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May 23, 2008
In Pastor's Words
Me, A Martyr?
If we thought for a minute that our profession of faith in Christ would lead to certain martyrdom, it might cause our heart to skip a beat or send a chill down our spine. Our understanding of “martyr” is that it refers to persecution and death for one’s bold and unwavering witness for Jesus Christ. But, did you know that “martyr” did not always mean death for the faith? The Greek word for “martyr” is martus, meaning “witness.” Early Christians were witnesses and witnesses were martyrs in the truest sense. As Christianity spread outward from its Middle Eastern base in every direction, and met with opposition and the persecution and death of its proponents, the meaning of “martyr” gradually changed in time to only meaning “death for the faith.”
One famous martyr, St. Justin, who lived in the early part of the second century, was such a defender of the Christian faith, that he was beheaded for his unflinching witness in 165 AD by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. His staunch witness for Christ earned him the given surname, Martyr. It was an age of martyrs. John Foxe, in his book, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, written in the late 16th century, details the accounts of numerous persecutions and deaths of Christian witnesses down through the ages to his time. The book has been amended several times since to include the martyrdom of thousands and thousands of Christians in the succeeding centuries. In his book, John Foxe recounts the thousands martyred under the first persecutions under Nero, the exhibition of martyred Christians during the gladiatorial games in the Coliseum and in other arenas, the persecution and deaths of John Wyckliffe and William Tyndale, burned at the stake for their faith, the persecution of Martin Luther and the martyrdom of so many others in history.
On the evening of March 17, 2004, while I served as the Administrator of Missionary Relations at Africa Inland Mission in New York, word came to me from the heart of Africa that two of our missionaries, Warren and Donna Pett, had been murdered at their home in Uganda. While the killers were never caught, to my knowledge, witnesses attested to the fact that they died for their witness to Jesus Christ. Warren and Donna joined that long list of Christian martyrs down through the ages. It was my duty to be the first to convey this news to the family in Wisconsin. As recently as April 20, 1999, Cassie Bernall, seventeen, was in the library at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, studying the Bible as she did every day at lunch when, suddenly, she heard shooting erupt. A gunman entered the room. Cassie knelt and prayed, angering the attacker. He approached her and, sarcastically, asked her if she believed in God. She paused and then said, “yes,” to which the gunman asked “why,” and then shot her. She is a martyr for Christ, a “witness” who stood her ground as a Christian under the greatest duress. Incidents of Christian martyrdom occur frequently around the world which are never reported in the world press.
We as Christians are martyrs in the strictest sense of the word if we hold firm to our faith. We may never be called on to endure “martyrdom,” in the widest understanding of the term, but we may. But as true believers in Christ, we have no choice. St. Jerome said in the 4th century, “The Church of Christ has been founded by shedding its own blood, not that of others; by enduring outrage, not by inflicting it. Persecutions have made it grow; martyrdoms have crowned it.” You ask, “me, a martyr?” Says the Bible, “if we died with him, we will also live with him; if we endure, we will also reign with him. If we disown him, he will also disown us” (2 Timothy 2:11,12).
Pastor Ralph Partelow
Posted by Jennifer Herrmann at May 23, 2008 09:25 AM