Who was Polycarp and does it matter anyway?

It's true - probably it doesn't really matter to our everyday lives now. Polycarp lived in the latter part of the first century until around 156 AD. Since then he has largely been forgotten by the Church, and everyone else for that matter. However, his generation of Christians played a key role in ensuring that the Church continued to exist after Jesus' original disciples had all died. Polycarp was one of the key members of that generation, along with others such as Clement in Rome and Ignatius in Antioch, whom we shall meet later this year.

He was a disciple of Jesus' own disciple, John. Towards the end of his life, John seems to have have some form of top-level oversight over several churches, including a group in the Roman province of Asia, now western asiatic Turkey. These include Ephesus, where John was based for a while, and also Smyrna, where Polycarp was the church overseer. It appears that he was appointed by John to lead the Christian work there and is now known as the Bishop of Smyrna, although the traditional concept of bishop is probably not quite applicable in his case.

Not a lot is known about Polycarp's life. However, when John was in exile in Patmos, Jesus dictated seven letters to him, to be sent to churches in the province of Asia. Most of these had some sort of rebuke in them, because the churches was falling short of how they should have been acting. The letter to the church in Smyrna, though, despite containing a warning about very difficult times to come, was completely positive about the people and their faith in Jesus. This is a strong testimony to the leadership of Polycarp and other prominent Christians in the city at a time of some degree of persecution under the emperor Domitian.

Like John, Polycarp also had disciples who went on to become great men of faith, including Irenaeus, who was ultimately appointed as the bishop of what is now Lyons, France. We learn from Irenaeus that Polycarp knew other people who had been with Jesus, beside John, and was, therefore, a fount of knowledge about the basics of the Christian faith. This is incredibly important. It was essential that the gospel of Jesus was promoted untainted by views of the various false teachers who were springing up. Polycarp was a central player in that, as was Irenaeus, who grew a reputation for countering heresy.

Polycarp lived and was killed for his best friend, Jesus. His may not be a household name anymore, but he was instrumental in giving us the New Testament as it is today and in continuing the growth of the Church once Jesus' original apostles had all died.

There is now only one document written by Polycarp still in existence: his letter to the church in Philppi, written sometime in the first few decades of the 2nd century. This is one of the first early Christian writings which quotes from various documents which are now incorporated into the New Testament; in fact it quotes from, or at least allludes to most, if not all the New Testament books. Therefore, it's partly down to his inspired choice of what he considered important in the writings of his Christian predecessors, that the New Testament contains what it does. Notably, in this letter Polycarp is very keen to show that he is building on what Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians, rather than bringing a new teaching of his own.

Within the ninth chapter of his letter, Polycarp, echoing the writer of the letter to the Hebrews (chapter 11), mentions some more recent heroes of faith, explicitly Ignatius (another disciple of John), Rufus and Zosimus, who had been martyred in 108 AD during the persecution under emperor Trajan. He also refers to Paul, who had been executed under Nero's persecution 40 years earlier. In this chapter he says that these men didn't love this world, but him who died for us and was resurrected by God; they are now in the presence of the Lord.

Polycarp made a journey to Rome in about 155 AD, to speak against the heresy that was becoming rife in that city. Probably the next year, he himself followed Paul, Ignatius, Rufus and Zosimus in dying for Jesus. He was at least 86 years old when he died and is said to have stated, when given the option to deny his faith, "I have served Him for 86 years, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king and saviour?"

So Polycarp doesn't have a direct influence on my life or yours today. However, in holding to the pure faith of his mentor and passing that on to his disciples, in his exemplary leadership of the church in Smyrna and his wider influence in the area, in his stand against heresy at the heart of the Roman Empire, his understanding of what were key texts among the previous Christian writings, his encouragement of young churches further afield, and his refusal to deny his Lord, this man of God was one of the most significant Church leaders in the first half of the 2nd century. We owe so much to him and others like him, who enabled the true gospel of Jesus to survive and the church to grow through those times of great difficulty and hardship, so that we can still know about Jesus ourselves today. Let his story be an inspiration to all of us as we take up the opportunity to further the Kingdom of God.

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What has Einstein ever done for me?

Part of the Milky Way

It's easy to think that science is very remote from us, but in today's western society we're surrounded by its consequences and rely heavily on its results. Even living on a farm in the middle of fenland, I'm using a computer to type this; I can switch on light or heating, press a button to wash my clothes or cook my food; I can even get into a car and drive to find some hills. I could continue on for pages, but you understand what I mean. So much of what we take for granted is based on the results of modern physics.

Einstein, though, one of the greatest physicists of all time, is best known for his two theories of relativity (special and general) and for the equation which links the destruction of matter with the creation of energy:

That means that for every kilogram of matter destroyed, 81,000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy is created. That's a vast quantity of energy from a very small amount of matter. This equation is fundamental in atomic energy used for the production of electricity and powering nuclear submarines, as well as the manufacture of atomic bombs. So we're all familiar with the concept to some extent.

However, the ideas around the space-time continuum and curved space, central to the special and general theories of relativity, are probably only known to most people through sci-fi books and films, or other tangential contexts. They do have some bearing on us: for example, magnetism is related to the special theory of relativity, and the curvature of space that arises from the general theory explains why conkers fall on my head as I walk through the woods in the autumn. However, we had magnets and bruises before Einstein and they seemed to be pretty similar then to what they are now.

Of course, what these theories, which have been thoroughly tested, do allow is many highly sophisticated physics experiments and engineering projects to be carried out successfully. Although in my university work I have at times benefited directly from such applications of the special theory of relatively, my personal life remains pretty much unaffected - except that my wonder and amazment have increased by knowing about Einstein's theories.

The more we understand about the way the universe works, the more wonderful it seems - and the more it makes me worship the God who created it.

Yesterday the car went wrong. I started to fix it before dinner, but things happened elsewhere and I was drawn away. So when it got round to half past ten at night I suddenly remembered that I needed to finish the job and pack away. So I did that and in so doing looked up at the sky. It was completely clear and the stars were bright. It's the time of year when Orion dominates the the southern sky in the late England evening. Sirius was burning as brightly as ever, along with Rigel; the red giants Aldebaran and Betelgeuse were there too, along with Orion's belt, and his sword containing the highly colourful M42 nebula. The moon was half full in the west, bright enough to glint on the river, but not enough to hide the stars - even part of the milky way was visible to the naked eye.

I went down to the river bank and stared. Having come from the city just over a year ago, living in the country now the stars on a clear night seem really bright, almost at touching distance. With the big players out there last night it was a truly awesome sight. There were these seemingly reachable stars, actually millions and millions of miles away, moving about in the curved space of general relatively, with so much of what I was seeing charging around at vast speeds where the nature of the space-time of special relatively is extremely important as well. And I just wondered. It's all so complicated, and the equations that we have to use to calculate what's going on take a lot of learning. But it's all just happening there, in front of my eyes, without any help! I can see it because each star is constantly turning relatively small amounts of matter into 81 thousand trillion times as much energy. It was Einstein who enabled us to understand all this, and I'm very grateful to him.

Some people say that understanding modern physics means that they don't believe in God, or that they don't have to believe in God because the equations explain everything, so they choose not to. Yet, for me, that's just a crazy idea. The wonder of all these incredible objects whirling around, obeying the most complicated and bizarre of physcial rules, makes me have to worship the God who created it: made up the laws of physics, invented the protons, neutrons and electrons, etc, turned all that into stars and galaxies and planets,and plants and animals, and, yes, us. Who wants to miss out on being able to know him? The good things is that you don't have to.

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Being with God

When we pray, we can often end up telling God everything that's on our minds and asking him to sort out the ones that are bothering us in one way or another. It's easy to come to him with a list of our requests. We know that we need to pray for our family and friends, other people that we know, our national leaders and church leaders, the sick, the state of the world in general, our workplace and colleagues, and the list goes on. By the time we've finished bringing to God everything that we know we should, it's time to go to work, or go to sleep or go to the shops, or go and do anything other than continue praying. Sometimes we ask something and need an answer, so we do spend time listening, but we're listening for something on our agenda.

God, though, wants a relationship with us. It wouldn't be much of a relationship if our spouses or parents or children just kept asking us for things. We want to spend time with them. We want to hear about what they've been up to and tell them about ourselves; we do, of course, also want to help them out with their needs when we can. Jesus taught us how to pray and halfway through the prayer that we've named after him he said, "Give us today our daily bread." How often do our prayer times consist solely of elaborating on that line? What about, "Hallowed be your name?" "Your Kingdom come?" "Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven?" Do we spend so much time concentrating on those aspects?

The first of those lines on its own is enough for one post. "May your name be kept holy. Yes, holy, holy holy are you, King of Heaven and ultimate ruler of the Earth. Majestic are you in your celestial glory. There is none like you. No one can compare with your greatness." Then maybe it's time just to be quiet and be with God. We don't have to talk to our friends and family all the time. They just want to know that we want to be with them and share the moment. We can look out to sea, sitting beside God on the golden sand, gazing across the bay at the islands in the distance, and just enjoy the view with him - then maybe turn to look him in the eye and say, "Did you really make all that?" and let him nod as he smiles back. We can share similar moments as we look at the stars or a tree, a chicken or a baby - the opportunities are endless.

Prayer is a relationship with God - talking to him about himself and about us, being in his presence and enjoying his creation with him.

Being with God is bonding in a way that asking him for things, or to do things is not. We do have to ask, so long as it's with the right motives (James' Letter, chapter 4, verses 1-3), but prayer is about so much more than that. The writers of the psalms knew about this; for example:

"I shall lift you high, O Yahweh. You have raised me up from the depths and haven't let my enemies bragg. O Yahweh, my God, I asked you for help and you healed me. O Yahweh, you brought me out of the grave and saved me from Hell." (Psalm 30, verses 1-3)

"Sing joyfully to Yahweh, all you righteous people, because we just have to praise him. Praise Yahweh on the harp and the lyre. Sing a new song to him and play your music skillfully. Shout for joy! For eveything Yahweh says is true and he is always faithful. Yahweh loves justice and the Earth is full of his praise forever." (Psalm 33:1-5)

"My soul pants for you, O God, just like deer pant for water My soul thirsts for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" (Psalm 42:1,2)

"Praise waits for you in Zion, O God. We shall honour all our vows to you. You hear our prayers and everyone will come to you. When we were engulfed by our own sins, you blotted them out and set us free!" (Psalm 65:1-3)

And then:

"Be still and know that I am God." (Psalm 46:10)

We can use these verses, and many more like them, as we speak them in praise to God and then rest in his presence, but why not add your own words as well?

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