How Christians Should Respond to Wrongful Persecution

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The wrongful persecution of Christians is nothing new.  If you read the Bible, you'll realize how Christians were persecuted for the wrong reasons.  Remember when Jesus died for the sins of man, He was already hated by the world and He died a criminal's death, even when He didn't deserve it.  John 15:18-19 addresses the issue of the world hating Jesus, the Christians are not of the world and the world is destined to hate them.  Why I use the term wrongful persecution is because, it is undeserved, unjust and it hits the wrong people.  History also shows the unlawful persecution of Christians one after the other.  Many times, you can read how Christians were often lumped up in the wrong places.  Paul and Silas were both locked up together with common thieves after they exorcised a demon from a fortune teller's body.  Peter was locked up in jail with common thieves for preaching the Gospel, James the Lesser was beheaded like a murderer just for preaching the Gospel under the orders of the incumbent Herod Agrippa I (who was later eaten of worms after he was smote with gangrene by God Himself).

Remember the Apostle Paul's ministry took place during the time of the depraved, god complex ruler Emperor Nero.  What did Nero do to gain such infamy?  Some accounts said he lit Rome on fire and blamed the Christians.  I could imagine the possible meeting Nero had with his counselors.  So he was fine with the Christians paying their taxes correctly, following guidelines such as traffic rules, picking up garbage, sweeping the lanes, helping the elderly, feeding the disabled, opening hospitals but maybe when he heard, "Your highness, they refuse to worship you as God and they preach Jesus is Lord!", it must have pushed his buttons!  He would want to find a justifiable reason to why he should get rid of Christians even if they did nothing wrong.  He had some Christians used for bloody entertainment, others were lit as torches, he did everything to stop Christianity just because they won't bow down to him never mind that Christians did a lot of good things to help his empire right?  What an ungrateful bastard and ingrate that Nero is!  After all the good they do, he decided to get rid of them just because they won't renounce their faith in Christ to worship a bastard.

The Bible has written some guidelines on how Christians should respond to wrongful persecution and here are the following aside from preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ continually:

Expect persecution to happen (John 15:18-21, John 16:2)

Like it or not, Christians should expect persecution from the world.  James 4:4 warns that friendship with the world means to be an enemy of God.  No Christian is a friend of the world, they are friends with God and enemies of the world.  I know it's not something to get excited about although when I'm not persecuted, I fall into doubt or I feel like that I am doing my work for Christ.  Persecution is to be expected.  During the ministry of Jesus, He already warned His followers that persecution of Christians will come.  Some people will even persecute Christians thinking they are doing God a favor.  If persecution comes, remember Jesus already warned ahead of time that persecution is already coming for the Christian.  In Matthew 10:34, He already warned that the Gospel can even separate a person from one's household.  Some people have even been disowned by their family ever since they became Christians.  A Christian should always expect persecution is part of Christian life.

Loving one's enemies and praying for them who wrongfully persecute (Matthew 5:44, Luke 6:47-48, Romans 12:14).  

It's very difficult do especially when you are insulted and your old nature is a very touchy and hypersensitive person.  More often than not, it's hard to turn the other cheek when you are mocked or insulted.  I remembered the time when I read the "Foxe's Book of Martyrs" did my blood boil against my former religion of Roman Catholicism.  However not all persecution of Christians is physical or brutal like the Inquisition, Communist regime or Islamic methods.  It's not all the time that the persecution is like the ISIS crucifying people, lining up for the firing squad, the Abu Sayyaf torturing a Christian forcing them to convert, the Inquisition putting you on a wheel or getting arrested for simply being a Christian having done nothing wrong (ex. victim of a victim player of a homosexual)... sometimes the most common persecution takes the form of cruel mockery, hurtful words, malicious literature (ex. writing false statements about someone in any form of media to derail him/her).  Some people think that while you can only mutilate a person once, you can definitely insult them again and again as much as you want to.  Praying for the persecutor is what God commands, who knows maybe that persecutor may soon be the next convert to Christ like Apostle Paul was once a persecutor against Christians became a Christian himself.

Give provisions to an enemy in need (Proverbs 24:21, Romans 12:20). 

Like it or not, God commands us to give provisions to an enemy in need.  The worldly logic is, "Get even!  Come on!  Let him or her have it!  Let him or her taste your agony!"  While the Bible does not condone parasitism of any kind, the Bible still commands you to help a person in need.  Jesus demonstrated this principle when He became a friend of sinners.  Unsaved sinners in general are His enemies because He as God, knew no sin and sin separated man from God.  But Jesus came to these wretched sinners to reconcile them who were His enemies.  When an infidel is in a dangerous situation, remember the mission of Christianity is that none should perish.  No honest to goodness Christian would want that infidel to go to Hell.  Just think of how it might shake off an unbeliever if they were in need and they got help from where they least expect it.  Just think what if a Christian soldier became a good Samaritan to a Muslim terrorist.  That Muslim terrorist might end up seeing Christianity in a very different light.  When an enemy is given Christian kindness, they might end up seeing the error of their ways and Christ in the believer.  Evangelism is both words and action, not just one without the other.

Pay your taxes properly (Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:17)

 When the Pharisees were asked, "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"  Jesus told them to look at the coin and whose inscription had it.  It was "Give to God what is unto God and to Caesar what is unto Caesar."  In short, Jesus told them to pay their taxes.  Some people are quick to say, "But the government is corrupt."  However a Biblical viewpoint is, "Be honest even when others are not."  That is, it's wrong for a government to misuse your taxes but taxes are God-ordained that is, if they misuse your taxes, they are answerable for it.  Paying taxes even to a corrupt government would hold those officials who misuse it accountable for dishonestly using honest taxes.  Although it seems foolish but Christians are commanded to pay their taxes so if they are persecuted, it's for the wrong reasons.  That is, the government cannot find any fault in the Christian who pays their taxes when they refuse to do anything unethical, it might even amaze the unbelievers around them that the Christian has a very different stand regardless.

 Submit to authority unless they tell you to do something immoral or want to silence the truth (Romans 13:1-7)

 Like it or not, by default we must submit to authority unless they do something immoral.  The best example would be Daniel (renamed Belteshazzar), Hananiah (renamed Shadrach), Mishael (renamed Meshach) and Azariah (renamed Abednego).  They submitted to the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar and if they ever disobeyed, it was through civil disobedience.  Instead of throwing the king's food or spitting at it, they simply requested for ten days of eating only vegetables and water because the king's food was forbidden by kosher law.  In Daniel 2, Daniel would later interpret King Nebuchadnezzar's dream upon request even if the king was unjustifiably cruel.  In Daniel 3, we read the story of how Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego though they followed rules and regulations showed a civil form of disobedience who disobeyed the king's mandate that they went to the king as summoned and took the punishment for their disobedience of an ungodly command, whether GOd will deliver them or not.  In Daniel 7, Daniel did not resist the arrest for not obeying the foolish law of the land to only ask King Darius for petitions.  In short, they disobeyed in a very civilized manner and not the way a lawless man would do it.  Later on, John the Baptist would not resist arrest after he rightfully rebuked Herod Antipas for having a live-in relationship with his sister-in-law Herodias.

 Remember you are blessed if you are wrongfully persecuted for Christ's sake (Matthew 5:10-11)

 Persecution is no easy task but there is a promise to that task if you are wrongfully persecuted for Christ.  There is the attachment of that blessing.  It is absurd for the world to consider a man who is wrongfully persecuted for Christ's sake as blessed but that's what the Bible says.  When a person is wrongfully persecuted for Christ, the person is indeed doing right for Christ's sake and has the chance to show Christ's love to an undying world.  Remember that persecution of Christians did not diminish Christianity, instead it made it grow.  I could imagine how much dandruff Nero must have suffered when he realized that the Christians could not be diminished.  In the Dark Ages, the Spanish Inquisition had done every brutal method against the true Christians for not bowing down to the Pope as Jesus Christ's representative on Earth or the authority of the Vatican.  The Dark Ages only brought forth the Reformation and later, not even the Jesuits could suppress true Christianity.  In Communist countries, China's persecution of Christians may only end up turning China into the biggest Christian nation in Asia as right now, Christians are getting bolder and bolder against Communism in the face of persecution.  Resistance to the Gospel in the Philippines only made born again Christians in the Philippines more determined than ever to cover the Philippines with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Just remember, they cannot crush Christianity no matter how hard they try.

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