Be Simple As Doves

"Look, I send you out like sheep among wolves.  You must be as clever as snakes and as innocent as doves.  Be on your guard with people, for they will hand you over to their courts, and they will flog you in their synagogues.  You will be brought to trial before rulers and kings because of ME, so that you may witness to them and the pagans.

But when you are arrested, do not worry about what you are to say, or how you are to say it; when the hour comes, you will be given what you are to say.  For it will not be you who speak, but the Spirit of your FATHER, speaking through you.

Brother will hand over his brother to death, and a father his child; children will turn against their parents and have them put to death.  Everyone will hate you because of ME, but whoever stands firm to the end will be saved.

When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next.  I tell you the truth, you will not have passed through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes." - Matthew 10:16-23 

The Christian Persecution

(Matthew here puts advice that JESUS gave to HIS witnesses on how to confront persecution.  JESUS HIMSELF spent long weeks hidden away and HIS first missionaries probably had to take similar precautions.  In relating these instructions Matthew has perhaps adapted them a little to the situation of Christians of his time; he has not invented them. 

We have just spoken of witnesses, and martyr in Greek means: witness.  Some of these martyrs were before long glorified, but the majority remain unknown.  They have often been disfigured by calumny [5:11; Luke 21:17] isolated even from the Christian community and later eliminated.  In certain cases entire Christian communities were massacred as in the time of the Roman empire.  Today in certain countries such atrocities continue without the media even mentioning it. 

Maybe we must recognize that martyrdom is a grace and is not given to everyone,  Many would be ready to give their life for CHRIST, but confronted with situations of violence or corruption, they do not see the necessity to expose a scandal and so submit in order to avoid the worst.  Others, on the contrary, understand that GOD is asking them to witness to the Good News that is opposite to what is imposed.  In so doing they face the repression by which Society defends itself.  Revelation affirms that the murder of witnesses advances Salvation History.

In reality, JESUS does not only speak of those who are massacred.  Far more numerous and doubtless nearer to us are those who have had to conquer fear of being HIS witnesses on the streets, in schools and in every area of this perverted and evil world [Galatians 1:4; Philippians 2:15].

Do not worry.  The witnesses of JESUS do not work on their own, and the more they are identified with JESUS in persecution and in prison, the more they are assisted by the Spirit.  By worrying while preparing their legal case, they would hinder the freedom of the Spirit and also lose the peace that the Spirit grants the persecuted.)

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