Pastor Lloyd Ashworth

On Sept 2nd 1666 there was a great fire in London. It began in a bakers oven in a back street and as most of the houses were timber frames it burned quickly. 200,000 people lost their homes, 90 churches were destroyed including St Pauls cathedral which was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. Blamed wrongly for the fire were the Catholics. In AD 64 another fire started in Rome which burned for 3 days wiping out much of the city again destroying temples and houses. The Emperor was Nero and many thought he started the fire to clear the ground for his building program but he decided it was these Christian followers of Jesus who were to blame…so began the most intense persecution of the church. Believers were tortured, and sewn into animal skins and then hunted by wild animals in the amphitheatre. Nero had some believers covered in oil and set alight as torches for his entertainment. It was against this backdrop that Peter writes these two Pastoral Epistles to encourage people to stand firm.