You'll Never Guess What Terrifies Russia

About every couple of months, I have the privilege of sharing the gospel with Jehovah’s Witnesses. There’s a Kingdom Hall two or three blocks away from my house, so I’ve become quite familiar with a few of them through the years.

It’s easy to get sidetracked in these conversations, but one of the main messages you want to get across is that Jesus is not simply the first and best thing God created. No. Jesus is the Lord God manifested to the world. I’ve demonstrated a couple of the methods I use with Jehovah’s Witnesses to help lead them to this truth (here and here), but I’ve found that what starts to bring down their defenses has nothing to do with Jesus’ divinity.

Though their founder was a false prophet and they have some seriously flawed beliefs about Jesus and other things, Jehovah’s Witnesses are generally really good people. They take the Sermon on the Mount very seriously, probably much more simply and seriously than most evangelicals. Their strict adherence to Matthew 5 is one of the examples they use to prove that they have the truth.

Also, most Jehovah’s Witnesses I speak with have been taught that after the original Apostles died, the beliefs and practices of the Church were corrupted. So, I’ve found that I gain some ground with them when I explain that there are no recorded homicides committed by Christians against unbelievers until after 380CE, when Roman Emperor Theodosius declared that everyone in the Empire must become a Christian. They are equally surprised when they learn that the early Christians were declared enemies of the State and hunted down for their undivided devotion to Jesus and His teaching.

Tertullian, one of many early Christian apologists, elucidated this truth well at the end of the second century.

We are equally forbidden to wish ill, to do ill, to speak ill, to think ill of all men. … If we are enjoined, then, to love our enemies, as I have remarked above, whom have we to hate? If injured, we are forbidden to retaliate, lest we become as bad ourselves: who can suffer injury at our hands? … As those in whom all zeal in the pursuit of glory and honor is dead, we have no pressing inducement to take part in your public meetings; nor is there anything at all more entirely foreign to us than affairs of state. … We are charged with being irreligious towards the Caesars, since we neither propitiate their images nor swear by their genius. We are called enemies of the people. – Tertullian 195CE, ANF Vol. 3, p. 65-67, 196 [CD-ROM]

Clearly, the early Christians posed no physical threat to the Roman Empire. Depending on the transformative power of the gospel, they refused to try to change the world through politics or violent revolutions. And yet, they were furiously persecuted as supposed enemies of the State.

On April 6, 2017, Russia's Supreme Court upheld a decision by a Russian city to ban Jehovah's Witnesses, labeling them an extremist group. The ruling arrived during proceedings on a Justice Ministry suit seeking to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia completely. And why is that?

Time.com states, “Jehovah's Witnesses are pacifists, and their religious beliefs require them to abstain from political activity. They declare allegiance only to God, not to a state or political entity. They do not vote, lobby, protest, or join military. This lack of participation can be seen as a threat if a state demands nationalist and patriotic activity.”

In many respects, the Jehovah’s Witnesses are being viewed as a threat to Russian national security because of their strict interpretation of and adherence to the Sermon on the Mount and other words of Jesus.

Don’t get me wrong. I definitely believe the Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the many cult groups in the world. That being said, when a heretical religious group reflects many of the practices of the early Christians more closely than most modern Western believers, we might want to take some time to assess the hermeneutics that influence our approach toward Jesus’ teachings.  

If Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. could be challenged and inspired by the way Mahatma Gandhi (a Hindu who rejected the lordship of Jesus) implemented the nonviolent red letters of the New Testament, we Christians should be motivated by the devotion of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Just imagine the panic that would break out in the kingdom of darkness if Christians worldwide began to faithfully practice the simple words of Christ!    

Simply Jesus Pt. 18: “Love Your Enemies”

A few Sundays ago, the two house churches I help oversee came together to discuss various ways that Jesus calls us to suffer for His name’s sake. It was both a challenging and edifying conversation.

At one point, someone brought up the issue of self-defense; as in, surely God understands if we do harm to someone when our lives are being threatened, right?

That thought process certainly makes perfect sense in American society, but what did King Jesus say?

Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. – Luke 6:31-36

“But,” one might say, “that passage must be an example of Jesus using hyperbole. I mean, it just isn’t practical. Surely He doesn’t expect His followers to actually put those teachings into practice, right? Christianity would be wiped off the face of the earth!”

I understand why someone would think that way, but those thoughts are most likely coming from someone who has not been taught the history of the earliest believers of the way of Jesus. The earliest Christians viewed Jesus’ command to love our enemies as a powerful method of evangelism.

Christians … live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. … They love all people and are persecuted by all. Nobody knows them, and yet they are condemned. They are put to death, and just through this, they are brought to life. … They are abused, and yet they bless. They are assaulted, and yet it is they who show respect. Doing good, they are sentenced like evildoers. When punished with death, they rejoice in the certainty of being awakened to life. … In a word: what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world. – Letter to Diognetus 125-200CE, Volume 1, p. 47-48 [CD-ROM]

This is not a proof text of the Ante-Nicene Christians. They taught and lived out this command in the face of unimaginable persecution without resorting to retaliation. And by the beginning of the 4^th century, Christianity made up 1/10th of the Roman Empire despite being an illegal religion.

One of the main reasons they chose to love their enemies, in addition to viewing Jesus as Lord, is their belief that He truly died for everyone and desires all to be saved.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. modeled how the power of the gospel is unleashed when we take Jesus at His word. He reflected the courage of our Savior by not seeking to destroy evil with evil, but rather, by overcoming evil with good.

In 1962, as Dr. King was speaking at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a 200lb white man rushed the stage and began to beat King with his fists. Dr. King dropped his hands and began to speak softly to the man, assuring the man that he would not be harmed by anyone there. But the man, a member of the American Nazi Party, kept on beating him.

Eventually, one of the conference leaders intervened, but Dr. King yelled out, “Don’t touch him! Don’t touch him. We have to pray for him.” After the assault, Dr. King and his aides met with the young man in a private room to speak with him, and later King informed the crowd at the convention that he would not be pressing charges against his persecutor.

Who lives like that? It’s like Dr. King was from another world.

Yet, that’s the way the early Christians, the apostles and King Jesus Himself said we are to live. Jesus said His kingdom is not of this world. Paul said our citizenship is in heaven. And now more than ever, we Christians need to demonstrate heavenly courage in loving our enemies so that once again we can be to the world what the soul is to the body. 

Simply Jesus Pt. 2: Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

The last few days have been interesting to say the least. During a men’s league basketball game Monday night, I seriously injured my surgically repaired right knee. Unless God does a miracle, it’s looking like operation number four.

The next morning, instead of mowing my overgrown lawn myself, I took the opportunity to teach my 12-year-old son how to do it. It was a great bonding experience. Yet, right after he had passed the halfway point, I received a call from my wife saying her car wouldn’t start, and no one in the Walmart parking lot would help jump her car.

I was loaded up on painkillers, so it wouldn’t have been a good idea for me to drive with the kids to help her out. Instead, I called my friend Terry, a deacon at our house church, and asked if he could help Stephanie. He gladly agreed, even though it would mean missing his haircut appointment and driving quite a ways away from where he was.

While Stephanie was waiting, a woman pulled up in front of her car, sobbing. Stephanie approached her and asked what was wrong. The woman said that she just received word of a death in her family. Stephanie asked if she could pray for the woman, and did right there in the parking lot. The grief-stricken woman was tremendously appreciative that Stephanie took the time to minister to her.

Stephanie had been waiting outside Walmart for over 45 minutes when God sent a kind stranger named Jeffery to help her out. He told her, “With all that is going on in the world, there are still people out there that are good and want to serve the Lord.”

Evidently, while the man was working on Stephanie’s car, Terry realized that I had accidently sent him to the wrong Walmart. I blame the painkillers. Anyway, an already long drive grew exponentially. And by the time Terry arrived, Stephanie had just pulled out of the parking lot.  

I must add a small but crucial detail to this beautiful story. My wife and I were both in places of need that day, and God used three African American males to meet our needs. My African American son learned how to mow the lawn to help me out. Terry and Jeffrey, both African American men, inconvenienced themselves to help my wife. All three of them demonstrated what it means to love your neighbor as yourself.

Maybe some people think that detail shouldn’t matter, but I think it does. The media survives and thrives on spewing stories of racial hatred. Tales of racial reconciliation simply don’t sell. However, one of the most popular stories of all time exemplifies what it means to be a neighbor, and happens to be all about racial reconciliation.

One day Jesus was confronted by an expert in the Jewish law, and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked the man what he believed the law stated, to which the man replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself (Luke 10:27).”

Jesus told him to do those things and he would live. Realizing that he was in trouble, the lawyer sought to justify his lack of love by asking, “And who is my neighbor (Luke 10:29)?” Jesus responded by telling the famous parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan is a profound story about a Samaritan man going to incredible lengths to demonstrate the love and mercy of God to a man of a different race that considered him an enemy, and in many ways, less than human.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about this very issue in his sermon, On Being a Good Neighbor:

“The Samaritan was good because he made concern for others the first law of his life. … One of the great tragedies of man’s long trek along the highway of history has been the limiting of neighborly concern to tribe, race, class or nation. … More than ever before, my friends, men of all races and nations are today challenged to be neighborly. … No longer can we engage in the luxury of passing by on the other side. Such folly was once called moral failure; today it will lead to universal suicide.

In our quest to make neighborly love a reality, we have, in addition to the inspiring example of the good Samaritan, the magnanimous life of our Christ to guide us. His altruism was universal, for He thought of all men, even publican and the sinners… His altruism was dangerous, for He willingly traveled hazardous roads in a cause He knew was right. His altruism was excessive, for He chose to die on Calvary, history’s most magnificent expression of obedience to the unenforceable.”

Dr. King is one of my heroes. He possessed unwavering conviction to living out the teachings of Jesus in the face of unimaginable persecution. And though he passionately sought the welfare and salvation of all people, he refused to sink into the mire of the postmodern universalism of his time. Unlike many today, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would have fit in nicely with the early Christians.

Justin Martyr, a second century Christian apologist wrote this about the second greatest commandment:

The man who loves his neighbor as himself will wish for him the same good things that he wishes for himself, and no man will wish evil things for himself. Accordingly, he who loves his neighbor would pray and labor that his neighbor may be possessed of the same benefits as himself. – Justin Martyr 160CE, Volume 1, p. 399 [CD-ROM]

Do you want to meet Jesus face-to-face and be overjoyed when you see Him? Do you want to be transformed into His image when you receive your glorified body? Do you want to be one with Jesus as He and the Father are one? Do you want to experience the day when everything wrong is reversed, and God wipes every tear from your eye, no more hungering or thirsting, and you know fully even as you are fully known?

To love your neighbors as yourself means to pray and labor for them to experience the same benefits that you seek for yourself. Not just pray, but also labor. Not just for those people you like. Not just for those people who like you. Not just for those people who look like you.

Who needs you to be a neighbor to them today?