Welcome to Southside's Summer Blog

This summer, I am preaching through 1 Peter in order for us as a church to learn better "how to be peculiar people." I thought it might be helpful and enlightening to have a forum by which we as a church family (as well as others) could continue the conversation about what we are learning. My plan is that every Monday (starting June 7), I will post something new (I might do more if I get really excited). It might be thoughts that I have after preaching my sermon, different insights from Scripture that I did not get to say on Sunday, or it could be a funny story that I learned in talking with a member afterwards. But hopefully it will be something to strike a thought and keep us all thinking about the text of 1 Peter for the week. Plus, I will provide a specific activity to try for the week as a means of living out what Peter is teaching. Hopefully, then, throughout the week, you will come back and comment on what I posted - either on my thoughts or how it has worked out in doing the special activity of the week. I will try to respond to comments as they are shared. My prayer is that some wonderful conversations can be experienced through this blog.

For the very first post, below I have a passage from Epistle of Diognetus. It is a letter written in the 2nd century to a man who is a skeptic of Christianity. The letter was an apologetic of sorts about the validity of the Christian faith. In this passage, the writer tries to explain the way of life for a Christian disciple. I love this passage because in a very practical way, it shows how the early Christians were trying to live out the call to be a peculiar people - to be citizens of heaven while on earth. What do you notice about the passage that strikes you? Is there anything surprising about the man's description?

Epistle to Diognetus, 5.1-15

For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.