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Growth Blessed are they...
- Thread starter The Truth
- Start date
JohnDB
Member
The persecution isn't the blessing...
It's the fact that God sees this as an opportunity to bless those who are persecuted.
Nathan
Member
Those who are persecuted for righteousness are blessed because they have the right mindset. Knowing that this temporal life is not what we are staying in, persecution shows that a person understands heaven is the ultimate place. Hebrews gives a good description of this.
Heb 11:13
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
Jesus is just saying they are blessed because they know what is eternal verses what is temporal.
Christ_empowered
Member
hi. throughought The Bible, you see God's people at odds with the world around them. Prophets got killed in the OT. Jesus...well, our sins killed Him, and religious authorities went out of their way to use state-sanctioned violence (torture, murder) towards Him. A servant is not better than his master. Jesus, of course, is our master. Jesus tells us that He has set as apart from the world, and the world --will-- hate us as a result.
I've actually been kinda sorta pondering the persecution of Christians lately. Turns out...persecution of Christians is a big problem internationally, and its heating up. Leaders in some other countries (Merkel in Germany; maybe May in the UK?) have said some things about the situation publicly, which is good, but...
I guess persecution shows that one is genuinely, truly saved. If one isn't/wasn't, the world wouldn't mess with you, right? I can't help but notice, where I live, that the more respectable "people of faith" who are so at ease in the community often seem to be "proclaiming a form of godliness, but lacking the power thereof." My observation, anyway (its not a political thing, either; I see people like this from all over the political and ideological spectrum...).
Human nature is vicious by nature, and naturally bent away from God and anything genuinely, truly holy and good. I seem to recall Paul writing on this, the nature of unredeemed humanity. All Christians were there, once. Jesus is who and what sets us apart, His work in our lives results in us being "washed and made clean," etc.
Rambling... I guess I'm trying to say that Jesus, The Good News, Truth, etc....these things don't sit well with unredeemed humanity. Sadly, that's most of humanity. When Christians are persecuted, they are being persecuted because of Christ who lives in them, the Jesus people in the "dark and dying world" see, and the Jesus so many people hate, with a passion. To me, that means that, imperfect and flawed as all Christians are, the persecuted ones are showing Christ enough to show a glimpse of Truth, a little bit of light, etc. Their pain, their suffering through persecution, shows Christ to the world. Plus, I think a lot of Jesus' message is counter-cultural, in --any-- culture, because His message runs against human nature. A lot of people would suffer for a worldly belief they hold dear, their nation, a family member, so on and so for. Only a genuine Christian would suffer for Christ--a carpenter who was (and is) God, made flesh--in a world in which the very concept of Truth is under attack, in which money, power, and prestige usually reign supreme, in which the lowly are despised, the weak are hated, and The Good News is ridiculed, scorned....and, increasingly, attacked.
((finished, for now...))
I've actually been kinda sorta pondering the persecution of Christians lately. Turns out...persecution of Christians is a big problem internationally, and its heating up. Leaders in some other countries (Merkel in Germany; maybe May in the UK?) have said some things about the situation publicly, which is good, but...
I guess persecution shows that one is genuinely, truly saved. If one isn't/wasn't, the world wouldn't mess with you, right? I can't help but notice, where I live, that the more respectable "people of faith" who are so at ease in the community often seem to be "proclaiming a form of godliness, but lacking the power thereof." My observation, anyway (its not a political thing, either; I see people like this from all over the political and ideological spectrum...).
Human nature is vicious by nature, and naturally bent away from God and anything genuinely, truly holy and good. I seem to recall Paul writing on this, the nature of unredeemed humanity. All Christians were there, once. Jesus is who and what sets us apart, His work in our lives results in us being "washed and made clean," etc.
Rambling... I guess I'm trying to say that Jesus, The Good News, Truth, etc....these things don't sit well with unredeemed humanity. Sadly, that's most of humanity. When Christians are persecuted, they are being persecuted because of Christ who lives in them, the Jesus people in the "dark and dying world" see, and the Jesus so many people hate, with a passion. To me, that means that, imperfect and flawed as all Christians are, the persecuted ones are showing Christ enough to show a glimpse of Truth, a little bit of light, etc. Their pain, their suffering through persecution, shows Christ to the world. Plus, I think a lot of Jesus' message is counter-cultural, in --any-- culture, because His message runs against human nature. A lot of people would suffer for a worldly belief they hold dear, their nation, a family member, so on and so for. Only a genuine Christian would suffer for Christ--a carpenter who was (and is) God, made flesh--in a world in which the very concept of Truth is under attack, in which money, power, and prestige usually reign supreme, in which the lowly are despised, the weak are hated, and The Good News is ridiculed, scorned....and, increasingly, attacked.
((finished, for now...))
Last edited:
Jim Parker
Member
HE doesn't see it as a blessing "to Him."
The statement means that, if you are being persecuted for righteousness sake, then your mode of life is righteous and you wil be blessed with eternal life.