I recently sat with a Nigerian church leader who showed me a chilling video that I cannot get out of my mind. Militants from Boko Haram, a terrorist group that has brutally attacked churches in this region for years, filmed themselves standing over a small group of Christians and telling everyone who would listen that they intended to kill all Christians until they submit to Islam. Then they beheaded our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Horror like this has moved me to pray and work for years on behalf of those suffering for their faith. As part of my ministry with Radical, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to Christians who have faced violence, social pressure, or jail for evangelism, church planting, or merely holding fast to their faith.
At the same time, I recognize that for many Christians, examples of persecution can feel distant, abstract, unrelatable, or overwhelming. Many persecuted Christians live in countries we have never visited and places we may struggle to pronounce. We also live in a 24-hour news cycle that inundates us with stories of war and terror, numbing us to the cost of following Jesus for our church family around the world.
But starting the next two Sundays in November, designated by the World Evangelical Alliance as the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church, and beyond, I want to invite you to join other believers around the world in interceding for those who claim Christ and suffer for doing so. I also want to dispel some myths about persecution and help you understand what persecution means and how it plays out in the world. In light of God’s command for us to remember and pray for those who are persecuted as though we are physically with them (see Heb. 13:3), I hope that learning more about persecution will help us be the global body of Christ he has called us to be.
Persecution is harassment or opposition for following Jesus. In the Sermon on the Mount, the term Jesus uses for “persecuted” means “pursued with hostility.” He goes on to describe how this can mean everything from people ridiculing, shaming, excluding, or lying about you to people arresting you, imprisoning you, driving you out, or destroying your life (see Matt. 5:10–12; 10:16–33; Luke 6:22–23). Notably, persecution is when these forms of resistance come specifically because someone is following Jesus. In Matthew 5, Jesus says to expect this hostility that occurs “because of righteousness” and “because of me.”
Persecution is not anything hard that happens to a Christian. Followers of Jesus face all sorts of tribulation in this world, just as Jesus promised (John 16:33). Often, such suffering is common to the experience of non-Christians as well. Believers and unbelievers alike receive cancer diagnoses. Believers and unbelievers alike experience suffering due to conflict or war. Believers and unbelievers alike walk through emotional distress and relational strain.
But hardship is not the same as persecution. Just because you’re a Christian and you’re feeling the effects of a fallen world doesn’t mean you’re being harassed or opposed for righteousness’ sake.
Persecution happens underground and above ground. Many Christians envision our persecuted family meeting in secret house churches. Many years ago, Radical started an event called Secret Church. This is based on times with Asian believers when I have been snuck into locations where everyone else in the room faces almost certain imprisonment if they are caught together.
But many Christians don’t realize that persecution also happens in countries where our brothers and sisters gather in open (and even large) church buildings where they are led by seminary-trained pastors. I just met with a pastor in West Africa whose church compound regularly filled with over 500 worshipers and was suddenly attacked one day by militants who began burning buildings, cars, and people. Just because Christians gather in public doesn’t mean they’re doing so without peril.
The reality of persecution can vary within countries. Take India and Indonesia. Christians may comfortably gather on Sunday mornings in the southern India state of Kerala. Meanwhile, mobs burned more than 200 churches in the eastern state of Manipur last year. A couple hundred miles southeast in Indonesia, Christians may be protected on one island and opposed on another. Just like the country where you live, safety and security can vary from region to region.
Persecution may come from the top down, from the bottom up, or from both directions. Some governments around the world forbid citizens from following Jesus and gathering together as a church. But persecution isn’t always initiated by ruling authorities. When my friend Zamir became a Christian, his brothers nearly beat him to death, and his father kicked him out of his home. Other friends of mine, whom I’ll call Samil and Aanya, were disowned by their family for following Jesus. When the couple went back years later to try to share the gospel with their parents, Aanya’s dad poisoned her to death. In some countries, political forces and family and friends work together to persecute Christians. For example, the North Korean regime prohibits Christianity, and authorities rely on family members, friends, or neighbors to report Christian activity to them.
Persecution can mean death—or discrimination. As I shared earlier, the stories of persecution in Nigeria are horrifying. For several decades now, militants have kidnapped, raped, and killed many of our brothers and sisters. At the same time, persecution of the church is not always this severe. Based on conversations I have had with brothers and sisters around the world, a Christian entrepreneur in a Middle Eastern country may lose the right to run a business—or the customers to support one. A new follower of Jesus high up in the Himalayas may lose the right to water or electricity in his or her village. A church in a Southeast Asian city may be forced to pay extra (and sometimes exorbitant) fees to rent or own a building.
In Europe and the Americas, believers often preface any mention of persecution in their lives by saying, “It’s not near as bad as what our brothers and sisters around the world are experiencing,” and that is unquestionably true. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still persecution when a British Christian is arrested for praying silently outside an abortion clinic or an American Christian is fired from his job for expressing his views on biblical sexuality.
Persecution follows identification and proclamation. From the beginning of the church in the book of Acts, persecution has occurred whenever people have professed or propagated faith in Jesus. The Greek word for “witness” in Acts 1:8 is martus, from which we get the word martyr. As long as my friend Halima stays private and quiet about her faith in Somalia, then she can avoid persecution. But as soon as she communicates that she has turned from Islam to follow Jesus, she will likely be killed. Depending on the Indian state, sharing the gospel with someone else could land you in jail, while leading someone to Jesus and baptizing them could mean a decade of imprisonment.
The purpose of persecution is to silence witness. When persecution first broke out against the church in Acts 4, Jewish leaders commanded Christians “not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” Peter and John responded by saying, “We cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (vv. 18–20). After gathering to pray, early Christians were “all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (v. 31).
This is important to remember when Christians in freer parts of the world often say things like “I witness by being a good person or by doing good works.” This may sound good to us, but it’s not what the Bible means by witnessing. In many parts of the world, our brothers and sisters in Christ are fairly safe if they are no more than good people doing good works. But when they speak of what they have seen and heard, they suffer.
Persecution is guaranteed not just for other Christians but also for us. In light of all of the above, it’s a matter of obedience to God to pray specifically for our brothers and sisters in parts of the world where persecution is fiercest (Heb. 13:3). This cannot be overstated: We have a biblical and familial responsibility to pray and work for our brothers and sisters, particularly in countries like North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan. At the same time, God also makes clear in his Word that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12). Notice the words “everyone” and “will.” Persecution is not a “maybe” for “some” Christians.
If you are not experiencing persecution to some degree, you need to ask the question “Am I professing and propagating faith in Jesus?” In other words, are you clearly and uncompromisingly identifying with Jesus; humbly and boldly proclaiming Jesus; telling people about his life, death, and resurrection; and calling others to repent and believe in Jesus because their life now and forever in heaven or hell hinges on their response to him?
If we are not professing faith in Jesus like this, then we need to realize as we pray for the persecuted church that our lives are actually sympathizing with their persecutors. That may sound like an offensive overstatement, but consider this: If the purpose of persecution is to silence witness, and you or I are silencing our own witness, then we are reflecting the persecutors, not the persecuted.
But if we boldly identify with Jesus and testify to him, then we are identifying with the persecuted church as we pray. And according to 2 Timothy 3, we can be sure that persecution is coming for us. The more we give our lives to following Jesus and making him known in our neighborhoods and all nations, particularly in places where the gospel has not yet gone, the more we will experience persecution. Let’s intercede for our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ around the world to be faithful to the end, knowing that every Christian needs similar intercessors to do the same.
David Platt serves as a lead pastor for McLean Bible Church and is the author of books including Radical and Don’t Hold Back. He is also the founder of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
