Romans 6:23
In her book, Kingdom without Borders, Professor Miriam Adeney tells about the experiences of Christians in the non-western world.
Here is some of what she says about the experiences of Christians in Iran.
Reliable sources estimate that there are more than 800,000 followers of Jesus inside Iran. But following Jesus is costly. Some believers are fired from their jobs. Others are imprisoned. Even when they live in distant countries, some Iranians have been grabbed by masked men, shoved into cars and whisked away. In recent years numerous prominent pastors have been killed…
Muslim regimes do not foster religious freedom. Certain minorities like Jews, Baha’is and some ancient Christian groups are tolerated because these people have never been Muslim. It is conversion out of Islam that is prohibited.[1]
As Adeney says, the problem exists beyond Iran. Back in 2006, the western news media was focused on the fate of Abdul Rahman. Rahman was a 41-year-old Afghan who converted to Christianity while working in Pakistan. He lost his family because of his conversion and was unable to return to his homeland where converting to Christianity is a crime. Essentially homeless, he began to wander through Europe hoping to find asylum. Because he lacked proper papers, he was deported back to Afghanistan
Once there, he tried to see his daughters, but his wife’s family reported his conversion and he was arrested.
He was put on trial in Kabul where prosecutors sought the death penalty for his refusal to return to Islam.
The Afghan based Ariana TV reported on the trial. From the story, we know the prosecutor asked Rahman, “Do you confess that you have apostatized from Islam?” He answered, “No, I am not an apostate. I believe in God.”
The prosecutor then asked, “Do you believe in the Quran?” Rahman answered, “I believe in the New Testament and I love Jesus Christ.”
Western leaders, including Condoleezza Rice, put pressure on the Afghan government to release him. Finally, the Italian government offered him asylum and he was allowed to move to Italy.
His story is a reminder that living for Christ in some places is buying trouble. Still, men and women in Islamic countries are becoming Christians. In some nations, where militant Hindus react violently to Christian converts, men and women continue to turn to Christ. In communist nations, where being a Christian limits your opportunities and may put you in conflict with the law, men and women continue to put their faith in Christ. And, in Western nations like ours, where conversion is not illegal, those who truly embrace faith in Christ may find themselves facing the ridicule and disdain of their friends. Sometimes Christians face disapproval and rudeness by coworkers who have deep-seated prejudices against Christians. Still, men and women quietly take their stand for Christ in the workplace.
Why do these people buy trouble for themselves?
Apparently, they believe it is one situation in which buying trouble is worth the cost.
Those who trust Christ believe it’s worth the trouble because it links them to the most remarkable Man who ever lived.
Remember Rahman’s statement in court: “I believe in the New Testament and I love Jesus Christ.”
Christian missionaries and evangelists may debate philosophy with non-Christians, but missions and evangelism is not about debating ideas; they’re about presenting a Person.
In Jesus, you’ll find a Man of remarkable compassion.
--toward the outcasts. Lepers were the outcasts of the outcasts; other outcasts didn’t want to have anything to do with them. A leper once asked Jesus for help. “And His heart was moved with pity for him, so He stretched out His hand and touched him, and said, ‘I do want to heal you! Be cured!’” No one would touch a leper but Jesus did.
--toward those who’d made wrecks of their lives. (John 8àA woman who had been caught in adultery learned Jesus was more interested in getting her life back together than in making an example of her.
In Jesus, you’ll find a Man who was continually challenging.
--what he said and what he did inspired curiosity because he was a Man who couldn’t be easily explained. Consider the story Mark tells about what happened one dark and stormy night:
Late that day he said to them, “Let’s go across to the other side.”
They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along.
A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it.
And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?”
Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass.
Jesus reprimanded the disciples: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?”
They were in absolute awe, staggered. “Who is this, anyway?” they asked. “Wind and sea at his beck and call!”
They took him in the boat as he was. Other boats came along.
A huge storm came up. Waves poured into the boat, threatening to sink it.
And Jesus was in the stern, head on a pillow, sleeping! They roused him, saying, “Teacher, is it nothing to you that we’re going down?”
Awake now, he told the wind to pipe down and said to the sea, “Quiet! Settle down!” The wind ran out of breath; the sea became smooth as glass.
Jesus reprimanded the disciples: “Why are you such cowards? Don’t you have any faith at all?”
They were in absolute awe, staggered. “Who is this, anyway?” they asked. “Wind and sea at his beck and call!”
--he challenged the way they thought about God. One of the biggest ideas he tried to get across was the notion of God as Father. “Our Father”—he taught them to pray. In one of Jesus’ best-known stories God is depicted as a waiting father who yearns for nothing more than to embrace his wayward child.
His teachings and his miracles were all hints which led his followers toward a remarkable conclusion: Jesus was God incognito. After the crucifixion and the resurrection, Jesus’ followers recognized the truth—this Man who had been challenging them for three years was God in the flesh. God had lived among us to show us what he is like and to call us to himself.
Gandhi once asked E. Stanley Jones how he found God. Jones said, “I didn’t find God—he found me. Religions teach man’s search for God and the gospel teaches God’s search for man.”
So, the most amazing challenge to the way they thought about God was the fact that God himself came here to solve the problem we couldn’t solve for ourselves. It’s the problem of our estrangement from God.
Those who trust Christ believe it’s worth the trouble because Christ offers the best hope for positive change in the world.
I just mentioned Gandhi. You know him as the man who tirelessly worked to free India from British control. He’s known for his policy of non-violence which he claimed was inspired by Jesus. Though he was not a believer, he greatly admired Jesus and it’s said he always carried a copy of gospels with him. We rightly admire his passion for liberty.
Yet, Bertrand Russell—an agnostic—pointed out that Gandhi was successful only because he was appealing to the sympathies of a nation that had been Christianized.
In his inaugural address, Jesus revealed his mission went beyond what we usually consider spiritual issues. In his hometown synagogue at Capernaum, he applied a passage from Isaiah to himself.
God’s Spirit is on me; he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor, Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, To set the burdened and battered free,
Jesus healed sick souls and sick bodies. He filled empty hearts and empty stomachs. Elton Trueblood said Christianity is the most materialistic religion in the world. By that, he meant we have a concern for this world as well as the next.
Most religions have a concern for the poor; so does Christianity. But Christians are to be concerned for the poor because they are made in God’s image, because they are men and women for whom Christ died. That’s why we care for them, not because helping them helps us toward heaven.
Christianity is not about escapism, it is about engagement with the world to make the world different. We may sing “this world is not my home,” but the thought of heaven doesn’t give us permission to ignore the world’s problems any more than the fact we’ll be only be there overnight gives us permission to trash our hotel room.
Bible translator J. B. Philipps explains the Christian’s attitude toward the world.
Christianity is an invitation to true living, and its truth is only endorsed by actual experience. When a man becomes a committed Christian, he sooner or later sees the falsity, the illusions, and the limitations of the humanist geocentric way of thinking. He becomes (sometimes suddenly, but more often gradually) aware of a greatly enhanced meaning in life and of a greatly heightened personal responsibility. Beneath the surface of things as they seem to be, he can discern a kind of cosmic conflict in which he is now personally and consciously involved. He has ceased to be a spectator or a commentator and a certain small part of the battlefield is his alone.
Jesus never allowed his followers to separate the love for God from the love for others. When his critics asked, “Which one commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus said, “Okay, here’s both of them.” Of course, what he said was, “Love God…love your neighbor.”
Wherever Christianity has gone it has built schools, hospitals, and orphanages. Christians were the first to build hospitals to care for all people, not just the wealthy.
If we want to make a positive change in the world, we will continue to preach Christ. We will do so even if we are called narrow-minded, bigots, unenlightened, ignorant. We will buy that kind of trouble because Christ makes a difference.
Those who trust Christ believe it’s worth the trouble because Christ resolves the greatest problem we face.
About a year before my first knee surgery, Pat and I visited San Antonio. You probably know it’s a beautiful city with a rich history. Of course, we saw the Alamo which is forever etched in Texas
There are several ways down to the river-walk, most of them involving stairs. At that time I tried to avoid stairs as much as possible so we were happy when we discovered that, just a block or so from our hotel, there was an elevator which went down to the river level. It promised to be such a blessing.
Well, as soon as we stepped into the elevator and the door closed, we realized we weren’t the first people to have used that elevator. The stench of urine and stale vomit assaulted us. I don’t know if the homeless or drunken tourists were responsible for the elevator’s condition, but we never used it again.
What the Bible calls sin has that kind of impact. Talents, gifts, and abilities that might have been used to make the world a better place have been sullied and corrupted. They’re not precisely unusable but they are forever marked as being something other than they were intended to be.
This is how we explain those gifted people who use their God-given talents to harm or abuse people. It explains how the people who gave the world Beethoven and Bach could flock after a beast like Hitler. Chesterton thought those who denied the reality of sin were foolish since the notion of human sin is the only Christian doctrine which is empirically verifiable.
God created humankind so we might forever have fellowship with him. Sin makes that impossible. It’s a problem we can’t solve.
Yet, God deals with our sin by offering forgiveness, not on account of what we have done but because of what Christ has done. It’s an act of grace—God’s unmerited good will.
Paul wrote, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
The religion which Abdul Rahman left behind imagines that after death we will stand before a great set of scales. Each of us will watch as our good deeds are weighed against our sins. If our good deeds outweigh the bad, we may enter heaven. If they don’t, we face hell. No one knows what the outcome will be until death; the only sure way to make it into heaven is to die as a martyr.
Too many around us believe Christianity teaches much the same thing. They believe our hope of heaven rests in our good works. That kind of thinking only leads to despair.
The gospel offers a far different hope. That person who rests on Christ’s work has God’s own word promising forgiveness.
Jesus provides what no amount of self-effort could ever provide. No wonder so many who trust him are ready to buy trouble for themselves.
Those Christians who are willing to buy trouble for themselves know it’s worth the cost. Do you? Knowing its worth, they’re willing to take a stand for Christ. Are you?
[1] Miriam Adeney, Kingdom Without Borders: the Untold Story of Global Christianity, Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009, p. 145.
