Vibia Perpetua was a young woman of noble birth. She was twenty-two, a wife, a mother of a young son and a Christian. Her story comes to us from three eyewitness accounts written shortly after her death.

Perpetua was one of five believers condemned to death in the arena that day. Her father was a pagan and came often to the prison where she was kept (many times with Perpetua’s son in his arms) to plead with his daughter to renounce her religion and save her life – but to no avail.

“When I was in the hands of the persecutors, my father in his tender solicitude tried hard to pervert me from the faith.

‘My father,’ I said, ‘you see this pitcher. Can we call it by any other name than what it is?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Nor can I’ [I said], ‘call myself by any other name than that of Christian.’

So he went away, wasted away with anxiety.

Thus spake my father, kissing my hands, and throwing himself at my feet. And I wept because of my father, for he alone of all my family would not rejoice in my martyrdom.

On March 7th, in the year 203 and in the city of Carthage, Perpetua and another Christian woman, Felicitas, were tossed into the arena. They were first hung nude in nets to be brutally attacked by a bull that had been tormented to great fury. The audience felt some compassion and insisted that they be clothed.

The bull attacked again–Both were extremely mauled. Perpetua awaited another attack while holding Felicitas at her side–the bull refused to advance further. Upon removing the bull from the arena, the crowd demanded that they both be killed. One final time they exhorted the brethren to ‘stand fast in the faith and love one another’, then they were ordered to be stabbed by the roman soldiers. Perpetua’s inexperienced assassin was young and quite nervous. At this, the bloody Perpetua guided to her own throat the uncertain, shaking hand of the young gladiator.”

Writing that you may be certain of the things you believe-

Matt

Why I do Martyr Mondays

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The story today is from fox’s book of martyrs of a 1st century pastor/churchman named Romanus.  His story makes me want to run through a brick wall.  Let me set the stage for you:  the city is Antioch and Romanus has just arrived to encourage a group of gathered believers there.  Also just arriving in the city were Galerius and Asclepiades, two roman captains who violently persecuted Christians.  The group of Christians have just been arrested by the roman army.  And so we read….

Word was brought unto the captain Asclepiades, that the band of armed soldiers were not able to wrest the staff of faith out of the hand of the congregation (were not able to stop them from worshipping), and all by reason that one Romanus so mightily did encourage them, that they fervently wished to die for the name of their Christ.  Seek out that rebel, (quoth the captain,) and bring him to me, that he may answer for the whole sect.  Apprehended he was, and, bound as a sheep appointed to the slaughterhouse, he was presented to the emperor, who with wrathful countenance beholding him, said, What! art thou the author of this sedition?  Art thou the cause why so many shall lose their lives?  By the gods I swear thou shalt pay for it!!

Romanus answered, Thy sentence, O emperor, I joyfully embrace; I refuse not to be sacrificed for my brethren, and that by as cruel means as you may invent; and whereas thy soldiers were repelled from the Christian congregation, that so happened, because it lay not in idolaters and worshippers of devils to enter into the holy house of God, and to pollute the place of true prayer. (basically Romanus just told him that he couldn’t arrest the believers because he is a satan worshipper.  dude was BOLD!!)

Then Asclepiades, wholly inflamed with this stout answer, commanded him to be trussed up, and his bowels drawn out.  The executioners themselves, more pitiful in heart than the captain, said, Not so, sir; this man is of noble parentage, unlawful it is to put a nobleman to so unnoble a death.  Scourge him then with whips (quoth the captain) with pieces of lead at the ends.

Instead of tears, sighs, and groans, Romanus sung psalms all the time of his whipping, requiring them NOT TO FAVOR HIM for nobility’s sake; Not the blood of my progenitors, (saith he,) but Christian profession, maketh me noble.  Then with great power of spirit he spoke against the captain, laughing to scorn the false gods of the heathen, with the idolatrous worshipping of them, affirming the God of the Christians to be the true God.  But the wholesome words of the martyr were as oil to the fire of the captain’s fury.  The more the martyr spoke, the madder was he, insomuch that he commanded the martyr’s sides to be lanced with knives, until the bones appeared white again.  Sorry am I, O captain, (quoth the martyr,) not that my flesh shall be cut and mangled, but for thy cause am I sorrowful, who, being corrupted with damnable errors, seducest others.  Again Romanus preached at large the living God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, his well-beloved Son, eternal life through faith in his blood, expressing therewith the abomination of idolatry, with a vehement exhortation to worship and adore the living God.

At these words Asclepiades commanded the tormentors to strike Romanus on the mouth, that his teeth being stricken out, his pronunciation at leastwise might be impaired.  (He couldn’t shut him up!!)  The commandment was obeyed, his face buffeted, his eyelids torn with their nails, his cheeks cut with knives, the skin of his beard was plucked by little and little from the flesh; finally, his seemly face was wholly defaced.  The meek martyr said, I thank thee, O captain, that thou hast opened unto me many mouths, whereby I may preach my Lord and Saviour Christ.  Look how many wounds I have, so many mouths I have lauding and praising God.  The captain, astonished with this singular constancy, commanded them to cease from the tortures.

Writing that you may praise God with the one mouth you have,

Matt

Because we forget that we are a part of a story much bigger than ourselves.  We forget that men and women have DIED to pass down the gospel to us…..DIED so that we could hold the Bible in our hands.  We forget that Jesus is worth every bit of our getting punched, kicked, tortured, and killed….much less a little verbal disrespect, some ostracism by the media, and a little conversational awkwardness every now and then.

My aim is to inspire uncomfortable and radical living for Christ today, and to honor and remember those of yesterday who have laid down their lives for Jesus.

Writing that you might die to self and live to God,

Matt

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
— C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity)

PLEASE take 5 minutes to watch this video, and may it shake you as it has shaken me.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyZVqDOiWbA&feature=youtube_gdata_player]