86 years I have been his servant.

How can I blasphemy my king who saved me?

These words were spoken by Polycarp.

Polycarp was the Bishop at the church at Smyrna.

Last week we looked at Ignatius.

Ignatius was bishop at Antioch.

Both Antioch and Smyrna were significant cities

in the New Testament.

And there's another connection. Both Ignatius and Polycarp were the disciples of John.

In fact, there's this great legend in church history that as Ignatius was John's disciple and Polycarp was John's disciple, Then Polycarp was also Ignatius's

disciple. Polycarp would go on to disciple Irenaeus and Irenaeus would go on now

here's a great name from the early church.

He would go on to disciple Hippolytus.

So there we have this great link

through the first two centuries of the church's life,

back to John.

So here we have Polycarp in his great line. That line comes from the martyrdom of Polycarp.

At 86 years old he was considered the enemy of the state and Caesar himself saw to it that Polykarp would be arrested and that he

would be martyred so the arrest warrant was issued and the soldiers were

dispatched and they chased down Polykarp. Polykarp fled and at one moment he hit out he was

hiding in a sort of outbuilding behind in a state and you can sort of picture him maybe huddled

behind a haystack and in come these Roman soldiers you know they were told this guy is the enemy of the state you need to get him and here they burst through the door and there he is this 86 year old man

...