Love is Like Fire
The Confession of an Anabaptist Prisoner
By
Peter Riedemann
81 Pages
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Peter Riedemann (1506-1556) wrote this confession as a 23-year-old while imprisoned in Austria on account of his faith. At the time, the Anabaptists - spiritual forefathers of the Bruderhof movement - were being drowned, beheaded, and burned at the stake as heretics by the thousand for their commitment to baptism of believers, economic sharing, nonviolence, and the restoration of a New Testament Christianity free from state control and institutional hierarchy.
In addition to the confession are two important supplements: How We Should Build the House of God and The Seven Pillars of This House. These meditations, like the confession, are of a deeply spiritual character.
From the book:
Love is like fire –
When it is first kindled in a man,
small troubles and temptations smother
and hinder it; but when it really burns,
having kindled the man's eagerness for God,
the more temptations and tribulations meet it,
the more it flares, until it overcomes and consumes
all injustice and wickedness.