Silent Persecution

2 Corinthians 7:4

Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my boasting on your behalf. I am filled with comfort. I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation.

I have been reading the book, Revolution in World Missions, by J.P. Yohannan; it is his story about being a missionary.  As he is describing how he views the people of the United States he makes the statement “Americans have never known the fear of persecution”.  Although the entire description was a real eye-opener, actually heart-opener, for me, this statement stuck out to me and I must say I agree with him 100%, but after a week of this on my mind something came to me tonight.  I have been constantly wondering why have we not had to suffer persecution for the sake of the gospel?  What makes us different than a large part of the world?  Then it hit me---the idea of the silent persecution.  No, we are not physically persecuted for serving Christ, but have we been ever-so-slightly silenced from spreading the gospel?  We have no problems going to church and worshiping Jesus with boldness, but what about other places?  As Christians, we have become tolerant and complacent with our faith.  Jesus might have shown everyone love, but he was never tolerant of sin and he was definitely not complacent with his ministry.  Aren’t we called to follow his example?  Now don’t get me wrong, while we have been silenced to some degree, we have allowed it to happen.  Instead of being bold and saying ‘no, we will pray no matter what’, we made excuses for why prayer was taken away from certain places.  How many other things have we, as Christians, allowed to fall to the wayside because we don’t want to offend anyone with our religion?  Really we don’t want to offend, when the Bible calls us to be bold!  What will it take for us to bind together as Christians and say no more.  When will we wake up from this silence? 

I was shocked to see the negative comments about Tim Tebow for being bold with his faith and love for Jesus Christ.  In fact, a fellow Christian even remarked that he should tone down his boldness.  Really?  I have not found that instruction anywhere in God’s Word.  Mr. Tebow has a large platform and he is using it---no matter what anyone has to say about him.  No one is physically persecuting him, but he is definitely under a lot of pressure to be silent.  Think about this…Satan is smart and he knows that he cannot use physical persecution in the United States.  He knows that if it happened that it would cause us Christians to rise up for the sake of the gospel, so he uses the tool of silence.  He is blinding us with silence.  We will not make it to heaven by being silent, tolerant, and complacent.  We will join Jesus in heaven after we join him on earth!

Let us not forget that this is not our home and that we are not of this world.

I Peter 2:11-12

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.  Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.

Philippians 3:20

 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ"

Great link with many scriptures about boldness.
http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/?search=boldness&version1=50&searchtype=all