A saint named Nicholas

The Life of Nicholas

Born 270 AD

Nicholas was born in Patara, Turkey in 270 AD. That is over 1700 years ago.

Born to a wealthy family

He was born into a wealthy family but as he grew he decided to give up all of his wealth and go live in a quite place to worship God.

Persecution

During Nicholas’ early life the Roman emperors were against Christianity and were persecuting and killing Christians.

Even though it was dangerous, Nicholas became the Bishop of Myra, which meant that he was in charge of the church in that city. He was the head pastor and spiritual leader.

Giving Gifts

During this time, Nicholas learned that a merchant had lost his job and his three daughters were going to be sold into slavery unless he could find husbands for them.

However the merchant did not have the dowry (money) required during that day for a woman to get married.

At night Nicholas snuck up to the window of the home and tossed a bag of gold into the window so the oldest daughter could get married.

He did this again for the second daughter, and again for the third.

He did this in secret because he wanted God to get the credit for the gifts because he knew that all the wealth that he had was from God and God wanted him to share it.

Put in prison

Because he was a strong Christian Nicolas was imprisoned and tortured by the Emperor Diocletian.

Released from Prison

When Constantine, a new emperor who didn’t persecute Christians came to power, Nicholas was released from prison and continued to lead the church.

Defending the Faith

When a man named Arius came with a group of people teaching lies about Jesus, Nicholas stood up to him. At a big meeting of all the leaders of the church called the Council of Nicea, The leaders of the church wrote down the Nicean Creed to declare once and for all the clear teaching about God from the Bible. In a heated moment of debate, Nicholas struck Arius in face because of his harmful heresy that was hurting the church.

So Nicholas was a servant of the church, who gave to those in need, and who stood firm to protect the truth of God’s Word.

Nicholas in our culture

Through the ages, many different cultures, with many different languages have given Nicholas different names. Today, we know Nicholas as Santa Clause. And although the world has tried to forget that Santa Clause loved Jesus and served him, the truth of Nicholas love for God and others teaches us a very important lesson.

We are God’s representatives

2 Corinthians 5:20 ESV

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Like Nicholas we need to learn that all the gifts and goodness of life come from God, so we should always want God to get the credit.