Yeah, Ignatius!

Talkin’ about that church Father of the first century.  He and Polycarp were fellow disciples under John (the apostle).  He writes to the Ephesian Christians warning them against false teachers.  Of the “spirit of deceit” he says this in chapter nine:

“He glorifies himself, for he is full of arrogance.  He is lying, fraudulent, soothing, flattering, treacherous, rhapsodical, trifling, inharmonious, verbose, sordid, and timorous. . .”

(Hmm.  Next time you want to insult someone who deserves such in a frank but civil and lofty manner, have at it with some antiquated flare!)

Well, you can be delivered from all that nastiness!  He goes on to say:

 “Jesus Christ will deliver you . . . who was crucified for you, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, and being borne up by faith, while exalted by love from earth to heaven, walking in company with those that are undefiled. For says [the Scripture], “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.”  Now the way is unerring, namely, Jesus Christ.  For, says He, “I am the way and the life.” And this way leads to the Father.  For “not man,” says He, “cometh to the Father but by Me.”  Blessed, then, are you who are God-bearers, spirit-bearers, temple-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, being “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people,” on whose account I rejoice exceedingly, and have had the privilege, by this Epistle, of conversing with “the saints which are at Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus.”  I rejoice, therefore, over you, that you do not give heed to vanity, and love nothing according to the flesh, but according to God.

Those Church Fathers were quite the holy men!   If we had no Bibles in the world, we could put one back together just by extracting quotations from the texts from Scriptures found in their writings!  (A good apologetical note for your reference.)

3 October, 2022