“Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse.”
Romans 12:14
I have six daughters, and all of them have learned to ride a bike. The first step in riding a bike is to learn to balance. Until a child can balance on the bike, he or she cannot possibly pedal or steer.
Enter the training wheels. We had one set of training wheels on a little bike, and used those wheels for all our kids. The kids learn to balance, and eventually, to ride.
God is a good Father and He sometimes gives us training wheels in different areas. He brings small trials so that we will be prepared when the larger trial comes. He brings small struggles before the tidal wave of sorrow that will enter our lives. These training times prepare us for the larger pains, and the growth that follows.
Many have seen and commented on the fracturing in society, and the polarization of the political world in recent years. As time progresses, the divide between the two opposing political camps grows increasingly wide, and the vitriol that is poured out grows as well.
A few minutes on social media will reveal posts from both left and right that condemn, not only the ideas of their opponents, but the actual people themselves. It seems that the ‘flavor of the day’ is bitterness, rage, and cursing. Sadly, this has spread even to the church, where many well-meaning Christians condemn political leaders with ad hominem arguments, and denounce those who disagree with harsh and disrespectful words.
However, the Bible speaks directly against this kind of behavior for Christians. In fact, we’re told that our responsibility is to bless those who persecute us rather than cursing them. We are called on to be agents of kindness, praying for our persecutors, and treating them as we would want to be treated.
This is, of course, profoundly against fallen nature.
The world would never choose kindness in response to hatred. But this is precisely what we are called to do in the face of sufferings because it reveals in us a willingness to submit ourselves to God and His great love for us. In other words, it shows faith in a loving Father—the very thing the world needs, and the thing that brings most glory to Him.
In the conservative evangelical church we often hear people saying that persecution would be good for the church. I tend to agree in part, for the sake of the purity of the church. However, those who say this loudest are often the same men and women who are most harsh on social media, and are quickest to condemn anyone who disagrees with them.
When they say persecution would be good, what they mean is that it would remove the undesirable people who don’t agree with them. But I think they would find that true persecution would be something they had never expected. They had never learned to ride with training wheels, and so true persecution would come as a painful shock.
The Romanian pastor Richard Wurmbrand, who founded Voice of the Martyrs, was persecuted and tortured in a communist prison for 14 years. He once said, “I have seen Christians in Communist prisons with fifty pounds of chains on their feet, tortured with red-hot iron pokers, in whose throats spoonfuls of salt had been forced, being kept afterward without water, starving, whipped, suffering from cold…and praying with fervor for the Communists.”
To maintain the analogy, suffering of this kind is like riding a motorcycle on a wire across the Grand Canyon. If we are going to respond to suffering like these faithful men and women, and bring glory to God, we must practice these things with the training wheels of minor persecution that God has given us in these days.
Are we quick to bless? Do we repent when we curse? Both with our hearts and our mouths?
If not, regardless of how vehemently we wish for persecution or trumpet our own future faithfulness, when persecution comes, we will be unable to remain in balance and glorify God. If we aren’t faithful in the little things, we will not be in the greater.
