The story is about a small Texas church that acquired an old community center in a residential area and turned it into a church and school, which violated local zoning laws. After unsuccessful attempts at changing the zoning laws, the church sued the town on claims of religious discrimination—a community center and Girl Scout camp were allowed in that area, but not a church, they said. As the public-policy arm of one of the most powerful evangelical organizations in the U.
All of these cultural factors are framed in a deep theological conception of persecution. Traditionally, Christians have had a very broad view of what it means to suffer for Christ—broad enough to include everything from genuine martyrdom to mild ridicule by nonbelievers. Behind this is an essential part of the faith, which says that every Christian will be persecuted by the world: True believers will lose jobs, face exile, and suffer from violence.
The problem is that for most of U. This creates an incentive to interpret personal experiences and news events as signs of oppression, which are ostensibly validations of our commitment to Christ. The danger of this view is that believers can come to see victimhood as an essential part of their identity.
Other Christians would argue that these biblical warnings are not intended to mean that victimhood is a sign of salvation. Instead, they are meant to assure believers that suffering in life is not a sign that God has abandoned the faithful, or that the Gospel is not the truth.
His model is of sacrifice and selflessness—persecution is a constituent part of his divinity, not a sign that he was defeated. Because if we understand the inevitability, purpose, and fruit of suffering for Christ — and the resources He gives us to face it — we will be better able to endure when it comes. Forewarned is forearmed. This is obvious to believers living under oppressive regimes.
But that era has almost disappeared, and a new era is upon us. Exactly what it will be like is not yet clear, but it seems unlikely that it will be favorable to those who follow Jesus. Signs of opposition are already apparent. The changes afoot today represent a sea-change from the past; the wind is no longer on our back but in our face. This is confusing to some and frightening to others, but, as Gene Edward Veith points out,.
One of the greatest paradoxes in Christian history is that the church is most pure in times of cultural hostility. When things are easy and good, that is when the church most often goes astray.
When Christianity seems identical with the culture and even when the church seems to be enjoying its greatest earthly success, then it is weakest. Conversely, when the church encounters hardship, persecution, and suffering… then it is closest to its crucified Lord, then there are fewer hypocrites and nominal believers among its members, and then the faith of Christians burns most intensely.
Let us then look at the teaching of Jesus, Paul, and Peter about persecution and suffering, seeking to learn valuable lessons along the way. What does Jesus say to us about persecution, and what resources does He provide for such times? We should begin by noting that Jesus was steeped in Scripture and knew all about the persecution and suffering of the prophets and other godly people in the Bible, people like Daniel Dan. He knew that such evil ultimately grows out of the spiritual darkness, blindness, error, and sin that dominate the hearts of fallen people and cause them to resist truth and righteousness.
He understood as well the opposition that His followers would face from their families, communities, the world, and the devil, and He sought to prepare them. Jesus frequently warned His followers that they would face persecution and suffering. The first instance comes at the beginning of His ministry, when Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount.
He began with the Beatitudes, which is a profile of a disciple Christian and includes a readiness to suffer. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. How did Jesus expect His disciples to react under persecution? What then? Clearly, persecution was a real possibility for anyone who followed Jesus, and He taught them the vital lesson that joy, love, and forgiveness were the way to respond.
This is a fundamental lesson for us today. Later in His ministry, Jesus taught more broadly about what was required to follow Him, and suffering looms large there, too:. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?
For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
Mark — The first condition Jesus gives is to deny oneself. This means that would-be disciples must say a radical no to their self-centered life and center their lives on Christ. Doing this prepares the way for the second condition, to take up the cross, the dreaded Roman instrument of execution. This means a willingness to die for Jesus if faithfulness requires it. These two conditions clear the way to actually follow Jesus — His teaching and example in daily life.
The larger context of this passage shows that Jesus, the Suffering Servant, was on His way to Jerusalem and the cross. Those who would be His followers might well experience the same fate and need to take that into account. Then He elaborated,. I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. Recent archeological research indicates that later Jewish Christians partook in the synagogue until the 7th century!
I always point out to my students that a Christian can go to any Jewish Sabbath service and say all the prayers with full religious sincerity. Matthew goes to some length to remove blame from the Roman authorities. The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts should be read as one work. The crowning with thorns and mocking of Jesus passages are removed.
The Gospel of John, as most scholars maintain, stands by itself but one of the signs of its lateness in its present form ca. The break with Judaism is nigh complete. Even in this case, there is an interesting subtext. John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople ca. As I show above, the different gospels say very different things. Secondly the Gibson movie, by his own admission, is bloody and gory and stresses the role of Mary way beyond any of the gospels.
Writing around 50 A. What Other Proof Exists? The scourging of Jesus, who was tortured prior to his crucifixion. Writing a half-century later, the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus told a similar tale that Pilate permitted troops carrying military standards bearing the likeness of the emperor into Jerusalem, although Jewish law forbade images in the city.
In another incident—with a bloodier ending—Josephus recounted that Pilate used funds from the Temple treasury to build an aqueduct to Jerusalem. This time when protesters amassed, Pilate dispatched plain-clothed soldiers to infiltrate the crowd. On his signal, they removed clubs hidden in their garments and beat many of the protesters to death. According to the Gospels, the Sanhedrin, an elite council of priestly and lay elders, arrested Jesus during the Jewish festival of Passover , deeply threatened by his teachings.
They dragged him before Pilate to be tried for blasphemy—for claiming, they said, to be King of the Jews.
0コメント