As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
In my previous post I introduced the subject of persecution and how the early church responded to it. As explained there, I’d like to take this post to summarize and extend an excellent discussion of Paul’s teaching on the subject in 1 Thessalonians by Michael Martin in the New American Commentary volume on Thessalonians.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about persecution of Christians in America. I suppose it’s true that there’s more than there used to be—there’s been some name-calling and a lawsuit about wedding cakes, though the defendant won that one.
“This is the second consecutive year North Korea has been named the world’s worst country to be a Christian ….Others in the top 10 include Somalia (2), Libya (3), Eritrea (4) Yemen (5), Nigeria (6), Pakistan(7), Sudan(8), Iran (9).” - Baptist Paper
Related:
“Global Christian Relief finances the database maintained by the International Institute for Religious Freedom (IIRF), which will collect, record and analyze publicly sourced reports of persecution for the database” - BPNews
“Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of a growing cooperation of churches in China that faces lower-level persecution. By ‘lower-level’ persecution, I mean that the authorities have…relaxed their hold on churches in comparison to a previous era.” - 9 Marks
“The report, titled ‘Closed Doors,’ found the number of Christians coming to the U.S. from countries named on a prominent persecution watchlist dropped from 32,248 in 2016 to 9,528 in 2022 — a decline of 70%.” - RNS
“While longstanding offenders in Asia and the Middle East remain epicenters of persecution, Latin America and Europe occupy more space in an annual chronicle by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.” - CToday
See the report
“… people in the Henan province register [must] before attending worship services. They’re supposed to use a ‘Smart Religion’ app, which records each person’s name, address, date of birth, occupation, and government ID number.” - TGC
“each of China’s major religious organizations recently published five-year work plans to ‘sinicize… the interpretation of religious doctrines, sermons, rituals, and architectural styles of places of worship in order to conform to the CCP’s ideological and policy requirements.’” - World
“Hindu extremists in Chhattisgarh burn down churches and homes and attack tribal believers.” - CToday
Discussion