Ignatius (107 A D)

February 17th, 2025
by Jon Holaday

Here forward, we will have little to no biblical direct connection to these faithful martyrs, except possibly this one! Ignatius is believed to have been one of the little children Jesus blessed in Matthew 19, but nobody truly knows. Ignatius was a student of the original apostles. John was his mentor and appointed as a bishop by Peter. While under military guard near Philadelphia, Polycarp encouraged him to come to Smyrna.
Ignatius faced bogus charges for being disloyal to Rome for not bowing to the pagan deities. It wasn't difficult to charge him is you heard him preach, or asked questions of the growing christians under his care and the effects of the powerful movement over the empire that left the kingdom of darkness unto His glorious light. Guilty as charged!
He wrote 7 letters to the churches also as his mentor John, however not inspired as Gods word. I love this insight he grasped about suffering, "The source of your unity and election is genuine suffering, which you undergo by the will of the Father and of Jesus Christ, our God." Ignatius believed the last days had arrived in his time! He actually delighted in the his final journey to Rome calling it a victory, not a death march.
Ignatius was part of a great generation of Christian that continued in teaching the apostles doctrines, buried the apostles, collected and preserved the original writings of the New Testament, endured the psychotic wrath, and defended against the heretics.
He followed the WORD-made-FLESH until his own flesh was torn by lions!
Here are his last known words: "Now, I begin to be a disciple. I care for nothing of visible or invisible things so that I may but win Christ. Come fire and cross and grapplings with wild beasts, the rending of my bones and body...only let it be mine to attain Jesus Christ." AMEN Ignatius!