Faith Venture

I’m fascinated by the Desert Fathers. These are people who felt the need for deeper communion and understanding of God and Jesus. This drove them into the wilds of the deserts of Egypt and Syria.

The undertaking was dangerous. They ate what they could beg for in a nearby village or whatever they could forage. Bandits would happen by and cause physical harm. Sometimes Roman soldiers would come around and beat them depending upon the political winds.

But by and large they were a dedicated and hardy lot leaving behind some excellent writings.

And think of the other Christ-followers from the first three centuries. Maybe like me you read the apostles and early leaders to discover a list of rules. I follow them (or say I do) and I’m “in”; while there are many who don’t and they are “out”.

Then you discover that combining all the writings maybe up through Augustine of Hippo and discover it’s really a story–a story of how these communities struggled to figure out the the path that Jesus set them all out on.

This fits, because just as Paul wrote in Romans and Galatians we are all on that path. We start out ignorant like a child and then we grow in knowledge and maturity. And we find the path.

It’s not a list. It’s a direction.

This entry was posted on September 11, 2020 at 7:53 am and is filed under Disciplines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.