Welcome to Boot Camp IV

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Welcome to Boot Camp IV Warriors of the Faith
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Welcome to Boot Camp IV

• Warriors
• of the
• Faith

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Why Church History?

• Its in our wiring to search out things of the
  past
• It offers wisdom
• Its motivating
• Biblical Admonition

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Job 88-10 Rom 154a

• Ask the former generations, and find out what
  their fathers learned.Will they not instruct you
  and tell you? Will they not bring forth words
  from their understanding?

• everything that was written in the past was
  written to teach us

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Who will we study?
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The Arena Martyrs
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Christ or Caesar?
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The Stoning of Stephen
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The Burning of Rome (64 AD)
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Nero
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The Annals (Tacitus 115 AD)

• Yet no human effortnor offerings to the gods
  could make that infamous rumor disappear that
  Nero had somehow ordered the fire.

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The Annals (Tacitus 115 AD)

• Therefore, in order to abolish that rumor,
  Nero falsely accused and executed with the most
  exquisite punishments those people called
  Christians..First those were seized who admitted
  their faith, and then, using the information they
  provided, a vast multitude were convicted, not so
  much for the crime of burning the city, but for
  hatred of the human race. And perishing they were
  additionally made into sports they were killed
  by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to
  them, or they were nailed to crosses or set
  aflame, and, when the daylight passed away, they
  were used as nighttime lamps.
• .Nero gave his own gardens for this
  spectacle.

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• Marcus Aurelius

• Polycarp

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The Martyrdom of Polycarp

• Polycarp was led to the procunsul, who asked him
  if he were the man himself.  When he confessed,
  the proconsul tried to persuade him
  saying, Have respect to thine age, and so swear b
  y the acustomary form.  Swear by the genius
  of Caesar! Repent!  Say away with the
  Christians!  Then Polycarp looked with a severe
  countenance on the mob of lawless heathen in the
  stadium and he waved his hand at them. But
  the proconsul urged him and said,
  Swear and I will release thee curse the
  Christ. Polycarp said, Eighty and
  six years have I served him and he
  hath done me no wrong how then can I blaspheme
  my king who saved me?
• Then said the procunsul, I have wild
  beasts, If thou repent not, I will
  throw thee to them.  But he said, Send for
  them, for repentance from better
  to worse is a change not permitted to us but to
  change from cruelty to righteousness is a noble th
  ing. Then said the proconsul again, if thou
  dost despise the wild beasts, I will make thee to
  be consumed by fire, if thou repent not.  And Pol
  ycarp answered, Thou threatens the fire that
  burns for an hour and in a a little while is quenc
  hed for thou knowest not of the
  fire of the judgment to come  and the fire of the 
  eternal punishment, reserved for the ungodly.  But
  why delayest thou? Bring what thou whilt.

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St IgnatiusI am the wheat of Christ I am
going to be ground with the teeth of wild beasts,
that I may be found pure bread.
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Perpetua (22 year old nursing mother and
daughter of a nobleman)We were condemned to
the beasts after professing the Christ and we
returned to prison in high spirits
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• Blandina
• was filled with such power that those who
  by turns  kept torturing her in every way from daw
  n until evening were worn out  and exhausted.
  They confessed defeat from lack of aught else to
  do to her. They marveled that the breath still
  remained in her body, all mangled and covered
  with gaping wounds.

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Peters Martyrdom
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Why were they willing to die?

• Why not just deny Christ like Peter
• did (sorry Peter) and live
• to fight another day?
• What verses do you think the early church clung
  to during this period?

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• Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will
  also acknowledge him before my father in heaven.
  But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown
  him before my father in heaven.
• (Matt 1032)
• For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
• (Phillipians 121)
• Dear Friends, do not be surprised at the painful
  trial that you are suffering, as though something
  strange were happening to you. But rejoice that
  you participate in the sufferings of Christ.
• (1Peter 412)

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• In fact, everyone who wants to live a Godly
  life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted
• (2Tim 312)
• In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a
  little while you may suffer grief in all kinds of
  trials. These have come so your faith, of
  greater worth than gold, which perishes even
  though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and
  may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus
  Christ is revealed.
• (1 Peter 16)
• They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and
  by the word of their testimony and they loved
  not their lives unto death.
• (Rev 1211)

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What would the street side billboard say at the
seeker sensitive church during this time?