Persecution

I am saddened by the amount of persecution against Christians we see around the world. We just watched the Summer Olympics from China where Christians are severely persecuted day by day. I recently read of a Christian woman in China who was beaten so badly she hemorrhaged and had to have a hysterectomy, simply because she hosted a Bible study.

Persecution is all around us, even in America. I want to speak of another kind of persecution. A kind of persecution we don’t think much about. I kind of persecution I was too naive to realize even existed. It’s persecution within the church.

John chapter 16 says, “All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.”

We live in a time of postmodern thought. This postmodern thought has tricked into the church. Today, that trickle is turning into a flood. In a nutshell, postmodern thought rejects the idea of absolute truth. Postmodern “Christians” are really interested in conforming to the world (culture). I have heard it described as “Cafeteria Christianity”. They pick and choose what parts of the Bible they accept and throw out much as “out of touch” with the culture, therefore no longer useful.

I ran into this at a church I attended for 15 years. A fairly recent change in leadership brought a change in core beliefs. There was a shift from biblical Christianity to cultural Christianity. The most disturbing part of it was, when approached, leadership never wanted to discuss scripture; they always pulled our conversations back to culture. When the attributes of a pastor (1 Timothy 3) was mentioned, they would shy away insinuating those standards were unrealistic today. When the topic came up, should woman serve under the title Pastor/Elder, they didn’t want to discuss scripture, they pointed to Hillary Clinton’s run for President as the example for the church to follow.

Just as the verse above say’s, “They will put you out of the synagogue…”. Today, they will throw you under the bus if you hold to an absolute truth, all obedient view of the bible. Pastor Mark Driscoll has a wonderful quote on this, “When God speaks we are not to converse, we are to obey”. When God say’s this is what I expect my pastors to look like, we need to look like that, period. When God says only men should hold the title pastor/elder, we are to obey.

I stood for truth and was thrown under the bus. My hope is that everyone will understand this persecution within the church is real and I believe it is going to get worse as the years go by. Please join me in praying for all church leaders who are allowing this to go on in their congregations. We must return to biblical Christianity. We must understand that the Word of God is reliable and the final authority on everything.

It is my prayer that you would double your efforts by increasing the amount of time you spend in God’s Word. Protect yourself against false doctrine by abiding in God’s Word.