Should all Christians care about proper theological belief? Should we call it out when others who claim the name of Christ veer off into heretical belief and teaching?

Increasingly, Christians tend to answer both questions in the negative. They see making waves about heavy biblical truth as the opposite of being “winsome” which has curiously become a new Fruit of the Spirit. But it is not. But what about the early Christians? How did they deal with false teaching in their midst?

It is an important question.  And the answer is that from the beginning, Christian leaders took the careful teaching of orthodoxy and the rebuke of heretics extremely seriously. Let’s just look at history. One of the earliest and most destructive heresies the church fathers had to correct was Gnosticism, which questioned the nature of God and His created world, the humanity of Jesus, and how we know truth. Yes, very fundamental issues.

Over and against this challenge, rose the great Irenaeus (Ir-re-ney-us), a mere two generations removed from Jesus Himself. His name means peaceable as in “being irenic.” But he was also an absolute tiger when it came to defending the truth of Christianity. Irenaeus was taught in his youth by the martyr Polycarp who was taught by the Apostle John, the author of the fourth gospel, three epistles, and Revelation, as well as being the one Jesus chose to care for his own mother just before he died. The man has a strong spiritual lineage.

Canadian twins, Adiah and Adrial Nadarajah, were born at 22 weeks and zero days. These micro-preemies just celebrated their one-year birthday on March 4, 2023, and are now officially the world’s most premature twins.

In response, the family shared on social media, “We give God all the glory for the miracle He has performed in sustaining both Adiah and Adrial.”

As reported by Guinness World Records, the twins were born 126 days early. Initially, it wasn’t at all certain that doctors would even help the babies with life-saving medical treatment once they were born.

In fact, the twins’ parents, Kevin and Shakina Nadarajah, were told by doctors that there was no possibility of survival for their babies and the best they could hope for was to hold and comfort them as they took their last breaths.

Shakina went into preterm labor at 21 weeks and five days.

In a video interview with Guinness World Records, the twins’ father, Kevin, says that the hospital’s initial reaction was to tell them they would lose the babies.

After the hospital told them there was nothing they could do for the babies, they said the best the hospital could offer was comfort care.

Comfort care is when the hospital refuses to give life-saving medical treatment, and instead, babies are given to their parents to hold until they die.

It was J.C. Ryle, the nineteenth-century English evangelical Anglican bishop who once wrote, “Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church. They train people for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations.”

The subject of hymns can elicit and stir up the “worship wars” — debates over music preferences in church and differences in style of song, particularly between traditional hymns and more contemporary selections. Many Christians have strong opinions on the matter, in fact some church congregations have literally split over the divide.

In reality, though, all hymns are not equal — and when one hears the word “hymn” they may think of a two-hundred or three-hundred-year-old song. But not Keith Getty. Hailing from Northern Ireland and married to Kristyn, who is also his musical partner, the Christian singer and songwriter has led the growth and expansion of the modern-hymn movement.

Composing and recording since 1995, Keith Getty has told interviewers his music is motivated and compelled by what he understands to be a biblical mandate.

“I think we have to remember that early in the Old Testament, Moses was commanded by God to teach the Hebrews through hymns (see Deuteronomy 31:19),” he told the Baptist Press. “In other words, what you sing doesn’t just affect how you think or how you feel or how you pray. It is presumed that singing will affect how you live your life. In fact, 20 percent of the Bible is songs. We learn from the Word of God that we’re created to sing.”