Persecution of the saints.
How many are prepared for the persecution of Christians, which has already started in other nations, that is quietly starting here in the U.S. by allowing every religion to freely practice and express themselves while trying to silence the Christian voice.
CraigChurch plantingTop ContributorJohn: While I agree that we can enjoy a "peaceful" warfare against spiritual slavery through prayer; however, how can we sit back and enjoy the freedoms guaranteed by our constitution and then say we have no part in assisting other citizens in other nations who are trying to break the chains of physical bondage- a little hypocritical.- Like
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- 20 hours ago
VP at Deacon Insurance Agencies LimitedTop ContributorDear Craig:
Again - if we believe in the gospel and our responsibility to do the things as Jesus did them, we know there is no freedom that can be gained by warfare, at least not the warfare involving guns and bombs.- Delete
- 19 hours ago
- CraigChurch plantingTop ContributorJohn: We are not talking about individuals fighting for their own freedoms, we are talking about when our governments go to war- as a Christian we are to be subject to our governments( good or bad) unless that government asks you to violate what God says in His Word. A good story to read on this is the story of sergeant York when he was drafted to go fight in WWI.
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- 1 hour ago
- VP at Deacon Insurance Agencies LimitedTop ContributorDear Craig:
Your latest entry has me re-visiting the concept of what freedom is.
Jesus defined freedom as our being freed from our enslavement to sin. The sin he's referring to there is all sin, especially the ones we don't always think of as sin like 'the fear of death', 'the fear of not having enough', 'the fear of being ignored, unloved and un-valued.'
I mention those fears because were we to live without them, we would sell all our possessions to provide for the poor, we would set aside our weapons of war for the instruments of peace, we would live without the fear of 'the gay agenda' or the 'Islamic threat', or the slippery slope of multiculturalism and the decline of Western values.
In other words we would be free to follow Jesus without the encumbrances of the world. We would truly be 'kingdom first' people and not double minded people, with one foot trying to keep up with the Jones and the other foot doing its best to follow Jesus.
This freedom Jesus gives is not an individual one, it is freedom which can only be found in community and specifically in Christian community where the standard is to live as Jesus lived.
Whenever that community does appear in human society - and thankfully it does on occasion - it meets up with one of two reactions: intrigue or persecution. (see Acts 4, especially verses 21 & 22)
This is what the Bible means when it speaks of the blessing on those who are persecuted 'for righteousness sake.'
Conversely, there is no blessing residing on those who are persecuted for something less than 'for righteousness sake.'
There is blessing when we turn the other cheek, when we don't repay evil with evil or insult with insult. But when we do pay back, when we do retaliate, when we do counter insult with insult and evil for evil, again we will suffer persecution, but not the kind of persecution Jesus calls 'blessed.'
I think we'd agree that there are reasons the West is hated in many Muslim countries which have nothing to do with Christianity, which nonetheless do contaminate the Muslims' response to Christianity.
The fact that US military expenditures are double that of China, Russia, France, UK and Japan combined don't help. Whether drone strikes, military coups, the backing of corrupt governments, or our being the major weapons supplier to every significant conflict occurring in the world at present, there are many good reasons for why Christianity is not favourably received in many Arab nations, which have nothing to do with Jesus.
Which explains my root point. If we are being persecuted, let's be sure we are being persecuted 'for righteousness sake.' If we are being persecuted for reasons other than for righteousness sake, we can hardly complain to Jesus about it. For he did not trade insult for insult, or evil for evil, but he loved when hated, forgave when unjustly treated and died knowing that 'the just shall live by faith.'
One of my favourite Christians is St. Francis, who like us confronted Islam. Had Christianity adopted the example of St. Francis, history might have been spared the bloody crusades and the generations of hatred that have characterized the relationship of Christianity and Islam ever since.
We now have that choice. We can choose to behave on imitating Christ's example or we can continue relying on the weapons of war. The freedom Christ gives us insists on our behaviour matching his. When it doesn't the animosity only increases.
Perhaps the most persecuted Christians in America in the 20th Century were those Christians who walked with Martin Luther King.
King captured this beautifully in a sermon he preached on 'Loving our Enemies':
"To our most bitter opponents we say: “We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."
Persecution reveals whether our faith is genuine. It separates the wheat from the chaff, the real from the false, Christ from all the pseudo-Christs. So as much as we don't like it, bring it on and God help us to stand strong.
We need not fear those of other faiths, nor the diminishment of our rights. When we are weak, then we are strong, grace doing its perfect work of making Christ visible in our lives.
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- 2 days ago
Craig Cassatt likes thisI beg to differ on one issue. Those that Marched with Dr. King faced opposition suredly. A pastor I know who runs a church in Alexandria, VA but from Egypt: his mother was run down in the streets because of the work he is doing here in the US. Another Baptist pastor from Bethlehem was visiting and his father, a pastor in the Palestinian territory, was shot in the service that morning by Muslims. The 20th Century saw more Christians die for their faith than ALL centuries before combined. The 21st is stacking up to be bigger yet. The opposition we faced in the US in the 60s has little comparison to the killing, maiming, and raping that went on then and now in the rest of the world for those called by the name of Jesus. You are right in that it separates the wheat from the chaff and that God will help us to stand strong. I don't mean to come down on you as you are correct in your statements. I just had to discuss the Dr. King statement.
That may be the hardest persecution to endure. It was the persecution both Jesus and Paul experienced every step of their ministry.
As the Psalmist writes (Psalm 55:12-14)
"My enemies are not the ones who sneer and make fun.
I could put up with that or even hide from them.
But it was my closest friend, the one I trusted most.
We enjoyed being together, and we went with others
to your house, our God."
For the black churches that were burned down, with the deaths of their young children, with the crucifixes set on fire on their front lawns - the militant hatred came from people reading the same Bible, believing the same Jesus and justifying their actions by biblical text.