The question of how Christians should live their lives resonates with every sincere believer.
The early Christian apologetic text, The Letter to
Diognetus, provides a profound and compelling teaching from which every Christian can learn.
CompellingTruth.org describes this letter as follows:
"The
Letter to Diognetus, also sometimes referred to as The Epistle of Mathetes to
Diognetus, is a letter defending the Christian faith. Believed to have been
written between AD 130 and AD 180, this letter is possibly the earliest example
of Christian apologetics, which is the exercise of using reasoned arguments to
defend Christian belief and practice. The letter was found in a
thirteenth-century codex ascribed to Justin Martyr and first published in 1592.
Because of its reasoned defense of Christianity, many transcripts of the letter
were made, which is fortunate because the original was destroyed in a fire in
1870 during the Franco-Prussian War.
The Greek
writer and recipient are unknown. Mathetes means 'student' or 'disciple,' and
Diognetus means 'God-born.' The writer claims to be a disciple of the apostles
and uses language consistent with an ancient Christian community known as
Johannine Christians, who emphasized the apostle John's teachings. The
recipient being addressed as 'God-born' is also consistent with John's teaching
that those who believe are 'born of God' (John 1:12–13; 1 John 3:9; 4:7; 5:1,
4, 18)."*
Source:
CompellingTruth.org
Chapter Five
Christians are not
distinguished from other men by country, language, nor by the customs which
they observe. They do not inhabit cities of their own, use a particular way of
speaking, nor lead a life marked out by any curiosity. The course of conduct
they follow has not been devised by the speculation and deliberation of
inquisitive men. The do not, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of
merely human doctrines.
Instead, they inhabit both
Greek and barbarian cities, however things have fallen to each of them. And it
is while following the customs of the natives in clothing, food, and the rest
of ordinary life that they display to us their wonderful and admittedly
striking way of life.
They live in their own
countries, but they do so as those who are just passing through. As citizens
they participate in everything with others, yet they endure everything as if
they were foreigners. Every foreign land is like their homeland to them, and every
land of their birth is like a land of strangers.
They marry, like everyone
else, and they have children, but they do not destroy their offspring.
They share a common table,
but not a common bed.
They exist in the flesh,
but they do not live by the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are
citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, all the while surpassing 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 lack everything, yet they overflow in everything.
They are dishonored, and
yet in their very dishonor they are glorified; they are spoken ill of and yet
are justified; they are reviled but bless; they are insulted and repay the
insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evildoers; when punished,
they rejoice as if raised from the dead. They are assailed by the Jews as
barbarians; they are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are
unable to give any reason for their hatred.
Chapter Six
To sum it all up in one
word, what the soul is in the body, that is what Christians are in the world.
The soul is dispersed
through all the parts of the body, and Christians are scattered through all the
cities of the world. The soul lives in the body, yet is not of the body;
Christians live in the world, yet are not of the world.
