Derek: 00:28

Welcome back to the Fourth Wave podcast. Today's episode, we are going to continue our season on simplicity. But just a little bit of a heads up here. I'm gonna be changing the format in this one a little bit. I've been researching simplicity and and issues related to it for a couple years now, probably definitely over a year, probably over two.

Derek: 00:57

And, you know, I I've done a lot of preparing, but in the last year, year and a half, we have undergone a pretty significant transition in our lives, and we're just at a stage of life where it is very difficult to get time to write things, to, you know, get my thoughts out and stuff. And so I haven't had a lot of time to curate episodes for this season. And I'm I'm realizing that I'm not really ever going to be able to make the time to do that, in in any realistic fashion. And so what I am deciding to do is I'm gonna move forward, but I'm gonna do episodes that are a little bit more maybe not conversational, but, a little bit more off the cuff, like just from notes rather than, you know, reading something that I've I've put down and edited and edited again. I just don't have the time to do that.

Derek: 01:57

And really, it's probably gonna sound a lot more like the first few seasons because that's kind of what things were like then. If you like the style of the more curated episodes that you've been getting for the past few seasons, then you might not like it as much. And if you like the more conversational tone rather than sounding like it's more being read, then sorry, you're not going to be able to get the curated ones. I just am not able to do that. So I want to try to keep moving forward with this podcast, and I want to try to help get these things out of my mind and get them out there and consolidate them and piece things together.

Derek: 02:45

And so in order to do that, I'm just going to have to sacrifice you know, more of the the perfect phrasing and, you know, less ums and all that stuff. Alright. So in this episode, I want to talk about simplicity's relationship to patience. A lot of us in church, we at least say that we have a high regard for the early church, especially Catholics and Orthodox. They would say that they have a high regard for the early church.

Derek: 03:21

Protestants, know, Reformed sort of denominations, people who have more history that, you know, they focus on the Reformation more, probably think history is a little bit less important than the Catholics, but more important than, you know, probably Baptists and other people who are a little bit less tied to history. But in general, like if you said something like Augustine or Justin Martyr or something like that, if people even knew what you were talking about in the Protestant church, they'd be like, Yeah, I mean, well, not Augustine, but like Origen was persecuted, right, and ended up dying from poor health as a result of his persecution. Justin Martyr, Polycarp, like yeah, of course, they died for their faith, then we would respect their Christianity. Maybe not Origen as much, he's a little bit more controversial. But a lot of those early Christians we would pay lip service to as being people that we would revere.

Derek: 04:22

They're people who suffered and endured torturous deaths and great hardships and maintained their Christianity. Now when we think about the early church, we pick and choose kind of the things that we like from them, which was my whole thing in the first few seasons. Why do we not take their non violence? That seems kind of odd. But, you know, at least the virtues that they espouse we would think are important.

Derek: 04:52

You know, like Augustine, he said that love is the primary virtue. And in fact, just in the news recently, what was it? I think J. D. Vance said something like he invoked the Ordo Amoris or whatever from Augustine about the ordering of our loves and saying that, you know, there's a particular order to the way that we love people.

Derek: 05:14

And there was a big hullabaloo about that because I think he was using it inappropriately to essentially say that we should, you know, love some people more than others, which isn't really, I don't think, what Augustine was saying. But nevertheless, whether you misinterpret him or not, you interpret him. Right? Augustine is important and what he thought about love is important. And the same thing's true of a lot of other early church fathers who have endured.

Derek: 05:42

But if we were to take a survey of the early church and we were to try to figure out, you know, what virtues or virtue did they uphold as the most important? Like, what were they really talking about back then? What might they say? Like, would they even order them? Is there an ordering to virtues?

Derek: 06:02

Or are they all the same? Now of course, everybody's going to think love we just invoked that from Augustine. Know, love is the best virtue. And yeah, sure, but like what does love entail? Like what does that even mean?

Derek: 06:18

It's kind of like asking a kid, Hey, how was your day? And their response is, Good. Like, Okay, but what made it good? Right? It's the same thing when you invoke love as a virtue.

Derek: 06:30

Okay, love. What do you mean by that? Like, what does that look like? Because if you're a pacifist, if you're nonviolent, you say love doesn't look like killing people, even your enemies. And if you're Augustine, you say love doesn't look like killing a robber out of anger, but it does look like killing people at the behest of the state.

Derek: 06:51

Love can look very different. What does it look like? And one of the things that's interesting is when you survey the early church, one of the the most talked about topics, the the thing that has, the virtue that has a lot of space dedicated to it is the virtue of patience. I mean, Cyprian, Tertullian, and Augustine each have dedicated works to patients. And I'll do those for episodes, you know, like great works episodes, at the end of the season so that you can listen to them in case you can't find them anywhere else.

Derek: 07:32

But like they dedicated space, time and space, and what was costly back then for parchment and all that stuff. Like they dedicated works to patients or large sections to patients. And I don't know what your initial thoughts are on that, but I know that I thought that that was kind of odd that patience would be one of the most foremost virtues that was expressed in the early church. Just patience doesn't seem that important. Like, okay, you lack patience and you get irritable.

Derek: 08:09

Okay, like how big of a deal is patience? But as you reflect on it more, and hopefully by the end of this episode, you're gonna recognize that patience is really important. And in fact, the early church had a very solid grounding to put patience forward as a key pillar to love. And we need to listen to what Paul says when he's describing love in his famous love chapter, one Corinthians 13. He says, Love is patient.

Derek: 08:41

Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others.

Derek: 08:48

It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Derek: 09:03

End quote. All right. So the primary spot there goes to patience. It's the very first thing that Paul mentioned. We could also look at two Peter three:nine, The Lord is not slow in keeping His promises as some understand slowness.

Derek: 09:21

Instead, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. So there's two great examples right there. One in one of the most read, most important chapters in the Bible, because Paul's talking about love, this primary thing. And what does love look like? Well, first and foremost, there's patience.

Derek: 09:45

And what is, what does Peter say about patience? That this is the thing that leads God to help him uphold his promises and to withhold judgment and things because he wants everyone to be saved. And so it's his patience that allows that salvation to come, why he doesn't, you know, there's not immediate judgment and, lashing out and all that stuff. His patience defines his love. Yet patience isn't really a virtue that I find we elevate too much today.

Derek: 10:22

I wonder why that is. So as you mull this over in your mind, and before we get into more of the exposition, I want you to hear just a few other verses that are going to give us some background on patience so we can digest it a little better. I want you to listen to James one. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have its perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. Patience is a perfect work that completes us so that we lack nothing.

Derek: 11:05

Romans five, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience and experience hope. So, you know, love was tied to, patience was tied to love in one Corinthians, and here it's also tied to hope. Right? And what does what does, Paul say?

Derek: 11:41

Faith, hope, and love. Right? And here, actually, I think it's it's tied to faith and hope. Right? Now, you might have noticed I did jump around in translations a bit there because that word patience in the New Testament, it actually there are a couple different words that encompass the idea of patience.

Derek: 12:02

So for us, patience is kind of a limited word, but for, you know, for Greek speakers, it seemed like it was something that had more of a breadth of understanding and encompassed things like perseverance and endurance and all of those sorts of things. Nevertheless, I think patience is definitely, you know, in view here. So I'll ask the question again. I mean, thinking this over, why is patience something that we don't tend to elevate? Like, it's something that we would probably put as one of the, you know, latter virtues.

Derek: 12:42

If you go through the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, a lot of those things seem like they might go before patients. And some of those things like love, like we talked about, are kind of ambiguous and you need more specifiers like patients. Yeah, thinking about it, I believe that probably one of the things that keeps us from giving patience its rightful spot, from acknowledging patience as one of the foremost virtues, as did the early church. I think one of the reasons we don't do that is because while we see patience attached to love, we also see patience attached to suffering. I mean, lot of the times that you're gonna see patience invoked, you are going to see suffering right alongside of it.

Derek: 13:41

And that's not always the case with love. It's a lot easier for us to kind of define love in a lot of different ways and to kind of, you know, squeeze around some of the uncomfortable aspects of love, like loving enemies. Because love isn't always tied to suffering so much as, as patience seems to be. I mean, just I just want you to hear maybe what is is one of the most moving Psalms in in the Bible, and its focus on the idea of of suffering and of having to wait. Listen to Psalm 13.

Derek: 14:24

How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? Look on me and answer, Lord my God.

Derek: 14:45

Give light to my eyes or I will sleep in death. My enemy will say, I have overcome him. My foes will rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation.

Derek: 15:00

I will sing the Lord's praise for he has been good to me. I don't know if there's a clearer picture in the Bible of these concepts coming together of the importance of patience and how it endures suffering. And, you know, in that patient suffering, looking towards God in faith and hope, because one trusts in His love. Now, I don't know that I can really add much or anything to great Christian thinkers like Augustine, Tertullian, or Cyprian, which, like I said, you can go just listen to and read their stuff, and you can probably just skip everything that I'm gonna say. But I do wanna try to pull out just a few things that I want you to consider in the importance of patience and its relation to simplicity.

Derek: 15:55

Because as we're thinking about the idea of simplicity, if we think about trying to get simplicity and to get it now, then what we're doing is really just importing the same will to power kind of idea that we're trying to get that simplicity tries to get rid of, right? If you're trying to get power in politics or power through violence or power through money, power through time, presence, like whatever it is, if you're trying to get power in those ways, it's because you want control and because you want things on your timetable. And so if you're like, Okay, well, simplicity is important. I think that's true. I think the Bible teaches that.

Derek: 16:35

Okay, I want to have simplicity now. And you try to invoke that, that's going to be a problem. What you want is results, and you're not willing to submit to the process. And so in understanding how patience is a vital aspect of simplicity, hopefully it will help you seek to be open to and embrace the cultivation of that sort of virtue, which lays power and control to the side, lays the striving for immediate results to the side, and embraces, the process where day after day we cry out, How long, O Lord, until I have more patience? Like, I trust that sanctify me.

Derek: 17:18

You're going to work patience in me. But man, how long? But one of the reasons that patience is so hard to work within us is because of our infatuation with success or the victory. Those are our two words that Kierkegaard uses a lot in purity of heart is to will one thing. But he also in training in Christianity, he also is going to use this type of language.

Derek: 17:49

And there's a a piece from Training in Christianity that I want to read from Kierkegaard because it adds it gives you another work of his to kind of, you know, dig into a little bit. And because I think he says it so well in this piece, so I want you to listen to what he says. It's an extended quote. Quote, To entice is an untrue way of drawing to himself, but he would entice no one. Humiliation belongs to him just as essentially as exaltation.

Derek: 18:18

In case there was one who could love him only in his exaltation, such a man's vision is confused. He knows not Christ, neither loves him at all, but takes Him in vain. Christ was the truth in His humiliation and is the truth. If then one can love Him only in His exaltation, what does that signify? It signifies that he can love the truth only when it is conquered, when it is in possession of and surrounded by power and honor and glory.

Derek: 18:51

But while it was in conflict, it was foolishness. To the Jews, a stumbling block, to the Greeks, a foolish thing. So long as it was scorned, ridiculed, and as the scripture says, spat upon, he desired to hold himself aloof from it. Thus, he desired to keep the truth from him. But this in fact means precisely to be an untruth.

Derek: 19:14

It is as essential for the truth to suffer in this world as to triumph in another world. The world of truth. And Christ Jesus is the same in his humiliation as in his exaltation. But on the other hand, in case one could feel himself drawn to Christ and able to love him only in his humiliation, in case such a man would refuse to hear anything about this exaltation, when power and honor and glory are his, in case, oh, pitiable perversity, with the impatience of an unstable mind, tired as he would express it, of Christendom's triumphant boast of seeing good days, he longs only for the spectacle of horror to be with him when he has scorned and persecuted. Such a man's vision also is confused.

Derek: 20:00

He knows not Christ, neither loves him at all. For melancholy is no closer to Christianity than light mindedness. Both are equally worldly, equally remote from Christianity, both equally in need of conversion, End quote. So the first two thirds of that quote are focused on this idea of people in Christendom who can only recognize Jesus in his victory. Right?

Derek: 20:28

I think of Christian nationalists right now, right? Only recognizing Jesus as the victorious. And so they're focused on these ends and this idea of exaltation and what that looks like. And they want to be exalted, exalted with Jesus, not recognizing that that exaltation comes in eternity. It doesn't come right now by taking shortcuts of means.

Derek: 20:56

So people want the victory, and that was one of one of the stumbling blocks in purity of hearts that Kierkegaard pointed out, wanting to be identified with the victory. But Kierkegaard also goes to the other end and he says, It's just as perverse to kind of wish the opposite. And this is the pit that I would fall more into in regard to at least the stuff that we talk about on this season. I think we can do both things, right? Sometimes we can try to expedite the victory, whereas in other cases we could be more melancholic as Kierkegaard says.

Derek: 21:33

But yeah, when I think of Christendom, I mean, there have been a number of episodes. I can think of the one on the donation of Constantine, where it's kind of like, yeah, Christendom sucks. It's done horrible things. Or the episode on Haiti. I'm like, yep, one day Babylon's gonna fall and the voices, the shouts of joy are gonna come out from the people that we've oppressed.

Derek: 21:56

And I need to be very careful that some of the early Christians would actually seek out persecution, right? I think Kierkegaard would say, No, that's not the right decision either. Yes, you should be humble. You don't need to force the victory, but it's also wrong to try to I don't even know what the the other would be, force persecution so you can be a martyr. I mean, we all know people who've had martyr complexes where it's like, woe is me, everything's you you gotta be a martyr in everything.

Derek: 22:34

And that's not really healthy either, right? That's not submitting to God's timing and enjoying the fruit of the good things while being ready for patience and persecution. There's a fine line of living faithfully, bringing persecution on yourself because you're a jerk or because you, you know, you purposefully go out and seek it. That's not really bearing your cross either. You know, I'm sure there's a lot going on in regard to what Kierkegaard identifies there as two tendencies in Christianity.

Derek: 23:12

And I think maybe, another book highlights this aspect well and maybe unpacks a little bit of of what's going on. In the book, How to be Unlucky, the author says the following, quote, in CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letter, the elder demon Screwtape suggests to his young apprentice Wormwood that God wants his people to live in the present where he has placed them or in eternity where he has destined them. Screwtape suggests that Wormwood get his patient, the human being whom the demon is assigned to tempt, to dwell on the future. Constant rumination on the future leads to hell according to Screwtape. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present.

Derek: 23:57

Fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. God does not want men to give the future their hearts, to place their treasure in it. We do. I suppose that's a difficulty, and you don't have to think about it too much to recognize that there's difficulty there because faith and love, out of the three things that are elevated in Christianity, faith, hope, and love, faith and hope, and especially hope, are future oriented. Right?

Derek: 24:32

They're they're putting their value, the treasure, in the future. Right? Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, but treasures in heaven. So what do I think? Do I think CS Lewis is wrong or right here?

Derek: 24:48

I think he's right in a sense, right? Hope. Why does one have hope in the future? Is the treasure really in the future? And no, I would say that treasure, it comes from faith, which is more of a present endeavor.

Derek: 25:07

You can have faith at something, I know we use the word faith interchangeably with hope a lot of times. I would say that faith is more of a present attribute, characteristic virtue, whereas hope is more of a future oriented one. Faith that says right now I believe something, right, that is based on the character of somebody. I have faith that someone is going to meet me at the time that they said they were going to meet me because of their character. And hope is kind of based on faith.

Derek: 25:41

If I have a strong faith in who God is right now, then I can have a hope for, you know, fruition in the future. And that's why in the in the Bible, see all the time, especially in the Old Testament, God says, you know, I am the God who brought you out of Egypt, you know, out of bondage. And God constantly elicits faith from people by pointing to who He is in the past, like based on the past, but for their faith in the present so that they have a hope in their future. And so, hope is a future oriented thing but it is based on the present characteristic character of God, solidity of the present. Whereas if you look at the things that Lewis points out via the demons in, The Screwtape Letters, what is it?

Derek: 26:41

Fear, avarice, lust, ambition, none of those have assurances of obtaining. They're all about obtaining something, in the future. They're not grounded in something that, is assured or secured or virtuous in the present. I think Lewis is largely on the right track with what he's talking about there. Because I think the strategy of evil is for human beings to dwell on everything but the present, to have fear about the future, uncertainty about it, or to be chained to one's past, which we would call shame.

Derek: 27:29

Right? It's it's something that you can't escape from. Whereas guilt and repentance, right, you you can in the present repent, as Kierkegaard says, and you're taking your steps towards the good. But if you dwell on the past in shame, you're bogged down there. And so what patience is, is it is a recognition of the true present and a willingness to live there, in the present.

Derek: 27:57

To think to oneself, Yes, I sinned yesterday. Yes, I did evil. But I will trust in God that today, that tomorrow, that will not be who I remain. But I can't do anything about that at this moment. Like I cannot change my past.

Derek: 28:19

But in my present, I trust that God will transform me. Or tomorrow, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. If we'll be provided for, know, what's going to happen to our nation. Are we going to be invaded by the Goths? If you're back in ancient Rome when the Christians were writing on patients?

Derek: 28:42

Not to worry about the future, but to live in the present and trust that God is unchanging, He is faithful, He is love. He will equip you to deal with whatever comes your way. And what will likely come your way is suffering, and suffering produces patience. Now, I'm gonna quote a little bit from a fantastic book, like just just a great Christian book in general, but especially on the topic of patience in the early church and like Christian virtue and orthopraxy and all that stuff. Absolutely phenomenal book written by a guy not related to me, but his name is Alan Crider.

Derek: 29:26

And it's called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. I'm gonna read a couple excerpts from him. But, in relation to this idea of patience being developed and, in the present and, depicting God, I I want to read an extended passage here from him. He says, quote, We do not speak great things, but we live them. A striking phrase, and it is not original with Cyprian.

Derek: 29:56

Fifty years earlier, the North African Christian controversialist Minucius Felix uses the identical phrase in his Octavius. We don't know where Felix got the phrase. Did it originate with him? Or were both he and Cyprian quoting a slogan that was popular among North African Christians? Were they reflecting Jesus' Sermon on the Mount?

Derek: 30:19

We cannot be sure. But by the way, Cyprian uses this phrase. He tells his readers that the challenge the Christians face in the mid third century is to live their faith, making it visible, demonstrating the gospel to the watching world. Cyprian relates the faith that the Christians are to demonstrate to a particular virtue, patience. Their faith is a patient faith.

Derek: 30:43

Quote, Therefore, as servants and worshipers of God, let us show by spiritual homage the patience that we learn from the heavenly teachings for that virtue we have in common with God, end quote. Christians, said Cyprian, are to be visibly distinctive. They are to live their faith and communicate it in deeds, and their deeds are to embody patience. Patientia. When Christians make this virtue visible and active, they demonstrate the character of God to the world.

Derek: 31:15

End quote. Dang. Patience is that virtue we have in common with God. It's the virtue that is going to demonstrate to the world that we are God's. And again, yes, Jesus said, By your love, they will know that you're my disciples.

Derek: 31:34

But we've talked about how central to love, like what does love look like? It looks like patience according to Cyprian. And Cyprian wasn't the first early Christian to think that. Criter points out that Cyprian was writing fifty years after Tertullian wrote On Patience, which according to Alan Criter was the first treatise by a Christian on any particular virtue. That's pretty interesting, right?

Derek: 32:10

Patience was the first virtue to be written on. It's something acknowledged by three of some of the most prestigious early Christians, Augustine, Cyprian, Tertullian, and it's something that is supposedly that which most depicts God to the world. Now, how in the world is it that patience most depicts the love of God? I mean, we've already talked about the several verses that, you know, that point to this, but like, how does that work? Well, Criter is going to extrapolate on this a little bit, and this is just beautiful.

Derek: 32:50

And this is going to also help you to understand how this fits into not only the season on simplicity, but also into a podcast on nonviolence. So I'm going to quote Criter at length again. Quote, In contrast, impatience is hopeless. According to Tertullian, impatient actions do not produce what they promise. Instead, impatient actions make things worse, bringing about massive misfortunes.

Derek: 33:18

Quote, now nothing undertaken through impatience can be transacted without violence, and everything done with violence has either met with no success or has collapsed or has plunged to its own destruction. Patience, on the other hand, brings new possibilities. Patience is the source of the practices of peace, which bring reconciliation week by week in the Christian worship services. Patience brings to Christians the life of the beatitudes and the life of love that Paul celebrates in first Corinthians, which is the highest sacrament of the faith. End quote.

Derek: 34:01

Wow. So patience and peace and reconciliation go hand in hand. Think back to the second Peter three verse that we talked about, right? Where God is not slow in His promises, but He's patient, willing that none should perish. It's His patience exemplifies this desire for our salvation and reconciliation.

Derek: 34:30

And that is reminiscent of Romans two:four, right? Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Think about that. That's a goodness sandwich right there. Do you despise the riches of His goodness?

Derek: 34:48

What is His goodness? Forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance. What is love? Love is patient. Love is kind.

Derek: 34:58

What is goodness? Forbearance and long suffering. Patience, forbearance, long suffering that's all tied into love and goodness. And what does it do? Not willing that any should perish.

Derek: 35:14

Not knowing that that leads you to repentance. Patience doesn't smite. Patience forbears. And those texts remind me of other early church Christians who are saying things along these lines, which about nonviolence. And now that we understand that that patience is kind of a part of that, like you can you can kind of read that in.

Derek: 35:42

You can see, okay, they're long suffering and forbearing. You think of the letter to Diognetus or the epistle to Diognetus. And it's something that we've quoted at length in various episodes, but there's a part that we don't typically quote, which would be good for this podcast. But in this epistle, which is possibly if if the earliest date of 01/30 is correct, like it's it's one of the earlier Christian documents that's out there, but I think it's second century no matter how you date it. But it says, listen, it says, quote, As a king sent his son who is also a king, so sent he him.

Derek: 36:25

As God, he sent him. As to men, he sent him. As a savior, he sent him. And as seeking to persuade not to compel us, for violence has no place in the character of God. End quote.

Derek: 36:40

Not only is violence not in the character of God, according to those who call God patient because of His his peace or, you know, the epistle to Diognetus, which says there's no violence in God. But, the early Christians also exhibited this. Athenagoras, who lived in the mid second century, right around the time that the Epistle to Diognetus was, written, he said, quote, We Christians cannot endure to see a man being put to death, even justly. End quote. And that sounds a whole lot like that second Peter, like God's endurance.

Derek: 37:19

Like even if a person justly deserves to die, desiring their reconciliation, their repentance, their salvation, and knowing that that patience that patience is the thing that might lead to their repentance. Because if you cut him off, if you cut off the criminal, there is no chance of repentance. It's this patience, this willingness to endure, this willingness to hold out and and not naively, but because one knows the character of God, that God is patient, that God is love, that God endures, that God is good, that the good will prevail, but it prevails in the eternal, not necessarily in the temporal. The arc of the moral universe is, long and it bends towards justice. It is a long arc, right?

Derek: 38:10

Don't forget that. It's a long arc. It's probably gonna hop over quite a lot of people. It's probably gonna hop over your generation. You're gonna have to be patient, and you won't ever see it in your lifetime because that arc is long.

Derek: 38:26

When I think about this patience and endurance and all of that, I'm reminded of the conversation I had with Hannah Nation of China Partnership a few years ago. She recounted the story of how so many Chinese Christians, when they are persecuted by the state, right, the Christians are being wronged. Their first response is to search their lives and to repent. Right? Not to fling insults at the state, not to push back against them and be vitriolic, but they themselves repent and patiently endure, endure the injustice, because that suffering leads them to repentance.

Derek: 39:23

But it also grows patience and patience exemplifies itself as love. And hopefully through love and their patience for others, those others will see the love of God and be drawn him. And that's because they're not violently revolting. They're not trying to kill their persecutors, but they are patiently enduring and repenting and displaying the love of God. As Cyprian says, whereas Tertullian says, this characteristic that we have in common with God when we exude it, His love, His patience.

Derek: 40:01

This patience is opposed to that consequentialism, to that power grabbing that we have talked about in various seasons and in the last few episodes and all of that. To live in the present, to trust God for who He is, including the results of the future, to hope in in what God says is true in the victory and the resurrection, not a victory that I have to obtain now, but a victory that in the present is already obtained. For as Ephesians says, right, Jesus rules in the heavenly realm, and we have all spiritual blessings in Him right now. So I can patiently live in faith in the present, which gives me hope for tomorrow. If you don't have patience, then you don't have hope.

Derek: 40:57

And if you don't have patience or hope, then you are going to try to grab onto any power and security that you can to make things assured. And that, that is what leads to violence as Tertullian pointed out. It is patience that leads to peace, and peace that is love. As always, there is so much more that I would love to delve into here, but you know in in lieu of that, I highly recommend that you check out Alan Kreider's work on, the Patient Ferment of the Early Church. I would recommend, depending on when you're listening to this, I may have already released some of, Tertullian and Cyprian and Augustine's work on patients, which will be probably a bunch of episodes from when this is initially released.

Derek: 41:54

But, I would go read those. I'm sure you can find them online for free, or I would listen to, to what I put out if audio is easier for you, or try to find them somewhere else. But listen to what the early church has to say on on this prime virtue that, so many have written about. That's all for now. So peace and because I'm a pacifist, when I say it, I mean it.

Derek: 42:39

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