For God’s Sake
It is permanently “wildfire season” in Florida and the summer months its peak. If asked how they would characterize wildfires, I suspect that most people would characterize them as a bad thing. They can consume vast acreages of forests, and some have consumed entire neighborhoods. Those who make it their profession to study wildfires will tell you that they can be very beneficial to an ecosystem.
For example, there are certain species of pine trees whose pinecones only open during an intense fire. The intense heat liquifies the pitch that seals the pinecones shut, they open, and seeds are released. The fire has consumed the lower brush making the future growth of saplings more viable.
If asked how they would characterize persecution, I suspect that most Christians in this country would characterize persecution as something bad and potentially destructive to Christianity because we have yet to experience it. Christians in other parts of the world do experience persecution and yes, even death, for their faith in Jesus Christ. The Voice of the Martyrs, an organization that serves persecuted Christians around the world, reports that there were more Christian martyrs in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined.
A missionary I once interviewed on my radio show told me that in the country in which he was serving, new converts are baptized in graves they have dug for themselves, a graphic reminder of the cost of following Christ in that country.
There is a provocative quote attributed to the early church father, Tertullian: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” He was saying that the killing of men and women for their witness for Jesus Christ historically has caused the church to grow. In the Book of Acts, the brutal martyrdom of a godly man named Stephen unleashed a great persecution on the first century church in Jerusalem. Christians were scattered into the surrounding regions of Judea and Samaria, but “those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” The Jerusalem church, like a pinecone, opened under the intense heat of persecution and released its seeds.
I suspect that the greatest threat to Christianity in America is not persecution from outside but apathy from inside. Certainly, some have had family ties severed because of their newfound faith in Christ, but in the main, it is comparatively easy to be a Christian in this country. With that ease can come complacency that can reduce the Christian faith to a casual hobby rather than a way of life, and even life itself.
Should we pray for persecution? I find no biblical exhortation that so encourages us. Rather, as the Apostle Paul writes, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”