So, I wasn't going to blog about my birthday. Yes, it is on Saturday (tomorrow).

But I was reading the Fragments of Papias over my lunch hour today. They are excerpts about a dude (Papias, whom some say was disciple of John) who wrote five books on exposition of the sayings of Jesus. Today, we only know he wrote them, we don't have any remnants of the books outside of some few citations (primarily from Eusebius). Some say Papias may have been the scribe/amanuensis for John when John's gospel was composed. Anyway, here's something from one of those excerpts, this one from Irenaeus:

But that the age of thirty years is the prime of a young man's ability, and that this extends even to the fortieth year, everyone will admit; but after the fortieth and fiftieth years, it begins to verge toward advanced age. This was our Lord's age when he taught, inasmuch as the Gospel and all the elders who lived with John, the Lord's disciple, in Asia testify that John delivered this tradition to them. For he remained with them until the time of Trajan. And some of them saw not only John, but other apostles as well, and heard this same account from them and testify concerning the previously mentioned account. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 2.22.5; quoted by Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, p. 593)

I'll be celebrating my 34th birthday this Saturday. Until reading the above quote from Irenaeus, I'd never stopped to think that Jesus' disciples may have been roughly the same age as I am now when they walked with Jesus.

Can you imagine that these disciples, adult converts to Christ, are the ones who, by the power of the Holy Spirit, started preaching the message in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth? And that message has persisted down to us today?

Whoa. God is awesome. When I think, "What new things can God do in me, with me, and through me?"; when things start to seem old — he makes them new again. He's got plans for all of us; he's nowhere near done with us. Where is he leading you these days?