What Pliny Saw

What Pliny saw
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.  
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.  
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
                                        Colossians 3:12-17
Here Paul describes how a Christian is to act.
Writing to the Roman emperor Trajan in 112 AD Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus (now in modern Turkey) told of the practices of Christians he said,
"They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to do any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food--but food of an ordinary and innocent kind..." 
Pliny describes a basic church service in addition to telling how those early Christians acted.
Pilny admittedly was looking for a way to punish Christians for reasons lost to history. Yet he found a faithful peace loving group of believers. That practiced what Paul was saying to the Colossians.
Read the words of Paul above again
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  
Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. 
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.  
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.  
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
                                        Colossians 3:12-17
Does your life reflect what Paul is telling the Colossians?
   Think about it.