Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Two Fathers [Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna]
Standing on My Head ^ | 2/25/10 | Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Posted on 02/26/2010 6:24:33 AM PST by marshmallow

I have a pile of books in my study for review, and if people are kind enough to send me a book I try to read it and review it if I can. I also have a belief that I should read every book someone sends me rather than just the books I want to read because this is the way God cracks open my clam like closed mind and heart just a little bit more.

Thus the splendid commentary on Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna comes my way. Like most converts, I'm a fan of the fathers. I mean, their splendiferous names alone are rather admirable. These guys are not called Harry Jones or Bill Button. Ignatius of Antioch. Polycarp of Smyrna. There's a certain rolling sense of thunder about them. They are to be reckoned with. They demand bold type. Their icons are august and awesome. Bearded and serious they are...the are the Dumbledores, the Gandalfs, the wizened wise wizards of the gallery of saints. They are the patristical patriarchs.

Enough purple prose. You know their stories or if you don't you should. Ignatius comes along as bishop of Antioch just a few years after Peter himself was there. Some say he is the third bishop after Peter, and that Peter himself appointed him. He is one of the originals, and the story goes that he was one of the children Jesus took up and blessed. "Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not." If only he had recorded the story in his letters, "You know my dear children," he could have written, "I still remember to this day when our Lord Jesus Christ the king of glory took me in his arms and blessed me. Who can forget that tender voice? Who, once blessed, could forget the look of eternity in his eyes?"

Alas, no such record exists, but he did write six splendid letters to the churches while he was on his way to Rome to be devoured by the wild beasts during the terrible persecutions. These letters till exist, and give us a beautiful and simple insight into the early church. How I wish that all our Evangelical brethren who want their church to be 'just like the early church' would take the trouble to read these letters so they would learn just what the early church was really like. Here you find a clear and uncompromising insistence on the centrality of the episcopacy, an established priesthood and diaconate, a clear understanding of our Lord's divinity and the doctrine of the Real Presence.

Then we have a letter that Ignatius wrote to Polycarp of Smyrna, and Polycarp's letter to the Philippians. These letters from such holy men ooze the apostolic spirit. They are vivid accounts of the concerns of those early Christians, and as such they have been held as precious documents by all who love the church from the earliest times.

Now what about this book? It gathers all these letters together and gives us biographical goodies about both these patriarchs. Kenneth Howell is a well known convert from Presbyterianism. A great scholar, he offers these new translations of the Ignatian and Polycarpian letters along with introductory essays and a verse by verse commentary. The handsome book has been produced by Coming Home Resources and is available here .

What I liked about this book is that once more I was able to spend time with these two venerable and holy men. The beauty of letters (rather than theological tomes) is that they are written by real people to real people in real situations. An epistle is a very incarnational form of literature. It's immediate and it's amazing to me how vital and relevant and alive these letters are despite being 2000 years old. If you have a bookish sort of Evangelical friend, why not get him this book and challenge him to discover what the early church was like. Then get into a discussion about it. It's cool to think that these 2000 year old fathers might help in 2010 evangelization.

I'm not through with the book yet because I'm eating it like an apple: small bites and chewing long. I recommend you do the same.


TOPICS: Catholic; History; Ministry/Outreach
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-100 last
To: Campion; Dutchboy88
Wrong. He knew Peter and probably John and Paul personally.

So did Judas...that means nothing.. the question is did he know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior??? Did He repent and believe???

One will not get into heaven based on social network

81 posted on 02/27/2010 10:39:31 AM PST by RnMomof7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: johngrace
The gentleman who runs the blog is an ex-protestant you might learn something. bye

Just because someone has a history of being Protestant does not mean he was saved..it just means that he went to church and possibly gave mental assent to the doctrine without ever being saved.. Sorta like all the folks that name their religion as Catholic but never go inside the church except for the funeral mass

82 posted on 02/27/2010 10:48:45 AM PST by RnMomof7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: RnMomof7
"So did Judas...that means nothing.. the question is did he know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior??? Did He repent and believe???

One will not get into heaven based on social network"

Absolutely. The additional problem here is that the Catholics claim by "rumor" and "probable association", that either Ignatius or Polycarp were appointed as early popes. No documentation that such a thing even existed, (end of third century was earliest "pope"), but this is apparently supposed to impress us.

83 posted on 02/27/2010 11:07:47 AM PST by Dutchboy88
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: Dr. Eckleburg
Jesus began preaching at 12, and Josiah was young as well

and Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. And he did what was right in the eyes of the LORD, and walked in the ways of David his father;

and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images. 2 Chronicles 34:1-3

84 posted on 02/27/2010 11:18:56 AM PST by 1000 silverlings (everything that deceives, also enchants: Plato)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 49 | View Replies]

To: RnMomof7

Many people join the local church just for business and social reasons, for the connections. Nothing new there. Tares


85 posted on 02/27/2010 11:28:27 AM PST by 1000 silverlings (everything that deceives, also enchants: Plato)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow; Dr. Eckleburg
And we have the more firm prophetical word: whereunto you do well to attend, as to a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts: Understanding this first, that no prophecy of scripture is made by private interpretation.

Please read this quote in context.. It is about the Infallibility of scripture. ALL scripture is prophetic and is not the word of men.. THAT is what that is what Peter saying IN CONTEXT.

From Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
First-the foremost consideration in studying the word of prophecy. Laying it down as a first principle never to be lost sight of.

is-Greek, not the simple verb, to be, but to begin to be, "proves to be," "becometh." No prophecy is found to be the result of "private (the mere individual writer's uninspired) interpretation" (solution), and so origination. The Greek noun epilusis, does not mean in itself origination; but that which the sacred writer could not always fully interpret, though being the speaker or writer (as 1Pe 1:10-12 implies), was plainly not of his own, but of God's disclosure, origination, and inspiration, as Peter proceeds to add, "But holy men . spake (and afterwards wrote) . moved by the Holy Ghost": a reason why ye should "give" all "heed" to it. The parallelism to 2Pe 1:16 shows that "private interpretation," contrasted with "moved by the Holy Ghost," here answers to "fables devised by (human) wisdom," contrasted with "we were eye-witnesses of His majesty," as attested by the "voice from God." The words of the prophetical (and so of all) Scripture writers were not mere words of the individuals, and therefore to be interpreted by them, but of "the Holy Ghost" by whom they were "moved." "Private" is explainec

Wesley

1:20 Ye do well, as knowing this, that no scripture prophecy is of private interpretation - It is not any man's own word. It is God, not the prophet himself, who thereby interprets things till then unknown.

The Youngs LITERAL greek interpretation says this

Young's Literal Translation this first knowing, that no prophecy of the Writing doth come of private exposition,

That is why the scripture clearly teaches us that the word of God is foolishness to those that are perishing ...correct exposition is essential

86 posted on 02/27/2010 11:55:25 AM PST by RnMomof7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 34 | View Replies]

To: RnMomof7; Dr. Eckleburg; Dutchboy88; wmfights; the_conscience; UriÂ’el-2012
Amen, and Christ's "replacement" here on earth, His Vicar, is the One that God sent, and is none other than the Holy Spirit who leads men into all truth. No pope has ever been sent
87 posted on 02/27/2010 12:09:12 PM PST by 1000 silverlings (everything that deceives, also enchants: Plato)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: 1000 silverlings

AMEN


88 posted on 02/27/2010 12:30:16 PM PST by RnMomof7
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

Comment #89 Removed by Moderator

To: Dr. Eckleburg

Shockingly horrific and hideous. Amazing.


90 posted on 02/27/2010 8:39:13 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; GiovannaNicoletta; Godzilla; ...

Exhorting underlings . . . particularly poorly educated, immature, weak of the flock

to ignore reality in favor of a lie from the hierarchy

is devilish, satanic, Communistic, tyrannical, horrific.

################

Thankfully, even most simple farmers with no education are not so stupid as to comply.

Even simple peasants can distinguish and discern the difference between calling white black because a bureaucratic political power mongering ecclesiastical elite order them to

vs

trusting the Living Word of God to encourage to walk to Him on the water.

The former is stupidity and deception from hell.

The latter is

FAITH LIVED OUT.


91 posted on 02/27/2010 8:45:59 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; GiovannaNicoletta; Godzilla; ...

NO!

It IS PRIDE AND ARROGANCE TO THE MAX

of the worst Pharisaical sort

to even imagine telling the weak of a flock to

CALL WHITE BLACK just because the hierarchy says so.

ARROGANCE TO THE MAX.

Considering it otherwise is similarly ARROGANCE TO THE MAX.

Satan in the Garden told Even to ignore the REALITY GOD HAD TOLD, EXPLAINED TO HER about the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil—and to trust satan’s reality.

Such a hierarchical exhortation is no different. And just as horrifically destructively devilish, satanic.

How ANY organization calling itself Christian would dare to say and distribute such a saying is mind bogglingly amazing.


92 posted on 02/27/2010 8:49:09 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: Dr. Eckleburg; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; GiovannaNicoletta; ...

Seems to me, it’s like this in those Roman Catholic et al realms . . .

Compared to Mary, Jesus is merely an also ran . . . Her lap is bigger. Her . . . uhhhh nurturance is bigger and more familiar . . . Her image is more plentiful . . . Her namesakes are more numerous and varied . . .

Compared to the encyclicals and magicsterical written pontifications . . . Scripture is also . . . but a footnote to be occasionally bowed to and to be ritually ran through . . . the “real” TRUSTWORTHY meat is from the MAGICSTERICAL . . .

Hideous to the max.


93 posted on 02/27/2010 8:53:00 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow; Amityschild; Brad's Gramma; Cvengr; DvdMom; firebrand; GiovannaNicoletta; Godzilla; ...
You'll be speaking for you utterly depraved and completely fallen Calvinist self

Goodness! Sounds like a major flash of

--MIND READING
--HEART READING &
--SPIRIT READING

All rolled into one.

Please, tell me . . . how many indulgences does it cost to be able to more or less virtually excommunicate Prottys like that, at will?

Is there a money-back guarantee that they will STAY excommunicated or does one take one's chances that the money might be wasted if they get enough Roman Catholics et al to fondle enough beads in their behalf?

Ya know, Dr. E. I don't recall in all my years of intense exchanges hereon of ever flat footedly delcaring that a given Roman Catholic et al was NOT A CHRISTIAN AT ALL.

I have suggested that some might be influenced by doctrines of demons and demonic forces. I don't ever recall saying or implying that there was no chance they would make Heaven; were utterly doomed; utterly reprobate etc.

Yet, you and I get such accusations and personal assaults leveled at us seemingly almost 24/7. Fascinating.

Obviously they are on some special SUPER RIGHTEOUS MISSION . . . perhaps as part of the SPECIAL FORCES RUTHLESS DEMOLITION TEAMS OF THE ORDER OF THE WHITE HANKY.

94 posted on 02/27/2010 9:01:53 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Alamo-Girl

I think that’s an important spiritual principle.

I must be tired or thick-headed tonight to miss it’s application to this thread.

Perhaps you’d be willing to bother enlightening me.


95 posted on 02/27/2010 9:03:40 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]

To: Alamo-Girl

Absolutely true, imho.

We cannot fix ourselves. We certainly cannot perfect our own faith.

He does ask us to cooperate, imho.


96 posted on 02/27/2010 9:05:54 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 47 | View Replies]

To: Quix
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ, and thank you for your encouragements!

The metaphor in post 41 was applied in post 47 - but I wasn't trying to be relevant to the article.

The mention of the two extreme colors brought to mind that interesting property which I find useful in explaining Christian beliefs.

97 posted on 02/27/2010 9:15:06 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: Alamo-Girl

Plenty fitting.

Thanks for your kind reply.


98 posted on 02/27/2010 9:18:46 PM PST by Quix ( POL Ldrs quotes fm1900 TRAITORS http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/2130557/posts?page=81#81)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 97 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow

PETRUCHIO

Come on, i’ God’s name; once more toward our father’s.
Good Lord, how bright and goodly shines the moon!

KATHARINA

The moon! the sun: it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIO

I say it is the moon that shines so bright.

KATHARINA

I know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIO

Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,
It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,
Or ere I journey to your father’s house.
Go on, and fetch our horses back again.
Evermore cross’d and cross’d; nothing but cross’d!

HORTENSIO

Say as he says, or we shall never go.

KATHARINA

Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,
And be it moon, or sun, or what you please:
An if you please to call it a rush-candle,
Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIO

I say it is the moon.

KATHARINA

I know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIO

Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.

KATHARINA

Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun:
But sun it is not, when you say it is not;
And the moon changes even as your mind.
What you will have it named, even that it is;
And so it shall be so for Katharina.


99 posted on 02/28/2010 12:04:39 AM PST by firebrand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: marshmallow

The church is the bride of Christ. But we are not the bride of the church. We are the church. Or if you insist on Church, we are not the bride of the Church, as Katharina is of Petruchio. We are the bride of Christ. We do not obey other humans as Katharina obeys her husband.


100 posted on 02/28/2010 12:14:04 AM PST by firebrand
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-100 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson