HOW CHRISTIANS ARE DIFFERENT
A Second Century believer, in a letter to his friend, Diognetus, described how Christians are alike and different from others. He wrote, "Though they are residents at home in their own countries, their behavior there is more like transients...Though destiny has placed them here in the flesh, they do not live after the flesh; their days are passed on earth, but their citizenship is above in the heavens. They obey the prescribed laws, but in their own private lives they transcend the laws. They show love to all men--and all men persecute them. They are misunderstood and condemned; yet by suffering death they are quickened into life. They are poor, yet making many rich; lacking all things, yet having all things in abundance...They repay [curses] with blessings, and abuse with courtesy. For the good they do, they suffer stripes as evildoers."
(James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community, IVP, 2010, pp.28-29. From a sermon by C. Philip Green, Living Stones, 5/19/2011)