Eats with Sinners

The book of Acts makes a case that lost people matter to God. The witnesses of the many sermons by the apostles and teachers were convicted of their sins, and surrendered their lives over to the victory of the cross in Jesus Christ. They were willing to die for the faith, and most of all, they were willing to die for each other. The more that Rome persecuted the Church, the more the Word of God was preached boldly through the Holy Spirit.

In chapter seven, one reads about a man named Stephen. Stephen was one of the first disciples to die for his faith. His powerful speaking through the Holy Spirit was confronted in the temple by various antagonistic groups. Members of the council that Stephen stood before could not stand to have their evil motives exposed. They stoned him to death while he prayed for their forgiveness.

His passion for Jesus Christ did not go unseen. Young Saul (Paul) of Tarsus witnessed this horrific death. The love and desire Stephen had for the Lord planted a seed in Saul’s heart. In Acts 8, the great persecution broke out against the church, sending men and women scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Acts 8:4 makes a profound statement saying, “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.”[1] This sent disciples throughout the land. The Church was disbanded. Believers scattered to influence and impact the world when they were not gathered during this time. The persecution helped spread the Gospel. God brought great results from the believers’ suffering.

In Revelation 2:10, the Apostle John writes to the church of Smyrna:
Do not be afraid what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.[2]

Self-sacrifice was the most glorious victory the Church achieved.[3] Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, became a sacrifice for being a witness to the risen Lord. He maintained his testimony of Jesus when he says this:
Let fire and cross, encounters with wild animals, tearing apart of bones, hacking of limbs, crushing of the whole body, tortures of the devil to come upon me, if only I may attain to Jesus Christ.[4]

The passion for being a living statement for God flowed through his words. These thoughts were the ideal for being a disciple of Christ in the early Church. The power of martyrdom was rooted in the event that took place on the cross of Calvary, the death of Jesus.
This great movement of early church growth was going to persevere through the Great Persecution. Men and women who stood firm during this time deserve respect and honor. Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, was one of these heroes of the faith. According to Irenaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea, Bishop Polycarp had direct fellowship with the Apostles.[5]
Polycarp offered himself as a living sacrifice to God with the hope of pleasing his Lord. Eusebius writes of his death, “We also perceived a fragrant odour, like the fumes of incense.”[6]

He remained faithful to his undertakings and punishments when he was baptized into Christ until his death at the stake. He stood strong on the foundation of the knowledge in his relationship with Jesus Christ. In the Letter of The Smyrnaeans, which he wrote to his church, he said, “Blessed therefore and noble are all the martyrdoms which have taken place according to the will of God.”[7] Polycarp was considered a godly man, who experienced death at the age of eighty-six.

He was willing to suffer at any cost, but he was not going to renounce Christ under any circumstances. While praying for the churches and all of mankind, he was sentenced to death in the arena. His torturers pleaded for him to get this over with by reviling Jesus, but Polycarp refused. He says this to them, “Fourscore and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”[8] Regardless of the pain from the flames of the fire, he was willing to take his leadership role in the church of Smyrna, to the blaze and dust of the stadium.

In every way, Polycarp died a magnificent martyr. His death was a model, as a victor, like his Lord had been. He showed no anger or fury, but a peace knowing that he would soon be in a better place. He had placed himself in the hands of God, and showed no remorse to his persecutors.

[1] Acts 8:4, NIV.
[2] Revelation 2:10, NIV.
[3] E. Pressense, The Early Years of Christianity: The Martyrs and Apologist (New York: Charles Scribner & Co., 1871), 10.
[4] Eusebius, The History of the Church (London: Penguin Books, 1965), 98.
[5] Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of The Christian Martyrs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), xiii.
[6] Eusebius Pamphilus, The Ecclesiastical History (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1988), 148.
[7] J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer, The Apostolic Fathers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1984), 204.
[8] Lightfoot and Harmer, 206.