When I wrote the series The Lost Son, several things needed to be addressed. Primary focus had to be on healing #PTSD and giving hope back to others because all they were hearing was doom and gloom. In 40 years of helping people heal, 90% of the people I helped felt they were turned away from the church, but still believed in God. They just weren’t sure if He was still there for them or not. After years of hearing how some people believed all they had to do was claim the title of Christian and avoid doing anything else Jesus told them they needed to do, I had had enough of the truth being trampled by popular lies.
Everyone has the right to believe what they want, but they do not have the right to take away the same rights of others simply because they do not like what they do decide to beloved and value by their own choices. I mean, Jesus told His followers how to live their own lives and how to treat other people, but they avoid all that.
The main character had to address all of it. Chris Papadopoulos had strong faith to the point where he wanted to become a Priest. He had a natural ability to get people to talk to him freely and a gifted writer. He grew up to become a reporter so he could share what was going on in this world. Much like ancient people wanted to do.
Things were happening in the ancient world but people only knew about most of the stories by travelers willing to share the news by talking to strangers. Then came other people wanting to report what they had learned. They became scribes, so that people who were not their to hear the words, could read them.
For a long time I couldn’t understand why the early Christians were willing to die when given a chance to live. All they had to do was renounce their faith in Jesus and then they could go off and worship as they believed in privacy. No harm in that. Right?
Yes, there would be great harm done because it would mean they could not share it with others. What good is it to find what every other human is looking for, and keep it to yourself? What would have made all this worse for them is, they would have betraying the lessons Jesus taught them. To be faithful to Him, they had to share the news everyone else needed to hear so they could make their own choices. The early Christians were willing to die and faced death knowing their souls would have eternal life in Heaven, in the place Jesus prepared for them.
They were reporting on the truth they found so that others could learn. The price they were willing to pay was worth it.
People had a hunger to learn, as long as they had an open mind. Dissatisfied with the way they were living, they wanted to find a better way of doing it. They wanted to learn there was more out in the world than just what they could see within their own towns. They wanted to understand what others knew, especially if they seemed to be happier than they were. They also wanted to change what was wrong.
The earliest known journalistic product was a news sheet circulated in ancient Rome: the Acta Diurna, said to date from before 59 BCE. The Acta Diurna recorded important daily events such as public speeches. It was published daily and hung in prominent places. In China during the Tang dynasty, a court circular called a bao, or “report,” was issued to government officials. This gazette appeared in various forms and under various names more or less continually to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911. The first regularly published newspapers appeared in German cities and in Antwerp about 1609. The first English newspaper, the Weekly Newes, was published in 1622. One of the first daily newspapers, The Daily Courant, appeared in 1702.
At first hindered by government-imposed censorship, taxes, and other restrictions, newspapers in the 18th century came to enjoy the reportorial freedom and indispensable function that they have retained to the present day. The growing demand for newspapers owing to the spread of literacy and the introduction of steam- and then electric-driven presses caused the daily circulation of newspapers to rise from the thousands to the hundreds of thousands and eventually to the millions.
Britannica
People were reporters before the printed word. Scribes wrote down what was going on. Scribes became journalists.
As Christians have a code of ethics, journalists have one too.
Society of Professional Journalist lists them this way,
Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. Ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity.
The Society declares these four principles as the foundation of ethical journalism and encourages their use in its practice by all people in all media.
Seek The Truth, Minimize Harm, Act Independently, Be Accountable and Transparent
spj.org
Chris suffered from PTSD and lost his faith along the way. His friends restored his faith and got him to see his life in a different way so he could use his gifts for the greater good. He sought the truth, minimized the harm being done by rumors about others like him, acted independently to seek the truth and track down miracles happening and was accountable to God. He also had to be transparent sharing his own struggles so that people would find hope for their own lives once they understood how much he endured and struggled to overcome.
Along the way, he managed to clear the way for others to find what he found and joyfully shared it with the entire world because the entire world was about to change drastically. When it did, he understood the sense of urgency to write the books to restore hope and bring the good works of others to the attention of the public. He wanted God and good people to get as much attention as Satan and people doing evil did, because the evil ones were getting all the attention.
What’s up colleagues, how is all, and what you wish for to say concerning this post,
in my view its in fact remarkable designed for me.