And Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. (verse 7)
It was rare to be persecuted for being a Christian. No, you were persecuted for being a Christian and nothing else, for having no king but Jesus, for believing that He is King of kings and Lord of lords. Believing that Jesus is higher than Caesar is what got most Christians into trouble.
It is the same today. Christians are relatively safe as long as they are not exclusive. Jesus can be their God, but we mustn’t stop others from having their own gods. We mustn’t proclaim God’s standards; they are to ‘intolerant’. Sadly, much of the Christian church has succumbed to the world’s standards. I’ve sat in sermons where the preacher has declared that the phrase “I am the way, the truth and the life, and nobody comes to the Father except through me” is just for Christians. Churches are splitting over whether practising homosexuals can be ministers. Purity is laughed at. We must be like the world in order to escape being persecuted.
This is not the way! Rejoice in your sufferings, for in suffering, even in small amounts, we show our Saviour to be worthy, to be the only one worth living and dying for. When we suffer for His sake we demonstrate to the world a small portion of just how great He truly is.
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