One Question

. , Who do you say I am?

One ?n, 4 responses

Peter

Matthew 16:16

Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Matthew 16:18

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Paul

2 Timothy 4:7

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4:17

But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

Herod Agrippa

Acts 12:22

And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!”

Acts 12:23 (ESV-CE)

Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, {and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.)

Ignatius of Antioch

chap. iv.—allow me to fall a prey to the wild beasts.

I write to the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and let me be ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Rather entice the wild beasts, that they may become my tomb, and may leave nothing of my body; so that when I have fallen asleep [in death], I may be no trouble to any one. Then shall I truly be a disciple of Christ, when the world shall not see so much as my body. Entreat Christ for me, that by these instruments I may be found a sacrifice [to God]. I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man: they were free,7 while I am, even until now, a servant. But when I suffer, I shall be the freed-man of Jesus, and shall rise again emancipated in Him. And now, being a prisoner, I learn not to desire anything worldly or vain.

Ignatius of Antioch, “The Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, vol. 1, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 75.

So, what’s your answer?

or mine?

Ignatius

extreme example of early Christians’ deep trust in God’s promise of eternal life.

No one expects that response from any of us today, but

may we learn from their commitment to the person and work of Christ and share in their earnest love of Christ “So that through (us) me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it.