I am working on updating my book, Settlers or Sojourners? for a 20th Anniversary Edition. It is an opportunity to to make a few grammatical corrections as well as update some of the language and illustrations. But it also gives me the chance to expand the work and I have decided to buttress the biblical argument with an Appendix undergirding the evidence from the Scripture with a collection of quotes from the first four centuries of what history has come to call the Ante-Nicean Fathers. But this isn’t about that. It’s about another quote on another topic I found as I was doing the research.
Some time between the AD 70 and 105, an early believer in Christ named Ignatius wrote an epistle to the Romans to encourage them as he prepared to die for his faith. The believers in Rome were beginning to experience persecution and he had an observation about how God was using the persecution for his glory.
“The work is not of persuasiveness, but Christianity is it’s greatest, whenever it is hated by the world.”
– Ignatius to the Romans (A.D. 35-105) ch.3
The world will always hate the Church (Christians) because the world is at war with Christ. But when the world hates us it ought to hate us because we live for Him. The light shines brightest in the darkness. Let’s make sure that we are living each day passionately for and like Jesus. The world crucified Him and they may do the same thing to us but we will have Him and glory. We will have salvation and eternal life. We will have the love of God and the wonder of His presence forever.
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