“I will show him how much he
must suffer for the sake of my name.”
Imagine for a second that at the time you came to Christ you
had been told that your life from this day forward was to be characterized by
people throwing rocks at you, telling lies about you, betraying you and letting you down, calling you names,
hitting you, throwing you in jail and trying to kill you. Moreover, in addition
to all the abuse you could expect as a matter of course from your fellow man
for the sake of your testimony to Christ, you could also expect more than your fair
share of all the nasty, apparently random things that happen to people the
world over: getting mugged, having to work hard, getting no sleep, getting
sick, suffering chronic pain from old injuries, lacking food and having your
transportation fail regularly in spectacular and dangerous ways.
Would that have changed anything? Might a bout of frantic
back-peddling have ensued?
In some cases, maybe.