Why the World Needs Men
No Apologies pulls no punches: the transformation of society into a gynocracy has been a disaster. But the attack on manliness is not merely an attack against boyhood or manhood: “Ultimately the attack upon the home, and upon the marriage of man and woman, is an attack on the God who made man and woman” (183). If we call “very bad” (or even toxic) what God has called “very good,” we call God a liar. God has made men to lead and protect and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). Christians ought to honor the high calling to which God has called men. This high calling, for the glory of God, is for the good of all.
Matt Walsh’s recent film, reviewed here, documented Walsh’s worldwide quest to find an adequate answer to the age-old question, “What is a woman?” In fact, Walsh’s film aimed to expose the incoherency of the radical gender ideology sweeping the West, especially as it has impacted women and girls. In his 2022 book No Apologies: Why Civilization Depends on the Strength of Men, Anthony Esolen exposes how radical gender ideology and its evil twin, feminism, are short-sighted in their attempt to “destroy the patriarchy” by demonizing manhood as “toxic masculinity.” The book’s defense of manhood, Esolen explains, is especially for the young boys in our society. Men are strong enough to withstand attacks. Boys are being destroyed before they reach manhood.
Drawing on nature, history, literature, science, common experience, and Scripture, Esolen defends a traditionalist understanding of manhood, an understanding that recognizes the good and unique differences between men and women and the consequently different roles for men and women in the family, society, politics, and the church. Men’s unique roles in these spheres are not for self-aggrandizement, as feminists would have us believe, but for the common good—and for the good of women especially. Men performing their roles well is good for all, for “[w]e cannot corrupt one sex without corrupting the other. Male and female stand and fall together” (xi). Thus, throughout his book, as Esolen highlights men’s unique contributions to civilization that cannot be replaced by women, he does so not to demean women but to promote the good of all of society, both men and women.
Esolen repeatedly rejects the doctrinal claims of modern feminism in No Apologies. He begins in Chapter 1, “Strength,” by exposing one of the most obvious falsehoods proclaimed by modern feminism: the false claim that men and women are physically interchangeable. A woman can do anything a man can do, and sometimes better, proclaim the feminists. With colorful examples from history and his own life, Esolen demonstrates that men and women are physically unequal, and the greater strength of men enables them to perform physical tasks which women cannot. The team required to raise a barn or cut down an oak tree with an axe is necessarily male, for such tasks stretch adult men’s strength to the upper limit, thereby excluding women from direct participation. Esolen qualifies his claim–there will be some very strong women who may exceed some men in strength. Despite this, Esolen argues, men’s average strength far exceeds the average strength of women, and that is what counts when dividing labor.
Men’s unique strength is not merely external and physical but also internal and emotional. Men have a stronger ability than women to quiet their emotions when a task at hand must be accomplished. Contrary to those moderns who would encourage boys and men to express their emotions by opening the floodgate of tears, Esolen encourages boys to become men and learn when they must stiffen their upper lips and accomplish the work that must be done. To counter the claim that masculine emotional resiliency is a mere cultural relic, Esolen cites example after example from the literature of societies all over the world, past and present, Western and non-Western, which tells of men who must withstand the pull of emotion in order to accomplish their pious duty to their people and their gods. Aeneas must leave his lover Dido to fulfill his divine calling to found Rome. The Chinese master, Confucius describes the good man as he who “obeys the sacred custom, and . . . does not permit the grief to master him” (19). Native Americans told the tale of an adolescent boy who resists his grandmother’s tears in order to brave the hunt to provide for his people and courageously kill the evil murderer, Klarrheit. For Esolen, men must not allow their emotions to disable them, especially when the family and nation are depending on them to act.
In his chapter “Agency,” Esolen explores men’s drive toward action, and how that drive has historically been used for great projects that have benefited both cities and all mankind. Whereas some today object, arguing that boys’ restless energy is learned from their upbringing, Esolen correctly points out that such a claim “defies not only everything that we know about the physiology and the behavior of mammals, but also the testimony of human cultures in every climate, in every age, and at every stage of technological development” (30). Boys and men have an energy that seeks “to change the face of the earth” (30). One way or another, men will act: either to destroy or to build up. Esolen describes how men acted in coordination to build aqueducts to bring fresh water to ancient Rome. Men of modern society, given the tools of the ancient world, would have neither the mental aptitude nor the physical capability to accomplish such a task. But such tasks are what make civilization possible.
If men are those who accomplish the frankly brutal tasks that are necessary for a city or country to even exist, then men and masculinity are not dispensable. Rather, man’s inner drive prompting him to shape his world according to his will is a foundation of a flourishing society. Yet modern academics and modern politicians have promoted ideas and policies that do not encourage boys to grow into the sort of men who do great things for the sake of their people and land. Esolen tells of the work of lawyer and professor of law, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality”–an analytical tool that considers how overlapping identities can advantage or disadvantage individuals. Crenshaw’s intersectionality is for Esolen “the academic fad of our time” that has led Crenshaw to pursue policies directly detrimental to the needs of boys, such as the Equality Act (40). The Equality Act ostensibly promotes the interests of women and homosexuals, but in reality “is a dagger aimed at the heart of the healthy masculine camaraderie that builds aqueducts and lays pipelines” (40).
Modern society in America has been a disaster for boys and their potential development into men who would work to better their world. The government incentivizes family breakdown and the resulting fatherlessness. Modern education and college credentials are pushed as a cure-all, when in fact they discourage young men from pursuing the sort of work in which they would really thrive. Related to this, the trades and blue-collar work are improperly funded and discouraged as somehow less worthwhile than office work. Esolen suggests that we have structured society in this way in part because we believe the world runs on magic.
We no longer understand how things work or how things are built: like magic, special words or keystrokes are all that is necessary. Maintaining aqueducts, for example, is now done entirely through computers. What will happen when computers glitch or break? Men with know-how will have to work to repair and rebuild. Yet our society no longer produces such men. The focused, knowledgeable action of men built civilization: we have forgotten that fact to our detriment.
Men’s drive to shape the world is not merely physical. Citing psychologist Ellen Winner, Esolen explains how some men have a “‘rage to master,’ a consuming and obsessive interest in what fascinates them, often to the exclusion of more ordinary pursuits” (54).
-
“This Is Not What I Signed Up For.” Unsettling Exodus of Pastors Leaving the Ministry
Written by Jesse T. Jackson |
Thursday, September 23, 2021
A professor from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Christopher B. James, gave his thoughts as to why he believes the trend of pastors leaving ministry is occurring. James said, “In addition to being a hard job with mediocre pay, many pastors don’t think it’s worth it to try to maintain dying churches and are curious what Christian life & leadership might look like outside the clergy role. It’s part of a wider unraveling and reconfiguration of church.” White replied to Prof. James, “I think you’re on to something.”High numbers of pastors leaving ministry are an an exodus that’s concerning to pastors‘ coach and co-founder Dan White Jr. of The KINEO Center, a place focused on offering healing for tired and traumatized leaders. On May 3, 2021, White posted on Twitter that he knows 28 pastor friends who have resigned this year, most of whom are leaving pastoral ministry altogether. White coaches approximately 70 to 80 pastors a year in his circle of about 500 or so.
Why Are Pastors Leaving Ministry?
White, a former pastor himself, asked “What is occurring?”
It doesn’t seem to be in any particular denomination as White shared that his friends come from a mix of denominations including Baptist, Lutheran, Pentecostal, Anglican, Methodist, Mennonite, and Christian Reformed. Only nine of them were Evangelical pastors and just 10 out of the 28 he mentioned were bi-vocational.
“I’ve been coaching for about 10 years, never seen this kind of disruption.”- Dan White Jr.
White replied to a follower’s question about the average age and lifestyle of those he has seen transitioning out of pastoral ministry, saying in his experience they’ve been between the ages of 35 to 50. Some have served as many as 25 years in the pastoral ministry. “I do think it’s some kind of inner crisis with ‘what are my desires, really?’ coupled with a pain threshold ‘the attacks and loss are just too much; I’m miserable,’” he wrote.
He revealed that about half the 28 pastors he referred to were “People of Color” when someone asked if the majority of those who have left the ministry were African American pastors. He also stated that all of the 28 left by their choice; they weren’t forced out or fired.
A professor from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Christopher B. James, gave his thoughts as to why he believes the trend of pastors leaving ministry is occurring. James said, “In addition to being a hard job with mediocre pay, many pastors don’t think it’s worth it to try to maintain dying churches and are curious what Christian life & leadership might look like outside the clergy role. It’s part of a wider unraveling and reconfiguration of church.” White replied to Prof. James, “I think you’re on to something.”
The active Twitter thread contains a handful of pastors currently in ministry and some who have left the ministry. One pastor told White, “As a minister struggling with whether to stay in parish ministry, I’m so hurt by all the replies that blame clergy for quitting. I’ve given my life to the Church, asked my family to sacrifice & ended up with my a** kicked. American church is broken.”
A former pastor of 30 years also wrote, “I’m one of those. After 30 years I felt God was calling me out of paid ministry into the marketplace. I’m convinced that many, many pastors have lost the ability to speak the same language of those outside of the church.”
Read More -
Keeper of Our Lists
The same deposit that God gave to Paul has been given to all His children, regardless of the measure of our belief, persuasion and trust. He has “set His seal on us.” In our humanity, I believe that we’ll have periods of doubt, regret, unbelief – but God does not share in those. He is fully confident that He will keep His promise to keep us until we will see Him in all His fullness (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Chronic disease. Depression. Cancer. Self-harm. Anger. Shallow relationships. Destructive patterns of thinking. It saddens me to write these cares as a list, but they are swirling around my little world right now. I almost hesitate to list them collectively, as if The List as a whole may somehow diminish the significance of any one of them. One is enough on its own.
But somehow, by listing them all together, it’s what I need to retreat into a protective cleft hewn from this mountain of hard things and force me to stop and look for perspective. Reflection and perspective are tricky disciplines. I can be guilty of “scanning His work in vain” through “blind unbelief” as the hymn writer poetically tells me.[1] Yet, God-centered self-examination is to soften the soul, not harden it. So I trust God to place me on soft ground for His namesake as I do this hard work.
As I sit in that cleft, I am drawn to Paul’s last words to his dear Timothy. Paul was in prison, awaiting his execution. He had been arrested and sentenced to die because of his faith in and preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ. That jail cell was his cleft of perspective. His List included: loneliness, abandonment, betrayal, and extreme physical suffering, not to mention the mental suffering of waiting for death at the hands of a capricious, viciously evil emperor. Surely, it was an intense season of reflection and perspective.
However, as I read Paul’s words to Timothy, it is clear that Paul saw more than a desolate cell in the haze of his suffering. In his final days of reflection and perspective, he was confident, immovable, assured in Christ. Paul, whose inspired parting words still send sound waves through the ages, declared to Timothy, “I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded, that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed to Him against that day” (2 Timothy 1:12).
I wonder: What was it about Paul that enabled him to be so confident as he reflected on The List of his life? As a woman, I think of the verse in Proverbs 31:25 which says, “Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the days to come.” How then, can I learn to view my List with strength and dignity, with the confidence of a Paul? How do I cultivate confidence during my mid-life, when my list of sorrows seem to only get heavier?
He Knew Whom to Believe
Paul’s confidence is not in what he believed, but in whom he believed. His doctrine, apologetics, and Christian worldview – the “whats” of his belief – were not his Savior, but the very real, incarnate, ever present Almighty God. He says, “I know whom I have believed.” Looking only to “the what” leaves me bereft as I ponder: Why cancer? Why chronic, debilitating disease? Why depression? Being able to articulate the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and man’s sin puts borders around the pain, but it doesn’t sit with you in the crevice and console the heart as does the familiarity of Jesus’ presence. Only Jesus’ presence truly satisfies. Paul drew his confidence from the very real, ever faithful, intimate presence of his living Savior he had come to know through suffering side by side with Him through the Lists of his life. He says this,
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” (Philippians 3:8-10).
He knew Jesus as his Lord, not just as The Lord. He knew Jesus was faithful to him. He knew Jesus was true to him. His List was a proving ground for knowing his Savior. My heart resonates with Paul’s: I want to know Him and be found in Him, not lost in the bewilderment of my List. For me, growing in Christ in my mid-life means pushing through the informing “what” to look for Him, the Incarnate Whom I am to know.
Cultivating an intimate relationship with the Living Savior is a whole other discipline which is foreign and just a bit foolish in this material world. It requires an “other worldly” adjustment. The adjustment takes my relationship with Jesus beyond my intellect and imagination and sits me with Him in quiet expectation that He will meet with me and be near to my soul. This adjustment requires me to tune my spirit to Him in a child-like faith, respond to Him in honest prayer, and listen for His still small voice. It is indeed a strange and uncomfortable posture for someone who looks for the tangible and rational. But, God is a Spirit, and true worshippers must worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). So, as strange as this discipline may seem, this spiritual tuning is central to knowing the Lord and we should not be ashamed of it and we should encourage it, as long as it is grounded and guided by God’s revealed word.
How do we tune our spirit to His as we lay in our beds, unable to sleep because of our Lists? We do what Jesus did: We go to our heavenly Father in prayer. We tune our hearts to believe in the character of our God and how His character is sufficient for each care. Is it sin or sickness? He is the Great Physician (Mark 2:17). Is it depression? He has borne our griefs (Isaiah 53:4). Is it loneliness? He is the God who sees us (Genesis 16:13). Is it a wayward loved one? He leaves the ninety-nine (Luke 15:3-7). Is it fear of death? He leads us through the valley of its shadow (Psalm 23). In all these things, we counsel ourselves to put our faith in God (Psalm 42:5). This is what it means to “preach the gospel to yourself every day.”[2] Belief opens the door of the soul and welcomes us into the entryway of intimacy with, not just knowledge of, our Savior.
He Was Persuaded
When my husband and I took our marriage vows 29 years ago, I gave a reason for my willingness to marry and submit to him: I was persuaded he loved me. Over the course of our friendship, dating, and engagement, he had proven his love and commitment, so much so that I was willing to commit my life to him until my death. I was persuaded that whatever was to be in our future, he would be true to his vow, not to me, but to the Lord. I could trust and submit to that kind of man.
Paul’s confidence came from being persuaded that Jesus was trustworthy for his eternal future. It’s truly an amazing turn around for a man who believed that cultivating his own self-righteousness was his path to heaven. Paul, a violent Christian hater, transferred his trust from himself to trust entirely in Jesus’ goodness imputed to him, purchased for him by His death on the cross. That’s a big step for someone who studied the holiness of God and understood the severity of being wrong about where to put one’s eternal trust. He was persuaded that Jesus’ life, death and resurrection was sufficient for him, and knew his own was not. How does one become persuaded to trust Jesus completely? How did Paul get there?
Humbling and bewildering as it seems, being persuaded doesn’t start with a desire to be persuaded. It starts in eternity, in the heart of God, for His own glory and purposes, not from anything lovely or attractive in any one of us. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Ephesians 1:4). God set His affections on Paul just as He has set His affections on me. How can this be? I honestly don’t know. It’s beyond my scope. But I know that God persuaded me in my college days to put aside my arrogance, to put aside my striving for a goodness that would shake off my shame, to put aside the empty satisfaction of sin, and take up His name and be known as His. This is His work in me, apart from me. The faith I have is a faith given to me, it is not the product of any formula for living or thinking. I’m so very grateful that the trustworthiness of His eternal promises is dependent on Him, not my perfection of being fully persuaded in this earthly life.
But, just like in courtship, persuasion grows. Persuasion in belief grows by seeking out God in His word and getting to know Him there. Recently, I spent many months studying the letter to the Hebrews. Throughout my study, I kept coming back to the question, “How is this text relevant to me, a modern Christian? How do animal sacrifices, the Hebrew temple, or the high priest Melchezedek matter to my List?” I realized that in similar ways, the ancient saints had the same question, “How does God’s 4,000 year old covenant promise of a coming Messiah affect our practical life when all we see is struggle, persecution, captivity, and domination?” The writer of Hebrews gives this answer: We live by faith not by sight. Even as modern Christians, we need to see God’s promises and must welcome them from afar (Hebrews 11:13). Our “afar” is two directional – we look ahead, yes, but we also look back. Part of our sanctification is being persuaded that our life of faith is connected to a larger whole, a spiritual movement that we cannot see with our eyes, that started way before us, and one that we have been invited to join by our Savior.
Paul’s trust came from seeing, through God’s word, the sweeping epic of God’s revealed story. Paul was able to grasp the big picture because he was an ardent student of God’s word. He was persuaded through the testimony of the law and the prophets, through the history of God’s dealings with men, and through the life of Jesus which testified to God’s faithfulness to His promises. His confidence could not have come through casual study that cherry-picked favorite, feel-good verses found in 5 minute, pre-written devotionals, but by meditation on the whole counsel of God over a lifetime. He saw God’s word wholly, historically, and systematically. As modern Christians, we grow in the same way: reading, studying, meditating, applying God’s word until we see the big picture. We grow strong roots when we draw our sustenance from the deep, underground rivers of living water mined out of God’s word instead of thinking a sustaining sustenance comes from nearby surface puddles left over from light, spring rains.
How can we grow to be persuaded that God is trustworthy to transfer everything we hold dear to Him? It almost seems as if trusting Jesus for our eternal state is easier than trusting Him for our temporal cares. That is a challenging thought. Jesus has taken care of the “big thing” but we’re still holding on to the rest. If we can trust Him for the big thing, why not the cares of our Lists?[3] Perhaps they’ve become too dear to us. Perhaps we’ve forgotten our heavenly home. It’s an indication we’ve lost connection with the whole of what God is doing.
Paul encourages me to reflect on God’s larger purposes and trust God’s constant historical presence and faithfulness. A way I can grow to trust Him for my List is to look beyond it and take comfort in the truth that my List is not what God is all about. Yes, He is present here, He cares about the affairs of men. He cares deeply about my personal List. But He is also about so much more. The Hebrews admitted that “they were aliens and strangers on the earth.” Growing in confidence comes from seeking what He has revealed through the whole counsel of His word, and to discover His heart for His people globally, historically, systematically. His heart is here with us, yes, but He is lifting our eyes to trust Him that there is a greater country afar. What we see on our List only lingers; we are to look up and long for that better country just as the ancients did (Hebrews 11:16).
He Entrusted
There was a time in my youth when I challenged myself, “Live with no regrets!” I had a fearlessness (more like hubris) that if I brought my very best to whatever I set my mind and hand to, I could avoid sadness and feelings of guilt I saw in many older women. I was determined to not be a sad old lady! How foolish of me. The idea that we can live with no regrets distorts the reality of sin and our need for a Savior who has come to redeem them. Those “sad old ladies” were closer to understanding the gospel in their reflections than I did in my gumption.
Paul, in his last days, gives us no indication that he became a sad, old man, defeated and cynical. As he reflected on his List – the unseen sacrifices, the costly investments, the physical sufferings, broken relationships, the unrealized expectations and unanswered prayers– he entrusted them to Jesus in escrow until He made all things new. He acknowledged those earthly realities, but because he knew they were safe with Jesus, he could press on “forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…all of us who are mature should take such a view of things” (Philippians 3:13,15). He demonstrated this by spending his final days encouraging, equipping, and admonishing Timothy to “fan into the flame the gift of God which is in you” and to not fear or be ashamed of what lay ahead.
And, yet, here I am, writing these words to try to make sense of The List and at the same time longing for maturity. As I look at my List, I ask myself dangerous questions like, “What could I have done differently? Did I truly “do my best” in my most important roles of wife and mother? Did I love well? Did I invest wisely in the right things?” The empty encouragement I often give myself is, “Girl, give yourself grace. Don’t be too hard on yourself.” But that is not the counsel of the Scriptures.
The counsel of the Scriptures is to confess and repent; believe and trust. Many women seek and offer easy solace in pithy self-statements, but what a soul needs is an assurance in the beautiful, bloody beams of the cross of Christ. We confess our regrets and unbelief in God’s goodness because Jesus died to redeem our regrets and unbelief. We confess and repent of our sinfulness because He died to forgive us of our sinfulness. Jesus condescended to us so we would know how far His love would go. He rose from the dead to prove He is able to do all that He promised. Our Lists are the representations of why He came. Therefore, a mature view of our Lists is to humbly accept them and to see them not as representations of regrets or broken pieces that can weigh us down by sadness, but as reminders to cling to Him. Paul encourages us to embrace our Lists: “For where I am weak, He is strong, for God’s power is made manifest in weakness. So, I will boast in my weakness (2 Cor. 12:9-10).” As a Christian woman, I am to regard my List as a symbol of why He came and a rallying point for me to trust and rest in Him.
But, I can’t mistake or confuse the conclusion here: Paul’s ability to ultimately trust God with his List did not come from his strength of his belief or the power of a supreme intellect able to understand deep theological arguments, or simply from thinking clearly on days that are hard and overwhelming. His ability to trust God was because of God’s promise:
“Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (2 Corinthians 1:21-22).
The same deposit that God gave to Paul has been given to all His children, regardless of the measure of our belief, persuasion and trust. He has “set His seal on us.” In our humanity, I believe that we’ll have periods of doubt, regret, unbelief – but God does not share in those. He is fully confident that He will keep His promise to keep us until we will see Him in all His fullness (1 Corinthians 13:12). And, if God is fully assured in His own trustworthiness towards us, we can entrust Him with our Lists. This is what His stewardship of our Lists looks like: King David pens this beautiful lyric: “You number and record my wanderings; put my tears into Your bottle—are they not in Your book?” (Psalm 56:8). He catches, records, and keeps them all. Our heavenly Father is the ultimate steward of our Lists.
I honestly don’t know if I will ever be mature enough on this side of heaven to embrace my List with joy. But I can aim for contentment. I can aim to be more fully persuaded that God has a plan for it. I can aim to more fully entrust my List into the rugged, pierced hands of Jesus. I can aim to be more confident in His promise that He will keep in a bottle all that I’ve entrusted to Him – my heart, my prayers, my loved ones, my hopes and dreams, my tears, my cares – until that day when He welcomes me home and I see Him face-to-face, and He wipes every tear from my eyes.
Sharon Smith Leaman is a member of New Life in Christ Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Fredericksburg, Va.
[1] Cowper, William. God Moves in a Mysterious Way. 1774.
[2] Bridges, Jerry. The Discipline of Grace : God’s Role and Our Role in the Pursuit of Holiness. Colorado Springs, Colo., Navpress, 2006.
[3] I give credit for this statement to Rev. Douglas Kittredge, my pastor and mentor for 35 years. He was the founding pastor of New Life in Christ Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Related Posts: -
Consider Jesus: An Orientation to Hebrews
Seeing the persecution taking place elsewhere (especially through ministering to the imprisoned Timothy) and receiving word from the other elders of your church’s fears, your pastor wrote down a word of exhortation, a sermon to be read to his beloved congregation. Holding that sermon in his hands, the elder begins to read: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways…”
You may notice that this sermon is rather short. That’s because I read Hebrews in its entirety, only giving these brief thoughts before and after that reading. Since Hebrews is a written sermon, I felt it was necessary to hear it read during our gathering for worship on the Lord’s Day, as its original recipients likely first heard it.
Imagine that you are a Jewish Christian in the first century gathered for worship with your fellow Christians on the Lord’s Day.
Several years ago, you came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the long-awaited Messiah, the Christ, the Seed of woman, the Offspring of Abraham, and the Son of David. As revolting as the very thought once seemed to you, you now look with mixture of love and horror at Jesus’ crucifixion, for it was there that Isaiah’s perplexing prophesy was fulfilled: God’s suffering Servant bore His people’s sins, becoming a curse to free us from the curse of sin. Now, instead, of worshiping with your fellow Jews on the Sabbath, you gather with other Christians, many who are also Jewish, on the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day as you now call it. You do this because Jesus rose back to life on that day, and this weekly gathering is a perpetual reminder to your whole church that you worship a living Savior, who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Several years ago, whenever you were still a new Christian, you felt the fires of persecution firsthand. Like your Lord, you were mocked and reviled. Many of your brothers and sisters in Christ were thrown in prison and would have starved to death if the church did not take turns bringing them food, yet each visit brought fear that you would be imprisoned as well. Your property was even plundered by those whose minds have been darkened by the ruler of this world to hate the God of light. Some gathered with you still bear the scars of the beatings they received for bearing the name of Christ.Related Posts:
