Eighty-Six Years and Not One Regret

When Roman soldiers came for Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, in AD 155, the elderly pastor was eighty-six years old. He had spent a lifetime shepherding believers through waves of persecution, having learned the faith at the feet of the Apostle John himself. Friends urged him to flee. He refused. When the proconsul demanded he curse Christ and offer incense to Caesar, Polycarp replied with words that still echo across the centuries: "Eighty-six years I have served Him, and He has done me no wrong.…