The news is not that persecution of Christians around the world is on the rise. The news is that mainstream news reported it. Not that it could be ignored. The numbers were too big. They were too big to ignore, unlike the ongoing killings in Nigeria, and India, and Pakistan and arrests in China and burning and demolition of churches that occur increments that are easier to let slip by.
But, let’s be real here. Christian pleas for recognition and sympathy, as was shown for the killing of Muslims at Christchurch or institutionally marginalized people in our own culture who are rising on the shoulders of the Christian notion of the exaltation of the weak and oppressed is largely falling on deaf ears. And Christians aren’t happy about it.
Let’s be even more real here. Christians are not persecuted in the United States and never have been. That the tide of popular opinion about Christians and Christianity is turning, has turned, is not the same as persecution. That Christians are seen as the oppressors, the privileged and the keepers of the gates to be stormed by the cultural elite who have secured themselves in the cultural command center does not equate to persecution… yet.
But, we need to be careful here. We need to keep our eyes on Jesus. We need to follow His lead, and not react out of our flesh. We need to maintain the right perspective. The perspective of people for whom Jesus has made a place with Him.
The writer of Ecclesiastes said about 1000 years before Christ that “there is nothing new under the sun”. People in the post modern world may disagree but there is one thing hasn’t changed.
BEIT SHEAN,ISR – JUNE 17: Visitor walks near Pillars in Ancient Beit Shean on June 17 2009. Beit She’an is one of the most ancient sites in Israel: it was first settled 5-6 thousand years ago.
“Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.”[1]
This was the explanation for the philosophers wanting to hear what Paul had to say when he was in Athens. They brought him to the Areopagus so they could hear “the new teaching” he was explaining in the synagogues and market places.[2] They wanted to hear what he had to say, presumably, because it was new.
I have a friend who is always looking for a new way of looking at things. He is a very philosophical and thoughtful person, but he thinks he would be bored in heaven (as he imagines the heaven of clichés would be – clouds and harps… and he is probably right about that[3]).
But the writer of Ecclesiastes said about 1000 years before Christ “of the writing of many books there is no end”; yet “there is nothing new under the sun”.[4] Ironic, isn’t it, that my friend who is always looking for some new thought to chew on is no different than the Athenians in Paul’s day who were interested in “nothing except telling or hearing something new” (nearly 2000 years ago), and 1000 years before that people were doing the same thing. Yet, what is there that is really new?
Another good friend of mine, Gary Hill, who is a chief author of the Discovery Bible (an incredible NASB Bible packed with scholarly resources for the serious Bible reader[5]), described to me how seminaries require doctoral students to choose theses that have never been covered before. The pressure to come up with something new encourages people to go searching for premises that often stray from the the narrow path that Jesus talked about, who is in his very nature the way, the truth and the life.
The desire for something ever new is nothing new under the sun. It is an age old desire that the writer of Ecclesiastes criticized 1000 years before the Athenians idolized new ideas 2000 years before post modernists championed the idea “that truth is relative and truth is up to each individual to determine for himself.”[6] The idea that each individual can manufacture his or her own truth is simply an extension of this lust for something always new.
Though the writer of Ecclesiastes said about 3000 years ago that there is nothing new under the sun, the Athenians were still looking for something new 1000 years later. Two thousand years after that, one thing hasn’t changed: people in the current, postmodern world are still looking for something new .
Oh that people would long for truth, rather than novelty, for faithfulness rather than change for the sake of change.
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.”
[5] The philosophy behind The Discovery Bible is to empower people to appreciate the rich beauty of Scripture contained in the original Hebrew and Greek languages by gleaning insights from the original languages that don’t translate well into English. The Discovery Bible maps out all the emphasis in the original languages of Scripture. It contains a symbol system for marking the original verb tenses that are quite different from English, adding depth and understanding of the word of God, along with other features.
“Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin!” Psalms 51:1-2 ESV
I have written about how we can’t throw out the Old Testament and accept the New Testament in its place, as modern sensibilities might suggest. (See, for instance, Jesus and the “Old Testament God”) The Old Testament is the seed for the New Testament. Everything revealed in the New Testament was first revealed in the Old Testament. The Old Testament finds its fulfillment in the New Testament.
It seems that 21st Century people tend to want to view “the Old Testament God” as something different from the God revealed in the New Testament by Jesus, but Jesus affirmed the Old Testament. Jesus says that the Old Testament also anticipates and points toward him.
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” Luke 24:27
The Bible verse of the day quoted above was prayed by David in Psalm 51. David expressed the desire of all of us when he asked God to have mercy on him, to “blot out” his transgressions, to wash away his iniquity and to cleanse him from his sins. We all have a conscience.
We all have failed our own consciences (let alone God’s standards), and we need cleansing and redemption. This is a deep longing within each one of us.
At the same time, we have the capacity to ignore our consciences and to deny that desire for cleansing and redemption. If we do that too often and too long, our consciences become callous and dull; the desire for redemption diminishes; and we no longer have the sensitivity God built into us that drives us toward Him.
C S Lewis talks about how our desires and our needs have a correlative reality in something that fulfills those desires and needs. He observes that we hunger, and there is food to meet that hunger; we thirst, and there is water to quench that thirst; we have sexual desires, and there is conjugal love we have with another person that fulfills that desire.
The satisfaction is only temporary, however. We have longings for more lasting satisfaction. That those desires are only temporally met and satisfied, says Lewis, suggests that there is something else, something more.
We also have a deeper and more fundamental longing within us to know God and to be known by God, for relationship with God and for eternal life. CS Lewis says that the reality we know, the satisfaction of temporary longings and desires, is some evidence of a more fundamental and satisfying reality that will fulfill our enduring and deepest longings.
The ancient writer of Ecclesiastes was, perhaps, thinking along these same lines when he said that God put eternity into our hearts, yet not so much that we know very much about it:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 NIV
Whatever our experiences, our beliefs often win out. Our beliefs are not always divorced from what we want to be true, though they may be (by the same token) disconnected from reality.
The subject of near-death experiences is a deep rabbit hole I have come to find out. I have listened to a number of testimonies recently of people who have had near-death experiences. Trying to make some sense of them led me to look up what Gary Habermas has to say about them. Habermas has been involved in the research of near-death experiences (NDEs) for a couple of decades.
This blog piece follows a summary of what Habermas says about NDEs. (See Habermas on Near-Death Experiences) I am picking up here where I left off about the near-death experience of the famous atheist, Sir Alfred Jules (AJ) Ayer, that is self-described in the article, What I Saw When I was Dead. This piece explores beyond the suggestions Habermas makes (that NDEs may be influenced by worldview) and gets behind the public persona of Ayer after his NDE.
Navigating by Faith 