The Priviledge of Persecution

Our Christian brothers and sisters in the 1st century had a very different perspective on persecution than we 21st century western Christians. For them it was a privilege (see Acts 5:41; Philippians 1:29), for us it is something to be avoided, almost at all costs. But can it be avoided? If Jesus and the apostles are any measure, it cannot. The scriptures clearly attest that persecution follows proclamation.

Why is this so? The message of the Kingdom of God runs smack up against the prevailing powers of the kingdom of this world making conflict inevitable. And because the gospel offers a stern critique of the nature of human beings and the works we produce, when a person embraces the gospel as true it necessarily aligns that one with that assessment, provoking persecution. The demand to the believer in the face of this inevitable enmity, notes Glenn Penner, the late director of Voice of the Martyrs, Canada, “is not so much a willingness to die for Christ but a readiness to die due to one’s unconditional obedience to the Crucified One.” If persecution is part and parcel with proclaiming and living the gospel, we must accept that we are “destined for this” and “not be moved by these afflictions” (1 Thessalonians 3:3).

But suffering for the sake of Christ is not an end in itself. Jesus spoke of his redemptive suffering when he taught, ““The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:23-24). Each disciple of Jesus is a product of the redeeming death to which he alludes. For this we are grateful. The startling news, however, is that he also envisions our own sacrificial fruit bearing when he explains, “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (v. 25). Our participation in the redeeming work of Christ through suffering for the sake of his name, has a redemptive purpose, not for ourselves but for others.

The power of the followers of Jesus united in the face of persecution offers a much needed testimony to the truth of the gospel. Ed Clowney notes: "“The very threats to the existence of the church in the twenty-first century show again our need of the church. The courage to stand apart, to be unashamed of Christ’s claims, is nurtured in the community of those who are baptized into his name. The church may not apply for a union card in a pluralistic establishment by signing away its right to proclaim the only Saviour of the world. Together we must make clear that it is to Christ and not to ourselves that we witness. In that witness we are not only individual points of light in the world, but a city set on a hill. In the ethnic hostility that ravages Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the church must show the bond of Christ’s love that unites former enemies as brothers and sisters in the Lord. Only so can the church be a sign of his kingdom: the kingdom that will come when Christ comes, and that is already present through his Spirit” (The Church. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1995. 15-16).

As our Savior was persecuted because he stood against the prevailing selfishness and cruelty of a sin-racked, idolatrous world, so will his church. Persecution is something to which we have been called and for which we must give thanks. 

Keeping Perspective

“For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). Really? To know Christ, to follow him, does it really require that everything else in life be counted as worthless? It might seem that way if we isolate this declaration, not letting it speak within its context. It’s not the apostle’s intent to declare all human accomplishments to be no more than animal excrement (the more graphic meaning of the word translated ‘rubbish’). It’s only when such accomplishments are put forward as justification before God that he considered them as such. We are justified by “the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (v. 9). As such, Paul would not cling to any credentials that created a false sense of worthiness, despite the fact that he could claim some serious credentials (v. 4-6).

No, Paul’s intent was not to denigrate human achievement or deny the validity of hard work. His was a preemptive strike against a false gospel that he knew to be circulating among the churches; a gospel that said one must do something in order to be in right standing with God when the true gospel proclaims that it is all of grace and right standing is possessed by faith alone. That being said, his declaration does offer a helpful perspective as regards human achievement.

Human beings are capable of remarkable things. Made in the image of God and empowered to manage the affairs of his creation, men and women have harnessed the innate resources of the earth and put them to use. The results have been mixed, to be sure, as all of our efforts are tinged with the corruption of sin, but there is no denying that we are capable of extraordinary achievement. Think of it -- we put a man on the moon!

We need to put that accomplishment in perspective, however. When Neil Armstrong uttered his famous prophecy after putting the first human foot on the surface of the moon, it signaled the culmination of nearly a decade of human experimentation, innovation, funding and flying, a harnessing of resources with few precedents in the history of mankind. But if we measure the distance he traveled by the scale that distances in space are commonly measured, light years (the distance light travels in a year moving at 186,000 miles/second, the speed of light), he traveled about one second! All that effort for one second’s worth of space distance!!

There’s fruit to be gleaned from this. While we want to have dreams and work hard to achieve them, the gospel opens the vast reaches of eternity and puts our striving in proper perspective. Knowing Christ tells us that we must never forsake eternal reward for temporal gain for there isn’t any earthly achievement that rivals gaining Christ, not even stepping on to the moon.

The Power of Example

Who are your heroes? Who do you want to be like? Who presents an example that you want to follow? Perhaps you haven’t thought about it much. You should, for we are built to emulate. As such, we pick stuff up. Consciously or unconsciously, the people that have been part of our lives have influenced how we think and behave. As a result, we are products, at least in part, of the examples that have paraded before our eyes.

The power of example is not to be underestimated. Examples can be innocuous, edifying, or destructive. Modeling your hairstyle after someone else is innocuous. Opening your home because you were treated generously in a time of need is good. Being abusive to your wife as your father was to your mother is destructive. In each case, we are proving that we have been influenced by the example of another.

Christians are called to “shine as lights in the world.” We are obligated, therefore, to seek out good examples. We want to emulate those who themselves have been shaped by the gospel. Timothy and Epaphroditus, whom Paul puts forward as worthy of honor, are such examples. They model the kind of other-oriented selflessness and sacrifice that is the hallmark of Christian maturity. Yet it was the apostle, who himself had learned that he must decrease and Jesus must increase, who had a profound affect upon these two. Paul had modeled what desiring Jesus entailed and Timothy and Epaphroditus wanted what Paul wanted. This resulted in lives given over to the service of Christ and others. They were godly men, worthy of honor and emulation.

We must choose our heroes wisely. Do their lives reflect core gospel components, the other-oriented selflessness and sacrifice that was the arc of Jesus earthly existence, or is it all about them? Anyone we would seek to emulate (including Paul, Timothy and Epaphroditus) other than Christ will in some way or the other fall short. But in Jesus we have the example par excellence. Model those who model him and your light will shine brighter.