The Empire Strikes Back

For the start of Christianity, the church received a form of official protection by its association with Judaism. Roman officials were reluctant to get involved in matters of religion (Acts 18:15, 25:19)

Yet, that wouldn’t be the case for too long. Under Emperor Nero, Christians would become the scapegoats for Romes’s problems. As Tertullian was quoted, “If the Tiber rises too high, or the Nile too low, the remedy is always feeding Christians to the lions.”

It should not have come as a shock for the faithful, however. The apostles and writers on the New Testament had warned the faithful of the coming persecution. “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeals” and “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (1st Peter 4:12,2^nd Timothy 3:12).

However, these attacks wouldn't hinder the spread of the Gospel, they would actually impel it. In a few years, Christianity would go from the scourge of the Empire to its official religion.

Today I think we oftentimes think of ourselves blessed to be without persecution. I understand that idea. However, it maybe is better for us to suffer for the cause of Christ. No government or order of man will outlast or defeat the Kingdom of Christ. We may be under attack but never defeated. Those trials can bring us closer to God and refine our faith. It might be just what we need.

If the early church could find joy in trials so, should we.

Comments

I Know All Those Words, But That Sentence Makes No Sense To Me

Let’s say you travel back in time six hundred years or so. Luckily, you happen across a fellow that speaks English. Upon hearing your tale, he describes you as nice, smart, and handsome. Wouldn’t you feel good? You shouldn’t. As Sol Steinmetz in his book, Semantics Antics , explains; Nice originally meant someone who was foolish, ignorant, senseless, or absurd (middle English 1300). Smart for the first 300 years of its use meant causing pain, sharp, cutting, or severe, a sense that survives in the idiom "smart as a whip.” Handsome wasn’t complimentary. When coined around 1425, it just meant easily handled; it didn’t have its current positive connotation until 1590. You might think he said you were a kind, intelligent, good looking bloke, when in reality he said you were a foolish pain easily dealt with. Words have an annoying habit of changing meaning over time in the same language and it becomes even more compli...

Master Your Self

In a contest for the toughest president of the United States, it would be hard to go against Theodore Roosevelt. He was known for his “manly” pursuits hunting big game, climbing the Matterhorn, participating in boxing match while president. (These weren’t play fights, he lost the vision on one eye because of them!) Once before he was about to give a speech an assassin shot him in the chest. Roosevelt refused to go to a hospital and insisted on giving his speech, still wearing his blood-soaked shirt! Teddy might have become tough but he wasn’t born that way. He was a sickly child that suffered from severe asthma that almost proved fatal. As was a young boy, doctors discovered that he had a weak heart, and advised him to get a desk job and not strain himself. He was homeschooled because of his many illnesses and spent most of his time indoors. But then as a teen his father, whom Teddy Roosevelt revered, told his son, “ ...

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog