Fifth Day Manna

Have you ever stopped to wonder what it truly costs to call yourself a Christian? We live in a culture where identifying as a believer is relatively easy. We might go to church on a Sunday morning when it fits our schedule, or mention in passing that we are people of faith. But for the earliest believers, naming the name of Jesus wasn't a casual preference—it was a life-or-death reality. When we look back at the history of the early Church, we are confronted by men and women whose hope in Jesus was so deep that no threat, no plea, and no earthly power could shake them. The Courage of Perpetua At the turn of the third century in Carthage (modern-day Tunis), a young Christian noblewoman named Perpetua was arrested alongside four other new believers preparing for baptism. Emperor Septimius Severus had ordered a crackdown on Christianity, believing it threatened Roman patriotism. Perpetua was a young mother with a nursing infant, living a life of comfort. Her father, a pagan who loved ...