Christian Apologetics and the Ideal Life

Christian apologists were theologians who defended and advocated for the Christian message in the first centuries of the Christian Church as it developed in the first few centuries following Christ's death and resurrection. Obviously, their arguement and defense was in opposition to many of the held beliefs in that contemporary, Hellenistic Roman world.

The following is a paragraph titled "Chapter V - The Manners of the Christians" from The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, believed to have been written in the 2nd Century. Describing the early Christian community, this description of Christian character and behavior stirs feeling of longing and desire within us; to realize that the community described was not simply a wished-for idealazation of what Christians should or could be, but a living entity that lived as we wish to live, but fail. How we wish we were a part of this community today. One wonders how the church could get back to this way of life, living, and testimony - a testimony by example.

"For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of ther own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of the birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all[others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not like after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishounoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and blessed; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet they are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred."

He later says, "Let your heart be your wisdom; and let your life by true knowledge inwardly recieved."

Yup. I think we could all live with that!