Meet Rick Atchley

Since June 1989, Rick Atchley has been the preaching minister for The Hills Church of Christ in Ft. Worth, TX. From 1978 to 1989, he was the preaching minister at Southern Hills Church of Christ in Abilene, TX. Rick earned a BA in oral communication in 1978 and an MA in religious communications with a minor in Bible in 1982 from Abilene Christian University. Rick is the author of several books, including Together Again: A Plea for Unity between Christian Churches and Churches of Christ, co-authored with Bob Russell. He and his wife have two sons and one daughter.  

We're looking forward to Rick's message on "Welcome Salvation Joyfully," based on Revelation 19-20, on Friday morning, July 12th!

Please pray.....

.......for this year's president, Matt Proctor, who is traveling a great deal in promotion of the convention. May God grant him safe miles on the road and in the air and may his journeys be productive.

Hdt. 5.6

Among the rest of the Thracians, it is the custom to sell their children for export and to take no care of their maidens, allowing them to have intercourse with any man they wish. Their wives, however, they strictly guard, and buy them for a price from the parents. [2] To be tattooed is a sign of noble birth, while to bear no such marks is for the baser sort. The idler is most honored, the tiller of the soil most scorned; he is held in highest honor who lives by war and robbery.

Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley. Cambridge. Harvard University Press. 1920.

Commentary

ep' exagōgē: for exportation abroad (cf. vii. 156. 2 ad fin.) like the Circassians.

Many races are comparatively indifferent to juvenile unchastity, and only impose strict conduct on women after marriage. Cf. i. 93. 4 n., Peschel, Races of Man, p. 220 f., but per contra, Westermarck, op. cit. p. 61 f.

For marriage by purchase cf. the speech of the Thracian chief Seuthes, Xen. Anab. vii. 2. 37 “soi de, ō Xenophōn, kai thugatera dōsō kai ei tis soi esti thugatēr ōnēsomai Thrakiō nomō”, and Peschel, op. cit. p. 227 f.; Westermarck, op. cit. ch. 17.

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Tattooing was to the Greek the branding of a slave (cf. vii. 233 n.), though traces of it are thought by Tsountas to be indicated on a limestone head found at Mycenae (C. R. xi. 461). It was, however, an honour among the Thracians (Cic. de Offic. ii. 7. 25; Dio Chrys. p. 233), Illyrians (Strabo 315), the Agathyrsi (Mela ii. 10), and the Mosynoeci (Xen. Anab. v. 4. 32). It is widely used, sometimes as a tribal or totem mark (Frazer, Totemism, i. 28, iv. 197 f.), sometimes as a means of decoration (Westermarck, op. cit. p. 168).

For the similar feeling among the Germans cf. Tac. Germ. 14 ‘Nec arare terram aut exspectare annum tam facile persuaseris quam vocare hostem et vulnera mereri’. Cf. also ii. 167.

Revelation 16:2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
Revelation 19:20 And the beast was taken,
        and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him,
        with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast,
        and them that worshipped his image.
        These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Hdt. 5.7 These are most notable of their usages. They worship no gods but Ares, Dionysus, and Artemis.¹ Their princes, however, unlike the rest of their countrymen, worship Hermes above all gods and swear only by him, claiming him for their ancestor.

1 Herodotus as usual identifies foreign with Greek deities: v. How and Wells ad loc.