Blessed Are the Persecuted and Reviled

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.  Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.” –Matthew 5:9-10 (ESV).

The eighth Beatitude anticipates the hard trials ahead for Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus makes this beatitude the longest of the eight, for in it He seeks to lend encouragement for the antagonism, hardships and persecutions they would surely face as the message of the New Way in Jesus Christ broke through the barriers of religious tradition and bigotry.  For those who come to the Christian faith believing that everything will be rosy forever after have not read with discernment this beatitude.  Most of us in the twenty-first century have been fortunate.  We have lived in times when Christianity has been fairly well-accepted as a belief and worship system.  But we are beginning to see that we may have to endure ridicule, criticism and ostracism for our firm faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Today, it is “politically incorrect” to call upon God in public places.  For several years now in America, anti-Christian groups have campaigned to have “In God we trust” and other mentions of sovereign God removed from public documents and public speech.  In many foreign lands, Christian missionaries have undergone severe persecution and even death for the faith they hold and the ministries they conduct to make Christ known.

“When push comes to shove,” as my ancestors so uniquely said in one of their expression of mountain talk, will we be faithful to Jesus and the gospel, even if we are ridiculed, persecuted and reviled?  Or will we lack the courage and stamina to stand up to our beliefs? 

It is interesting that Jesus’ beatitude on persecution follows so closely on His teaching that Christians are to be peacemakers.  In studying church history, we find that many were burned at the stake, endured death in the Roman arenas at the mouths of lions, were put to death on cruel crosses, even as Jesus was.  And in these instances of studying about those treated so cruelly by society, we learned that they stood true to their faith and faced death rather than recant.  Many of these Christian martyrs went to their deaths praying for their persecutors, emulating the example of Jesus who prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”  (Luke 23:34). Even with dying such cruel deaths, they were faithful to the end, bearing the truth of blessed peacemakers.  It is not easy to be a faithful Christian.  Society is at enmity with God and God’s people.  There is a conflict between the Christian and the world.  Why?  Because we are different from the world.  We do not conform to the world, but we are transformed by the renewing of our minds (see Romans 12:2).  Paul admonished that we “think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Romans 12:3).  My prayer is that we grow strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.  Persecution of a severe nature may come at any time, and even more so as we move toward “the day of the Lord,” the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Let us “put on the full armor of God…and having done all, to stand”(see Ephesians 6:10-18).  Be assured that the day is coming and now is when we need to be strong in the Lord to withstand the pressures of the anti-Christ leveled against Christians.