Remember Them That Are in Bonds: The Church Was Never Promised a Quiet Road

This week the wire brought hard news from Bible lands. In Egypt's Minya province, six young Christian men, the youngest still a minor, have now spent more than two weeks in custody over a short video copied from a comedy film that still plays on Egyptian television. In central Syria, the Christian town of Al-Suqaylabiyah came under attack for the second time this year. And in Jordan, gunmen opened fire on mourners at a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate.

None of this should catch a Bible reader off guard. Paul told young Timothy plainly: “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). Peter wrote to scattered believers who were already feeling the heat:

“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

1 Peter 4:12-13, KJV

Many of the believers in this week's stories worship in ways that differ from a Pentecostal or holiness church in Indiana. But the men who mock and threaten them do not ask about the fine points of doctrine. They see people who name the name of Christ. Scripture tells us how the body is meant to answer: “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26).

The Lord gives us a plain duty here, and it is not a hard one to understand: “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body” (Hebrews 13:3). Sunday, Nov. 1, is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. Let it be more than a line in the bulletin. Call the names of the places. Pray for the six young men in Minya and their families. Pray for the priest in Al-Suqaylabiyah who told his flock to stand firm. Pray for the grieving families in Karak.

There is a reason the watchman cannot treat suffering as a surprise. Our Lord did not tell His disciples they would be taken away before trouble came. He told them, “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake” (Matthew 24:9). And as He warned them, He also comforted them: “In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). The promise is not escape from tribulation. The promise is Christ Himself in it, and Christ victorious at the end of it.

The early church understood this. Near the end of the second century, Tertullian wrote his Apology to the rulers of the Roman Empire, who were then putting Christians to death. He did not beg for pity. He told them their sword was failing: “The oftener we are mown down by you, the more in number we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”

That has proved true for eighteen hundred years. The church in Egypt has outlasted every power that set itself against her. The faithful in Syria have kept the faith in the land where Saul of Tarsus met the risen Lord on the road to Damascus. They will not be the ones to fail. The question for us is whether we will remember them.

After Paul was stoned at Lystra, he and Barnabas went back through the very cities that had driven them out, “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). That is still the road. Let us walk it with our brethren, and pray for them as if we were bound with them.