It's the early second century, and you've been arrested for being a Christian. You're taking the long road from Antioch in Syria to Rome. Your captors decide to remain in one place for a little while. How do you spend the time? Why, writing letters of course.
What would you write about? Religious freedom? Pleas for help? If you're Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, you write about church unity. He wrote to six churches and one bishop to exhort them to stand strong against division and heresy. But the most interesting things in his letters may be his off-hand comments.
When I was a teenager, the church where I was baptized ran the pastor off, not because of misconduct or poor performance, but because he got on the wrong side of the wrong people. It's the kind of ugliness that can cause church splits (of course, Baptists can split over almost anything) and even make people walk away from the church entirely. It turns out this is nothing new in church history.
I've made it a goal to read the early church fathers, particularly the pre-Constantine writers. I hope to learn from their experience of trying to follow Christ and defend the faith in a pagan culture.
First up, "The Letter of the Romans to the Corinthians," also known as 1Clement*, probably written in the last years of the first century AD.
