THE MARTYRDOM OF THE APOSTLES
Morning Meditation 3/26/16
This meditation will be a little different. I have been reading a book by Grant Jeffrey called The Signature of God which can be bought in most Christian Bookstores for about $15.00 plus tax. I recommend this book. It is on the inspiration of the Scriptures. It has in it an article on The Martyrdom of The Apostles that I want to share with you. We are living in an age of soft Christianity. People get their feelings hurt over the smallest things and quit the Church and even quit serving the Lord. Pastors get hurt in their Churches and get bitter and are crippled the rest of their lives because they would rather nurse a wound than to forgive, forget it and go on. Jesus purchased the Church with his own blood. Peter said in his First Epistle 2:21-24: “For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.”
I think it helps me to realize that suffering is a part of my calling as a preacher. And I am not to whine when things happen that cause pain. With this in mind I quote from Jeffrey’s book:
“Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia, killed by a sword wound.”
“Mark died in Alexandria, Egypt, after being dragged by horses through the streets until he was dead.”
“Luke was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost.”
“John faced martyrdom when he was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos. He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation of Patmos. The apostle John was later freed and returned to serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.”
“Peter was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross, according to church tradition because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died.”
“James the Just, the leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall, his enemies beat James to death with a fuller’s club. This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the wilderness Temptation.”
“James the Greater, a son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry. As a strong leader of the church, James was ultimately beheaded at Jerusalem. The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial. Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution. Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the Judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.”
“Bartholomew, also known as Nathanael, was a missionary to Asia. He witnessed to our Lord in present day Turkey. Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia when he was flayed to death by a whip.”
“Andrew was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece. After being whipped severely by seven soldiers they tied his body to the cross with cords to prolong his agony. His followers reported that, when he was led toward the cross, Andrew saluted in these words: ‘I have long desired and expected this happy hour. The cross has been consecrated by the body of Christ hanging on it.’ He continued to preach to his tormentors for two days until he expired.”
“The apostle Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church in the subcontinent.”
“Jude, the brother of Jesus, was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.”
“Matthias, the apostle chosen to replace the traitor Judas Iscariot, was stoned and then beheaded.”
“Barnabas, one of the group of seventy disciples, wrote the Epistle of Barnabas. He preached throughout Italy and Cyprus. Barnabas was stoned to death at Salonica.”
“The apostle Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a lengthy imprisonment which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational doctrines of Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament.”
“The details of the martyrdoms of the disciples and apostles are found in traditional early church sources. These traditions were recounted in the writings of the church fathers and the first official church history written by the historian Eusebius in A.D. 325. Although we can not at this time verify every detail historically, the universal belief of the early Christian writers was that each of the apostles had faced martyrdom faithfully without denying their faith in the resurrection of Christ.”
‘Eusebius, the greatest historian of the early church, wrote about one persecuted Christian whose eyes were burned out during one of the ten great waves of persecution against the early church. Despite the loss of his eyes, this Christian saint could repeat to assembled Christians large portions of the Bible from memory. Thomas Beza the brilliant translator of the Scriptures in A.D. 1585, had such a profound love of the words of his Savior that, at the age of eighty, he could still repeat from memory in the Greek language all the New Testament Epistles.”
