(John 15:19) If YOU were part of the world, the world would be fond of what is its own. Now because YOU are no part of the world, but I have chosen YOU out of the world, on this account the world hates YOU. As Christianity spread, were Christians to come to terms with the world, conforming to its practices and becoming a part of it? No. Wherever they lived, they were to distinguish themselves from Satan’s system. The apostle Peter said this at 1 Peter 2:11, 12, “Beloved, I exhort YOU as aliens and temporary residents to keep abstaining from fleshly desires, which are the very ones that carry on a conflict against the soul. 12 Maintain YOUR conduct fine among the nations, that, in the thing in which they are speaking against YOU as evildoers, they may as a result of YOUR fine works of which they are eyewitnesses glorify God in the day for [his] inspection.” Confirming that early Christians conducted themselves as “aliens and temporary residents” in the Roman world, historian Kenneth Scott Latourette wrote: “It is one of the commonplaces of history that in its first three centuries Christianity met persistent and often severe persecution . . . The accusations varied. Because they refused to participate in pagan ceremonies the Christians were dubbed atheists. Through their abstention from much of the community life—the pagan festivals, the public amusements which to Christians were shot through and through with pagan beliefs, practices, and immoralities—they were derided as haters of the human race.”
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 19:29:59 +0000
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