Dr. Lynn Cohick explains how the early church practiced the virtue of endurance through suffering as a counter-cultural sign of their commitment to their new faith. She challenges believers today to cultivate endurance as a concrete reminder of the hope we share as co-heirs with the suffering Messiah.
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Discussion Questions
- Describe a time when you faced suffering similar to that described in the talk. Did you see God in a different way after that time? Did you understand the Christian walk in a different way?
- How do you think today's society imposes its values on the Christian? What are some ways that you seek to counteract that influence?
- How have you thought in the past about the resurrection of the body? Why is it important to believe that the resurrection of the body (and not simply Christ's death on the cross) is what conquers sin once for all? (see 1 Corinthians 15 for Paul's discussion on this topic)
Bibliography
The Acts of Paul and Thecla http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0816.htm
Seneca's epistles to Lucilius, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_Letters_to_Lucilius
Lynn H. Cohick, “Mothers, Martyrs, and Manly Courage: The Female Martyr in 2 Maccabees,4 Maccabees, and the Acts of Paul and Thecla” in pages 123 - 132 in A Most Reliable Witness: Essays in Honor of Ross Shepard Kraemer. Edited by N. Des Rosiers and Shira L. Lander.Brown Judaic Studies 358. Providence: Brown University,2015.
Lynn H. Cohick and Amy B. Hughes,“Thecla” in Christian Women in the Patristic World. Co-authored with Amy Hughes. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017.
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