The early church was strikingly different from the culture around it in this way - the pagan society was stingy with its money and promiscuous with its body. A pagan gave nobody their money and practically gave everybody their body. And the Christians came along and gave practically nobody their body and they gave practically everybody their money.

In Acts, every believer was living in a direct relationship with Him (Christ) and each one functioned normally as a member of His body in oneness with all believers.

No wild beasts are so deadly to humans as most Christians are to each other.

The black of the ocean waves was the color of the sorrow in my breast, a sorrow that was never far away and always visible.

God himself had sent me away. I was truly now among the damned.

I was once a man, not a great man, not a saintly man, but a good man, and a man nonetheless.

I did not choose to be a monster—a shell of a man—half-human, half-fiend. I am a tiefling. I am what I am.

My life was going exactly where I wanted it to until the Devil showed up.

Iona stared at me for a long time. “You are going to leave me a widow before I have a chance to become a bride.

Then it kissed me—not as a man would kiss a lover, not with tenderness or even passion. This was a kiss that stole the soul of men. Revulsion at this creature’s kiss was instantly replaced by the warmth stealing through my veins, as if my missing blood were being replenished and contrived to heal me. I craved to keep kissing the beast. My entire being awakened to that kiss feeding me ecstasy, feeding me life.

The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice. It cost believers everything, and they still came.