Well, a very good morning on this wonderful Monday, the 17th, Memorable Monday on Let's Talk here on Radio Puppet. I'm Rocky Stevenson, pastor of Benoni Bible Church. And what a joy it is to be with you once again at the beginning of this marvelous week. In Memorable Monday, we're looking at different church history events. And we've gone back already in this series from before the time of the birth of our Lord Jesus, I'd encourage you that if you have missed a Memorable Monday, you can always go and look at the podcast on the Radio Pulpit website. It's right there under the tab of podcast and you can find Let's Talk and then you can go from Monday to Monday and actually see this as a series and that's what I've sought to do with Memorable Monday. We've done the same with Theological Tuesday. Wisdom Wednesday and Technical Thursday. Friday's a little bit different because we look at hymn writers and in the hymn writers, we have different hymn writers, so you wouldn't have necessarily a series in a sense. But with Memorable Monday, we're trying to build up in church history and give a bit of an idea of the church history. Last time, we ended off looking at John's kind of sending off to Patmos. And this time we're going to continue. Last time we looked at Emperor Domitian who was from 81 to 96 AD. And now we're going to carry on from where we left off last week until around the 3rd century. We'll sometimes zoom in on certain things and then zoom out again and zoom in again. And I prepare these every week and get them ready. And so sometimes what is piquing my own interest at that point as well, as I think through this. And the early church was a time of great growth as well as development for Christianity. The church faced many challenges, but it also made significant progress within the world. The early church laid the foundation of the development of Christianity as we know it today. Now persecution played a huge part in that and we're going to look at some of that as well and one of the biggest challenges that the early church faced was persecution. Christians were often persecuted by the Roman government and that's a reality. You go look at this, actually it's more of the norm that the Christian was persecuted by the government than non-Lenorm. It's actually kind of the exception when the Christian goes through times or seasons where the government is not persecuting the Christian church. And that's often where you find governments stepping out of the legitimate way in which God had designed governments to be. If you go and look at Romans 13, you see that God intends governments to punish that which is wicked and uphold that which is good. But at times there are tyrannical governments that do not do what God had given them to do. They step out of the authority that God had given, and they begin to be tyrants. And that's what you start to see even in the early church. And the Roman government would persecute many of the Christians. They would imprison them, torture them, kill them. And the persecution of Christians began in the early years of the church. In 64 AD, the great fire of Rome broke out, and we touched on that, I think, two or three sessions back in Memorable Monday. The Roman government blamed the fire on the Christians, and a wave of persecution followed, and that was under Nero, and then Domitian wasn't too different, who had exiled John to Patmos. And so persecution continued throughout the second and the third century. In 107 AD, Ignatius of Antioch, who lived from 35 AD to 107 AD, was martyred for his faith. In 155 AD, Polycarp of Smyrna, who lived from 69 to 155 AD, was martyred for his faith. And in 165 AD, Justin Martin, who lived from 100 to 165 AD, was martyred for his faith. And so you see these men. I mean, Ignatius was said by other historians to have been imprisoned with Paul during his second Roman imprisonment, but he was martyred later in 107 AD. And you find that Polycarp, for example, who was a disciple of John, was martyred in 155 AD. And Justin Martin, who was a great figure at that time where we get our terminology of martyrdom and martyr from because of Justin Martyr was martyred in 165 AD. Now the growth and the development of the early church is something that's worthwhile tracking and despite the persecution the early church continued to grow and to develop. New Christian communities were founded and new churches were founded it's a local churches remember that the local church is a representation in a geographical location of the Universal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anybody that is born again becomes part of the Universal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And those that have been born again and are part of that Universal Church of the Lord Jesus Christ seek a place where they can assemble for the corporate worship of Jesus. And they do that on the Lord's Day. And that has been happening since the beginning of the church. And despite the persecution, actually this fueled more and more growth. So much so that you could agree with a statement that has said that the blood of the martyrs is that which has watered the seed of the gospel in our world. And the church has grown through this. And more and more churches were planted based on the Roman empire's persecution of the church. Remember that Rome built so many roads and the church was able to spread throughout the Roman world. And the church then began to develop its own distinct identity, apart from, let's say, Judaism, as it had been this kind of Jewish sect. And you remember we talked about the Herodian, or not the Herodian, sorry, the Hellenistic Christians, which had accepted and assimilated that Greek culture, and you had the Hebrew Christians. But persecution really fueled the church spreading throughout the known world. The New Testament canon, which is the Bible and its 27 books of the New Testament, was also established during this time. The New Testament Canon is the collection of the books that we believe are inspired by God, by the Holy Spirit, and it was finalized in the 4th century. But the process of canonizing began in the 2nd century. The early church also began to develop its own theological and philosophical traditions. These traditions then helped to shape and develop Christianity as we know it even today. I want us to look at some of those key figures that I mentioned earlier that were martyred. And these are some of the key figures during the early church period. Ignatius of Antioch. I remember that Antioch was such an important city that was part of even the birthing of the missionary movement as Barnabas and Paul had been sent out from Antioch. And it was such a bustling city in Syria. He was born around 35 AD. He was a student of the Apostle John, and he was ordained as a bishop in the early 2nd century. Ignatius was arrested and sent to Rome to be executed. And some have said that he was in prison at the same time as the Apostle Paul at a time, but he was likely persecuted or let's say executed and martyred in 107 AD. On his journey to Rome he wrote several letters to churches along the way and these letters are an important source of information about early Christianity including the role of bishops and the nature of the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper and the relationship between Christians and the Roman government. So a lot of what he wrote was such an inspiration to so many of the early Christians In his letters Ignatius emphasized the importance of unity and obedience underneath bishops and when he speaks of bishops he's talking about elders within the congregation, pastors. He also taught that the Eucharist was a real sacrifice and so he spoke about that which is he says that the Lord's Supper was a real sacrifice and he speaks like that and you have others that kind of take that and went a little bit further than that. and that Christians should be prepared to die for their faith. Ignatius' lessons were well received by the churches, and they helped to solidify the authority of the bishops even in the early church. And in the early church, Father Eusebius of Caesarea, who lived in the 4th century, wrote that Ignatius was a fellow prisoner of Paul in Rome. However, we don't really have the evidence that supports that claim, but it's altogether possible that Ignatius actually was in prison at the same time as the Apostle Paul, as Eusebius says. Then Polycarp of Smyrna. Polycarp was a bishop in Smyrna, Asia Minor, who was born around 69 AD. He was a student of the Apostle John, and he was one of John's disciples. And he was ordained as a bishop in the early 2nd century. Polycarp was martyred for his faith in 135 AD. His martyrdom was received or rather recorded in the Martyrdom of Polycarp. And in the Martyrdom of Polycarp we learn that Polycarp was a gentle and a humble man who was deeply committed to his faith. He also was a gifted preacher and in his sermons they were well known throughout the region. Polycarp's martyrdom was a powerful witness to the truth of Christianity and it helped to spread then the faith throughout the Roman Empire. If you think of Acts 20 verse 28 to 35, we see the importance of elders within the church. We see in 1 Peter 4 verse 12 to 19, the suffering of Christians being touched on. Revelation 2 verse 10, we see that there's a promised reward for all those who are persecuted. And you know, you think of 2 Timothy where it says, all those that seek to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And we saw that with men like Polycarp, we see that with men like Ignatius as well. And then we think of Justin Martyr, another key figure of this period. And Justin Martyr was a Christian apologist. who was born in Flavia, Nepal's modern day nebulous. And that's in the area of the broader area of Palestine in a sense. And that was around 100 AD. that he was born, and he was a convert to Christianity. He wrote several important works defending Christianity against its critics. And Justin Martyr's writings are an important source of information about early Christianity, including the belief and practices of Christians in the second century. So it's always wonderful to be able to go and study some of what these men have written. In his writings, Justin Martyr argued that Christianity was the truest form of philosophy. Remember that philosophy was such a big thing. We looked at some of this in our previous Memorable Mondays. And he defended the Christian faith against the charges of polytheism, immorality, and atheism. Justin Martyr's writings were well received. by both Christians as well as non-Christians, and they helped to spread the faith throughout the Roman Empire. Think of Acts 17, 1-34, where you see Paul's defense of Christianity before the Areopagus, and that's something that Justin Martyr did himself. There was a sense where there was this apologetic kind of a ministry from somebody like Justin Martyr. In 1 Peter 3, verses 15 to 16, we see the importance of giving a defense for the hope that we have. Justin Martyr did that. And then in 1 John 4, verses 1 to 6, we see that marvelous passage about the nature of love, and the love of God brings about the truth as well. Uranius of Loynes is another key figure and we'll end with him today because of the sake of time as well. And Uranius was a bishop of Loynes, France. Now France has been burning of recent, sadly. And he was born in Smyrna, Asia Minor, around 130 AD. He was a student of Polycarp and so Polycarp made a big difference on Uranus and he was ordained as a bishop in the early 3rd century. Uranus wrote several important works of Christian theology including Against Heresies. That's one of his most famous books, Against Heresies. You can still even get that today and have a look at it. In Against Heresies, Arrhenius argued against the Gnostics, who were a group of Christians who believed that there were two gods, one good and one evil, and Arrhenius' writings were influential in the development of Christian doctrine. They help to shape the way that Christians understand the nature of God and the relationship between God and His Word. In Colossians 1 15-20 we see the pre-existence of Christ. In 1 Timothy 3 16, the deity of Christ. 1 John 5 17-18 we see the Trinity. So the early church was a time of great growth and development for Christianity. And we'll look more at this in future episodes on Let's Talk. May the Lord bless you this day. Amen.