JESUS the TENDER-HEARTED: “But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd” (Mt 9:36). Deep beneath the city of Rome are the Catacombs, a maze of corridors and burial vaults that, if strung together, would stretch out some 600 miles. Estimates of the number of tombs vary from 1,750,000 to 4,000,000. They represent the burial of Romans from the 2nd to the 5th centuries A.D. From his research on the tombs, E.M. Blaiklock states, “One-fifth of Rome’s people in the middle Empire were Christians, and it is possible that the proportion was at times much greater” (The Archaeology of the New Testament, p 161). Many of the inscriptions are deeply moving. One reads, “Deacon Deusdedit who melted the hearts of the obstinate with goodness.” Such was the ministry of Christ, and of our ministry, too! “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21).