Don't just be a Sunday Christian
An evergreen exhortation from Clement
Andrew B. McGowan:
The ancient text known as the Second Letter of Clement, probably from the early second century, has a claim to being the oldest actual sermon or address surviving from ancient Christianity. Second Clement is an exhortation to a congregation to act in justice and charity that fit their divine calling. It includes a number of explicit indications of its own communal performance: "We ought not merely to appear to believe and to be attentive now, while we are being warned by the elders [or "presbyters"], but also when we have gone home let us bear in mind the commands of the Lord" (2 Clem. 17.3). [Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical, and Theological Perspective, 77]
The earliest extra-biblical sermon we have recorded teaches us a familiar lesson: Don't just be a Sunday Christian.
