VERY “STRANGE” RESPONSE

As we remember Graham Staines and his two young children who were burn alive in their car, twenty five years ago, it is good for us to see what the LORD in His written Word had instructed us, in regards to how we as a Christian should respond to persecution.

The disciples faithfully followed the instructions of the LORD. When they were persecuted and killed right from the ascension of the LORD Jesus Christ, till the fall of the Roman empire, they have never took up arms to defend themselves from the prejudice driven injustice, and the hate filled persecution. Is it not strange, that in times when people could just take up arms to defend themselves, they did not? Do we think about it?

The early Christians did not turn to political and other avenues for protection from persecution. They simply endured it. It is a point to note, and ask ‘Why did they do so?’

The LORD Jesus says – “44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven;” – Matthew 5:44-45a
The same was applied wholeheartedly by the apostles and the early Christians. Justin the Martyr (100AD – 165AD) says – “We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plowshares, our spears for farm tools…now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness, faith, and the expectation of the future given us through the Crucified One….The more we are persecuted and martyred, the more do others in ever increasing numbers become believers.”

However, we see a marked change in the general outlook of the Church, when it was absorbed by the Roman Empire. Yes, it is apt to say, the Roman empire absorbed the Christian faith, and turned the Church into something, the empire is more familiar with, than what the LORD taught us. The teachings of the gospel, and the teachings and the testimony of the early Church, are mostly turned upside down, since 324 AD. 

Does it speak something to us today?