Morning prayer:
Teach us to proclaim with our lives : that we have no God but you.
—
Athenagoras said of the early church, “They charge us on two points: that we do not sacrifice and that we do not believe in the same gods as the State.”
It’s fascinating that the early church was not persecuted because the followed The Way, which some viewed as a cult (Acts 24:14), but because they chose not to worship and pledge allegiance to Caesar and the empire.
After all, Rome was a very pluralistic and religious society (Acts 17) – as long as you recognized Caesar as Lord and the greatness of the empire.
Rather than say “Caesar is Lord” or “Caesar is the Son of God” or “Caesar will save us” – the early Christians had the audacity to say “Jesus is Lord” and “Jesus is the Son of God” and “Jesus will save us.”
Rather than say “Caesar will make Rome great”, they led a counter cultural revolution of loving neighbors and living lives that proclaimed Jesus will make the world great.
