Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What is Persecution? | New Testament | John 16

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

What does persecution against Christians look like today? What did it look during Bible times? How should Christians react to hatred and hostility? In today's episode, Patrick looks to John 16 to share encouragement and how to react in times of trouble. Read the Bible with us in 2024! This year, we’re tackling a group of Old Testament books traditionally known as “The Writings”— Psalms, Chronicles, Proverbs, Daniel, Ruth and more! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: John 16

Welcome to 10-minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Words like persecution are like wet concrete. We tend to pour them into all sorts of places and context, and left alone, they harden. They become the new meaning. But what does persecution mean? Because a lot of people disagree. One person's quote-unquote persecution is just another person's bad day. So what is persecution? And how do we think about it in the New Testament? Is persecution limited to circumstances in which there's government-sanctioned persecution? Where there's violence or murder done by the hands of the government? Where there's imprisonment or garnishment of wages?

Where the government prohibits Christianity? There are more countries like this than you might realize. The Voice of the Martyrs is an organization that indexes the persecution of Christians along these lines. And believe it or not, there are 41 countries that fall into this exact category, where there's governmental persecution. But maybe persecution's bigger than that. Could we go one step forward and simply adding countries where Christians face hostilities from the population, not the government itself? In other words, the government may not be persecuting Christians, but the population is showing extreme prejudice and even legalized violence towards followers of Jesus. There's an

additional 22 countries on that list. In light of the fact that there are Christians around the world losing their lives, homes, wages, and livelihoods as a result of following Jesus? It may feel silly to talk about even lesser forms of persecution. But we do need a word for that, for what happens in countries where Christians are savagely mocked, where they can't receive tenure or vocational positions as a result of their Christian values, in countries where Christians are pushed to the cultural margins. And what word do we use to describe what happens when an individual Christian faces intense resistance from her family or her friends because she converted. Is that a form of persecution? And what do we do

with Christians who face intense hostility from other people who claim the name of Jesus, from people who are receiving threats and cursing, who are being ostracized from their Christian community because they didn't vote for the right person or support the right person? You see, we can pour this word persecution into a lot of different places. And if you let it sit over time, it might harden into your perspective. This is what persecution is. When we look at the New Testament, persecution does take on a number of different meanings. In Matthew Mark and Luke, Jesus' definition of persecution seems to be reserved to those more extreme kinds I started with, places which actively enact violence, imprisonment, and garnishment of wages, whether it's the government or the populace doing it.

Now, we have to say, that's certainly not the context of most Christians living in the West. But in In the Gospel of John, Jesus seems to offer a more expansive definition. He seems to say that any animosity we experience as a result of following him is a sort of persecution. We'll pick up in John 15, 18. This is the chapter we were in yesterday. Jesus said, if the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you were not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, it will also keep yours.

But all these things they will do to you on account of my name because they do not know him who sent me. Later on, Jesus will speak of leaders seeking to kill some of his followers, which means that Maybe the more extreme forms of persecution are still in the foreground. And yet, I'm thankful for this passage because in a real way, it speaks to everyone. I think anyone who follows Jesus has had an experience of being hated because of their values, being hated because they're a Christian, being hated because they're following him. And the truth is that when we're attacked for following Jesus in tremendous ways like violence and in small ways, like a snub, we still often go to the same mental place.

fear. In fact, low-level persecution can be challenging in a different way than high-level persecution, because it doesn't come with a call for climactic showdowns and costly decisions. Instead, low-level persecution can just create a form of low-level anxiety and fear, a low-level fear that maybe today is the day when my faith costs me an important relationship or a promotion or my sense of peace. But as long as we're talking about what is persecution, it's worth noting that there's at least one thing that Jesus never includes in his description of persecution. He never says that losing elections or losing cultural power is persecution. You see, this is the last understanding of persecution I often hear, and I haven't mentioned it yet. It's the kind of persecution you're

prone to see on cable TV or here on the radio. It's the idea that Christians in some general sense are being persecuted because they don't run the country or Hollywood or big business boardrooms. That's not to say that people in those places don't experience small-scale persecution. Maybe some individuals do. What it is to say is that if we feel persecuted because the Babylon around us isn't affirming our values, Jesus never calls that persecution. And if you think that is persecution, I think you might need to be challenged by Jesus because I think he'd tell you something different.

In fact, it's something that he says later in John 18, My kingdom is not of this world. I think Jesus would challenge us to stop getting so fixated on these worldly matters. I think he'd challenge us in our churches to be a counterculture that shows the world a better way by loving each other, by showing mercy, by walking according to his kingdom's values and not living in fear. I think he would say this because in John 16, which is actually today's chapter, he continues what he started in John 15. Again, in that passage he explained that God's answer to

persecution is the gift of His Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to guide us when we're persecuted and to give us words. So let's pick up in John 16, 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper, he's talking about the Holy Spirit, will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin because they don't believe in me. Concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and he will see me no longer. Concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

Do you see what Jesus is promising his followers? He's saying that even though he's not with us in the flesh, he's with us in the spirit. So in the midst of our fear over small-scale persecutions, there's always, a non-anxious presence living inside of us to guide us, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit doesn't return violence for violence, vitriol for vitriol. Instead, he speaks words in us and through us characterized by love, joy, peace and patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. But I also want you to catch the second half of what Jesus said in this passage. Jesus says that it's the spirit's job to, quote, convict the world concerning sin,

righteousness, and judgment. This is a rebuke to those of us who feel persecuted because our culture isn't quote-unquote Christian. And because our culture isn't Christian, they think that justifies us taking power by any means possible, supporting insolubrious characters and using Machiavellian schemes. We have forgotten it's the spirit's job to convict the world. Not our job. When we try to take over the spirit's job, not only do we border on idolatry, because we're acting like we think we're God, we're the spirit, but even more than that, we show that we don't trust God to do what he promises. If he promised that the spirit would convict the world, then trust the spirit. And what if the spirit's way of convicting the world

was precisely by us living as a loving counterculture? In a world where everyone is obsessed with power and prestige? What if a community that shows the gentle, meek, and lowly love of Jesus? What if that community shone out like a light and show that we are capable of far greater good without worldly power than what other people can accomplish with it? My friends, don't fear persecution. The Spirit is with you. My friends, don't seek to take the Spirit's job. Trust that if you walk and step with him, he will do the work of convicting the world. my friends do not be captivated by narratives that train you to want things like power which Jesus never taught us to seek.

Instead, pray for Jesus' presence with all believers around the world that we would face persecution with God's spirit and God's peace and live as a counterculture for God's glory.