Eusebius, How God Used Men to Uphold His Church

In our opening session of our men’s class at church Wednesday night we started with this video from Darrin Patrick which many of you have no doubt seen.

Patrick is introducing a book on church planting, but his point in this video is the importance of men in the life of the church.  We took this as the starting point of our class- God sustains his church often through godly men.

Then, that same evening I read to my boys from Eusebius’ Church History, Book 5, Section 1, on the persecution in Lyons.  This section jumped out to me as affirming the same point as Patrick’s video and our class discussion:

“The intensity of the pressure here, the awful rage of the heathen against the saints, and the sufferings of the blessed martyrs are beyond description or writing.  For the Adversary, in a foretaste of his own imminent advent, attacked us with all his might.  He used every means to train his followers against the servants of God, so that we were not only excluded from homes, baths, and marketplaces, but were even forbidden to appear anywhere.  But the grace of God rescued the weak by deploying the strong, pillars of men who drew on themselves the full attack of the Enemy and endured every punishment as their hurried to Christ, proving that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.” 171

The grace of God – sustained by deploying the strong, pillars of men.  May we be about developing such pillars today- not rooted in bravado, but in confidence in the grace of God which empowers the fallen and frail.

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