For Tertullian the singular mark of patience is not endurance or fortitude but hope. To be impatient, says Tertullian, is to live without hope. Patience is grounded in the Resurrection. It is life oriented toward a future that is God’s doing, and its sign is longing, not so much to be released from the ills of the present, but in anticipation of the good to come.
Robert Louis Wilken, speaking of the Early 3rd Century Church Father, Tertullian (c. 160-220) in The Spirit of Early Christian Thought (Yale, 2003), 284.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon was the most famous British pastor at the end of the 19th century. At its peak Spurgeon's church exceeded 5,000 regular attenders, and hundreds of thousands read his sermons weekly. Yet, the distinction of his preaching was that he spoke the...
“Hmmm…excuse me for a minute. I need to step out of the room.” The ultrasound tech had been tasked with imaging my transplanted kidney to make sure that the surgery to remove the pituitary tumor at the base of my brain would be safe for the kidney. Kidney transplants...
As I write this essay (summer 2020), I am five months past my last chemo treatment. My hair is almost fully grown back, although I think I will keep it shorter than I used to because it is easier to manage. It is July and I have been swimming in a friend’s pool for...
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