for one who has passed through the world without sins. But if one of them dies in his iniquity or in
his sins, they grieve bitterly and sorrow as over one who is about to meet his
doom.
Such, O King, is the
commandment given to the Christians, and such is their conduct. (The
Apology of Aristides, translated by Rendel Harris [London: Cambridge,
1893]).”
MacArthur adds “With all of
that virtue to commend them it is small wonder they were an attractive church.”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “About 3,000” (Acts 2:41).
Today’s Bible
question: “What sign of the poverty of
Joseph and Mary was there in the temple service?”
Answer in our next SD.
8/21/2017 7:43 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment