Persecuted Church Month: Get real

 This is my life group lesson (for the two or three who come) for November 15.  Philippians 2:12-30.

I think we make a mistake in Bible Study of focusing on the larger than life characters/personages with many chapters about them. For example, Paul, Moses, David.  While that is understandable to some extent, I think it has some problems. First, it means we make them like heroes with no flaws, and they had a lot of flaws and are not meant to be replacements for the example of Christ. Second, we miss the everyday people in Scripture who were faithful, two of whom are mentioned here:

Timothy and Epaphroditus.

 

Timothy: In this case Timothy is one of the few Paul can count on. Paul will send him to represent himself to the Philippians. Paul says something sad here in verses 20-21. This echoes what he says in the first chapter, that some people preach Christ in a way that still gives the gospel but has a motive of hurting Paul or discrediting him. So Paul had enemies even in the church. Why would he?

Paul would really like to come himself, but that’s “up in the air” now. He says the same thing in Colossians and Philemon, but we don’t know if he ever got there again, even if he really wanted to.

 

Epapphroditus: v. 25-30. He seems to be a native of Philippi. Epaphroditus had been sick and is now well, and Paul is sending this letter by him. (No mail system, of course!) Epaphroditus had come from the Philippians to Paul (4:18) bringing things he needed and that were a sacrificial gift from the Philippians. He may have been sick because of something that he suffered in persecution or in traveling, v. 30.

 

Although persecution does not seem to be a major theme in Philippians, it really is.  It is mentioned indirectly or directly several times, such as here with Epaphroditus. It might be good to study Philippians as a letter about our response to persecution. As I said before, it is unlikely that a Christian in the U.S. would be put in jail, but in some cases we will find ourselves at odds with the prevailing systems of government, work, education, and even religion and find some sort of employment or monetary loss because of it.  I know that if I had been more interested in becoming a high powered person at my work, I could have gone further but God would not have had as much of my time and attention. I don’t think that’s persecution, but it does point out that we have different priorities. The world is not interested in helping you be a better Christian.

 

I want to draw our attention to the fact that November is persecuted church month. This is a subject I have pondered all my life, and I’ve written a novel and a play about it. When we were younger we mostly thought about persecution from the Cold War. Today we think of it more from Muslim-dominated areas and from some dictatorships and communist countries: China, North Korea, etc.

 

We have missionaries from Brainerd who are in places where the locals are likely to be put in jail for living for Jesus. The Fricks in Indonesia; the Chaunceys in India, and “Jen” in Syria are just three examples. That’s why the videos they show cannot be broadcast, because it would be dangerous for some of the nationals to be seen. If you look on our website, Barry Wilkes’ name is not used because of his travel to these places. It just says “David.” (I guess his middle name.)

 

This brings the issue home. When I taught ESL on Sunday nights, I had a Chinese student. She went back to China with her husband. He was not a believer, but she was a pretty fiery one.  I pray for her as the representative of all Chinese believers who are persecuted. The Chinese government may allow business, but they hate freedom and God and anything that is not in line with their ideology, and they will stop at nothing to squelch it.  The media lies to you about this.

 

North Korea is the worst place on the planet. Pray for them specifically. There are plenty of places on the internet to find information on these matters. There is no excuse for us to be ignorant about our sisters and brothers who are jailed, beaten, ostracized, and killed for being faithful to Christ. It’s as bad today, in some ways worse, than it was in the early church.  Just not in the U.S. Ironically Cuba, although communist, never persecuted Christians badly because Castro’s sister was an evangelical. It wasn’t great, but not like in some places.

 

It has been very easy due to COVID to become isolated about what’s going on in the world and the church. Please don’t. Please be aware. Make it a daily habit to pray for the believers in these ten worst countries:

 

Burma, China, Eritrea, India, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Vietnam

 

Also Bad: Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, the Central African Republic, Cuba, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Sudan, and Turkey

 

Just pick one a day, not just in November, but all the time. Pray for their health, their mental health, their spirits, their families (often very hard because no money coming in if parents jailed), their communities. 

 

The world is a lot bigger than Southeast Tennessee and North Georgia or whatever town you live in.