Loyalty And Disloyalty Order Printed Copy

Author: Dag Heward-Mills
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How To Become A Wise Man In God's Eyes: Worship Him

Exceptional piece. Highly recommended!

- esther mulando (6 months ago)

About the Book

In "Loyalty and Disloyalty" by Dag Heward-Mills, the author explores the concepts of loyalty and disloyalty within the context of relationships, particularly focusing on the church and spiritual leadership. He emphasizes the importance of loyalty as a virtue and highlights the negative consequences of disloyalty. The book discusses how loyalty can lead to success and fulfillment in life, while disloyalty can cause harm and destruction. Heward-Mills offers insights and practical advice on how to cultivate loyalty in relationships and how to avoid the pitfalls of disloyalty.

St. Patrick

St. Patrick, (flourished 5th century, Britain and Ireland; feast day March 17), patron saint and national apostle of Ireland, credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland and probably responsible in part for the Christianization of the Picts and Anglo-Saxons. He is known only from two short works, the Confessio, a spiritual autobiography, and his Letter to Coroticus, a denunciation of British mistreatment of Irish Christians. Patrick was born in Britain of a Romanized family. At age 16 he was torn by Irish raiders from the villa of his father, Calpurnius, a deacon and minor local official, and carried into slavery in Ireland. He spent six bleak years there as a herdsman, during which he turned with fervour to his faith. Upon dreaming that the ship in which he was to escape was ready, he fled his master and found passage to Britain. There he came near to starvation and suffered a second brief captivity before he was reunited with his family. Thereafter, he may have paid a short visit to the Continent. The best known passage in the Confessio tells of a dream, after his return to Britain, in which one Victoricus delivered him a letter headed “The Voice of the Irish.” As he read it, he seemed to hear a certain company of Irish beseeching him to walk once more among them. “Deeply moved,” he says, “I could read no more.” Nevertheless, because of the shortcomings of his education, he was reluctant for a long time to respond to the call. Even on the eve of reembarkation for Ireland he was beset by doubts of his fitness for the task. Once in the field, however, his hesitations vanished. Utterly confident in the Lord, he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. In diplomatic fashion he brought gifts to a kinglet here and a lawgiver there but accepted none from any. On at least one occasion, he was cast into chains. On another, he addressed with lyrical pathos a last farewell to his converts who had been slain or kidnapped by the soldiers of Coroticus. Careful to deal fairly with the non-Christian Irish, he nevertheless lived in constant danger of martyrdom. The evocation of such incidents of what he called his “laborious episcopate” was his reply to a charge, to his great grief endorsed by his ecclesiastical superiors in Britain, that he had originally sought office for the sake of office. In point of fact, he was a most humble-minded man, pouring forth a continuous paean of thanks to his Maker for having chosen him as the instrument whereby multitudes who had worshipped “idols and unclean things” had become “the people of God.” The phenomenal success of Patrick’s mission is not, however, the full measure of his personality. Since his writings have come to be better understood, it is increasingly recognized that, despite their occasional incoherence, they mirror a truth and a simplicity of the rarest quality. Not since St. Augustine of Hippo had any religious diarist bared his inmost soul as Patrick did in his writings. As D.A. Binchy, the most austerely critical of Patrician (i.e., of Patrick) scholars, put it, “The moral and spiritual greatness of the man shines through every stumbling sentence of his ‘rustic’ Latin.” It is not possible to say with any assurance when Patrick was born. There are, however, a number of pointers to his missionary career having lain within the second half of the 5th century. In the Coroticus letter, his mention of the Franks as still “heathen” indicates that the letter must have been written between 451, the date generally accepted as that of the Franks’ irruption into Gaul as far as the Somme River, and 496, when they were baptized en masse. Patrick, who speaks of himself as having evangelized heathen Ireland, is not to be confused with Palladius, sent by Pope Celestine I in 431 as “first bishop to the Irish believers in Christ.” Toward the end of his life, he retired to Saul, where he may have written his Confessio. It is said that an angel conveyed to him that he was to die at Saul, the site of his first church, despite his wishes to die within the ecclesiastical metropolis of Ireland. His last rites were administered by St. Tussach (also spelled Tassach or Tassac). Legends Before the end of the 7th century, Patrick had become a legendary figure, and the legends have continued to grow. One of these would have it that he drove the snakes of Ireland into the sea to their destruction. Patrick himself wrote that he raised people from the dead, and a 12th-century hagiography places this number at 33 men, some of whom are said to have been deceased for many years. He also reportedly prayed for the provision of food for hungry sailors traveling by land through a desolate area, and a herd of swine miraculously appeared. Another legend, probably the most popular, is that of the shamrock, which has him explain the concept of the Holy Trinity, three persons in one God, to an unbeliever by showing him the three-leaved plant with one stalk. Traditionally, Irishmen have worn shamrocks, the national flower of Ireland, in their lapels on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17.

martyr or madman: the unnerving faith of ignatius

“I am afraid of your love,” Bishop Ignatius wrote to the early church in Rome, “lest it should do me an injury” ( Epistle to the Romans 1.2). It is hard to imagine more ironic words. Ignatius, a disciple of the apostle John, was nearing seventy years of age when he sent the letter ahead of him on August 24 (somewhere between AD 107 and 110). He told them he remained “afraid” of the believers’ love — meaning he was afraid that they would keep him from martyrdom, that they would “do him an injury” by keeping him from being torn apart by lions. Ignatius sent a total of seven letters to seven churches en route to the Colosseum. This letter to the church in Rome gave his thoughts on martyrdom and extended a special plea for their non-interference in his. Instead of asking for whatever influence the Roman believers may have had to release him, he bids them stand down. In his own words, For neither shall I ever hereafter have such an opportunity of attaining to God; nor will ye, if ye shall now be silent, ever be entitled to the honor of a better work. For if ye are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if ye show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favor upon me than that I be sacrificed to God. (2.2) And again, I write to all the Churches, and impress on them all, that I shall willingly die for God, unless ye hinder me. I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. (4.1) Martyr or Madman? Michael Haykin’s assessment seems conclusive: “In the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch we possess one of the richest resources for understanding Christianity in the era immediately following that of the apostles” (31). Surveying Ignatius’s letters to the seven churches on the road to Rome, Haykin summarizes three concerns weighing heavily upon the bishop’s mind: (1) the unity of the local church, (2) her standing firm against heresy, and (3) non-interference in his calling to martyrdom (32). The first and second are unsurprising, but what are we to make of the third? What do you think of a man saying, “May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray that they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily. . . . But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so” (5.2)? Who is this Daniel praying not for rescue but looking forward to the lion’s den? “Christians had been killed in the past, but few with as much enthusiasm.” Some scholars, Haykin notes, have called him mentally imbalanced, pathologically bent on death (32). Christians had been killed in the past, but few, if any, with such enthusiasm. What right-thinking Christian would write, “If I shall suffer, ye have loved me; but if I am rejected, ye have hated me” (8.3)? Was he a madman? ‘Sanity’ to Ignatius Did he have an irrational proclivity for martyrdom? Can his death wish fit within the bounds of mature Christian life and experience? If you were his fellow bishop and friend — say, Polycarp (later a martyr himself) — what might you say if you desired to dissuade him? You might call his mind to the holy Scripture — for example, Jesus’s prophecy of Peter’s own martyrdom (which happened years earlier in Rome). Jesus foretold, “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go ” (John 21:18). The apostle Peter did not want to go and stretch out his hands in his own crucifixion. He did not want to be dressed by another and “carried” to his death. Granted, he wanted that end more than denying his Master again, but it stands to reason that if he could have ended differently, he would have chosen otherwise. Or you might consider the apostle Paul and his second-to-last letter before he too was likely beheaded in Rome. “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:1–2). He exhorts that prayers be made for rulers that Christians might lead quiet and peaceful lives. Pray for your leaders, in part, that they might be saved — and thus not given to killing you “all the day long” for public entertainment (Romans 8:36). Ignatius to ‘Sanity’ “But,” the well-taught bishop might have responded, “did not Peter write much of suffering and necessary trials as tests to our faith? Does not God place our faith in the fire (or the Colosseum) that it might be found to result in praise and glory and honor at Christ’s revelation (1 Peter 1:7; 4:12)? Or did Peter not put forward the suffering servant, Jesus Christ, as our example to follow? Or is it not a ‘gracious thing in the sight of God’ to endure suffering for righteousness’ sake — something we are ‘called to’ and blessed in (1 Peter 2:20; 3:14)? And further, did Peter not tell the church to ‘arm’ themselves with this thinking (1 Peter 4:1), and to rejoice insofar as they share in Christ’s sufferings, evidence that the Spirit of glory rests upon them (1 Peter 4:13–14)? “And what to say of our beloved Paul? Was it not he who was hard pressed to stay, even when fruitful labor awaited him? Did he not inscribe my heart on paper when he said, ‘To live is Christ, and to die is gain,’ and that to be with Christ is ‘far better’ (Philippians 1:21, 23)? And was it not also the case that, knowing he was walking from one affliction to the next, he walked the martyr’s path — against the behest and weeping of fellow Christians who threatened to break the apostle’s heart (Acts 21:12–13)? “‘Constrained by the Spirit,’ did he not go forward (Acts 20:22)? He testified that he did not count his life of any value nor as precious to himself, if only he could finish his race and ministry to testify to God’s grace (Acts 20:24). He assured crying saints along the violent road that he was ready not only to be imprisoned but to die for the name of Jesus (Acts 21:13). They eventually submitted and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be done’ (Acts 21:14). Will you not imitate them, beloved Polycarp?” This imagining is to help us get into the mind of the “madman,” as well as to warn us from drawing hasty applications. Though most will not consent so insistently and passionately to a martyr’s death, some will pass by other exits on the way to testifying to the ultimate worth of Christ. Messiah’s Madmen What might we, far from the lions of Ignatius’s day, learn from the martyred bishop of Antioch? I am challenged by his all-consuming love for Jesus, a love that the world — and some in the church — considers crazy. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let breakings, tearings, and separations of bones; let cutting off of members; let bruising to pieces of the whole body; and let the very torment of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ. (5.3) “If we are madmen, let it be for Christ.” If we are madmen, let it be for Christ. Should not Paul’s words be stated over our entire lives? “If we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you” (2 Corinthians 5:13). If we are crazy, it is because of Christ. If we are in our right minds, it is for others to be won to the same madness we have. The love of Christ “controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:14). Oh what a beautiful strangeness, what a provocative otherness, what an unidentifiable oddity is a Christian who loves Christ with his all and considers death to be truly gain. Such a one can see, even behind the teeth of lions, an endless life with him .