I've been wondering about the history of the early church. I hear pastors mention names like Polycarp, Tertullian, Irenaeus and others and I think about what I know of these guys and wonder if I will speak to them some day about their lives and what it meant to be Christians in the early years of the Church. When I study the history of the early Church and I get into the history of some of these people I find that they have lives that didn't go the way I imagined at all. Tertullian is a good example.

What does the early Church have to do with me though? With us? The types of personalities in my family and mine are fairly different for the most part, but there's a connective thread that runs through my family that unifies us despite those differences. The closer I look at my family, the more I understand who I am and how I got to be 'me.' Our family deifnes certain things about us, individually and collectively.

The Church is one large historical family. We have similar interests and goals much of the time and similar experiences because we share the commonality of a love for Jesus. With His death on the Cross, He brought me not only my salvation, but He brought me into a new family. His family. He gave me a new identity and made me an heir with Him.

Studying Church history can help us to understand more fully who we are as children of God. A sense of family identity can begin to take on a more full meaning when I study Church history, and a larger more clear picture of the grace that has been given to me spreads out before me.

The Church began when a small group of men and women professed that Jesus Christ was God's only begotten Son. The Apostle Paul trotted out all of the building materials for the foundation or the Church when he wrote, "..that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again according to the Scriptures," 1 Corinthians 15:3,4. Paul, John, Peter, James and other men and women having encountered the truth in Jesus, knew Him, and the family of God grew.

In their sojourn through this place they paid a price for sticking to Him, trusting in the depth of His truth and professing Him to a dying world as God poured out His presence upon them. They are all a part of the history of the family of God, of the history of the Church. This is what the history of the Church has to do with me and whoever else believes in Jesus. It's our history. A thread of connectivity runs through the many personalities of the family of God and unifies us all and calls me to a more full understanding and of who we are, who I am in Christ. The history of the early church and the lives of the church fathers beckons me to hear and know the truth of the God we love for which these men and women paid so much, even their very lives. They were faithful, fruitful and steadfast people who made huge sacrifices in obedience to God so that people might know the truth of God's love for them.

Those kind of brothers and sisters in Christ are living today too. One easy reading of "Tortured For Christ," by Pastor Richard Wurmbrand, (who with his wife Sabina formed the "Voice of the Martyrs" ministry), or the memoirs of Darlene Deibler Rose, and a love for Jesus is revealed that strengthens my resolve to be obedient to God and to faithful to His will for my life, and to be a servant in the family of which He made me a part.