“These that have turned the world upside down have come here also.” Acts 17:6b
We have entered a time when lives lived for Christ are increasingly seen by the drifting, foundation-less culture around us as harmful to mental health and societal order. The murder of the innocent unborn is now celebrated, replacing the wonder of procreation. Our refusal to accept as normal what is debauched has become hate. Skepticism regarding evolution and climate change is seen as anti-scientific. Belief in absolute truth has become bigotry.
None of this is new. The fall in the Garden of Eden skewed human reasoning into calling evil, good and good, evil. Isaiah 5:20 In Thessalonica Paul and his companions were accused of turning the world upside-down. Wrong. They were turning it right-side-up.
Hence the persecution through the ages of those who have insisted upon seeing the world only through God’s eyes. Hence this telling of another little-known story of one who stood for truth in his time—and paid the ultimate price for it.
Around 100 A.D. in Flavia Neapolis, Samaria, a boy named Flavius Justinus was born among an untouchable people. Samaria was the land between Judea to the south and Galilee to the north, during the time of Christ. Near Flavia Neapolis was the city of Sychar, where Jesus had spoken to the Samaritan woman by the well. John 4:1-42
In his early years Justinus received a classical Greek and Latin education. But in his youth, he became dissatisfied with learning about the seen world alone, which gave him no transcendent meaning to life. He made the rounds through the Greek philosophers: the Stoics, Aristotle, the Pythagoreans, and finally to Socrates and Plato. With the last two he thought he had found his moorings.
“The perception of immaterial things quite overpowered me, and the contemplation of ideas furnished my mind with wings, so that in a little while I supposed that I had become wise; and such was my stupidity, I expected forthwith to look upon God, for this is the end of Plato’s philosophy.”
But at about the age of thirty-two, Justinus was walking along the seashore, probably near Ephesus in what is now modern-day Turkey. There he came upon an aged follower of Christ whose name is lost to history. The old man spoke with Justinus and patiently pointed out to him where Plato’s thinking fell short.
“Philosophers cannot arrive at full spiritual truth through unassisted reason. There existed, long before this time, certain men more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers…who spoke by the Divine Spirit and foretold events which would take place, and which are now taking place. They are called prophets. These alone both saw and announced the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory, but speaking those things alone which they saw and which they heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit.” Recorded in Justinus’ “Dialogue with Trypho.”
So moved was Justinus by the aged man’s argument and by the quality of lives led by the believers he subsequently met, that he chose to follow Christ. He traveled about the known world evangelizing and eventually made it to Rome, where he started a school at the House of Martinus on the Via Tiburtine. There during the time of the Roman emperor Antoninus Piuis (138-161) he wrote works such as “The First Apology,” “The Second Apology,” and “The Dialogue with Trypho,” which much influenced the thinking of the early, post-apostolic church.
In his “First Apology,” written around the year 150, he addressed the Roman emperor Antoninus, appealing to him to stop his persecution of the church. He refuted the accusations that Christians held cannibalistic rituals and engaged in gross immorality. He gave sound moral and philosophical arguments to show the reasonableness of the biblical Christian worldview.
“If these things seem to you to be reasonable and true, honor them; but if they seem nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do not decree death against them who have done no wrong…For we forewarn you that you shall not escape the coming judgment of God.”
When Antoninus died in 161 he was succeeded by his adopted son Marcus Aurelius. Then around 165 Justinus ran afoul with a cynic philosopher named Crescens, whom he had publicly humiliated in a debate. Incensed, Crescens denounced him before the Roman Prefect Rusticus. He and six of his students were subsequently arrested and placed on trial. The end of the trial was recorded by the ancient theologian and historian Irenaeus.
Rusticus: Approach and sacrifice, all of you, to the gods.
Justin: No one in his right mind gives up piety for impiety.
Rusticus: If you do not obey, you will be tortured without mercy.
Justin: That is our desire, to be tortured for our Lord Jesus Christ, and so to be saved, for that will give us salvation and firm confidence at the more terrible universal tribunal of our Lord and Savior.
All of the martyrs: Do as you wish, for we are Christians, and we do not sacrifice to idols.
Rusticus: Those who do not wish to sacrifice to the gods and to obey the emperor will be scourged and beheaded according to the laws.
Justin and his students were condemned, tortured, and beheaded. Thus Justinus earned the title Justin Martyr, the name by which he is known in history.
A new year is upon us, with events shaping up to become ever more hostile to biblical Christian faith. It will cost to follow Christ. But along with Joshua of old may we resolutely declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15b
