CHRISTIANS DIE WELL

[I came across this in William Barclay's DAILY CELEBRATION - Volume 2.  I felt compelled to share it with you today!]

T. R. Glover published his book, THE JESUS OF HISTORY, in 1917.  In it, he discusses the triumph of Christianity in the ancient world.  

It was a highly improbable triumph.  How did it happen that a small group of simple and unlettered men could go out into the world with the story of a crucified Jewish criminal and persuade men and women to take that Jesus as savior and Lord?  

Glover's answer is that the Christians were enabled by the grace of God to do three things - they outlived, they out-died, and they out-thought the pagan world.

THEY OUTLIVED THE WORLD

Why were they able to do this?  Because they could say of Jesus: "He loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal.2:20).  Every man had acquired a new dignity and a new worth because he could say that for him, as a person, the Son of God had died.

Further, he believed that the Son of God had loved and given Himself for all men.  He had therefore a motive for service that no one else had.

He was eager to help the man for whom Christ died.  He had a motive of forgiveness such as no one else had.  However unpleasant that other man might be, Jesus Christ had died for him.

He had a motive for purity such as no one else had.  He could look at a prostitute - "the victim of the common lust" as Tertullian called her - and he could know that even for her Christ had died.  And therefore he must treat her as a daughter of God and the beloved of Jesus Christ.  [Imagine how reduced the clicks for pornography would be if today's Christian men and women thought this way?]

Once a man could say "He loved me and gave Himself for me", and once he knew that that was true of everyone including himself, life could become a "new creation".

THEY OUT-DIED THE WORLD

It was this that won Tertullian, the famous Roman lawyer.  He saw the Christians die, and it shook him to the depths of his being!  "Every man," he said, "who sees it is moved with some misgiving, and is set on fire to learn the reason; he enquires and he is taught;  and when he has learned the truth he instantly follows it himself."  

When simple men and women could choose to die like that, and to die in agony, there must be something in that for which they died!

THEY OUT-THOUGHT THE WORLD

The ancient world was credulous and superstitious.  The Christian was clear-sighted and fearless.

Lucian tells how he saw on heathen shrines the notice: "Christians keep out."  The Christian saw too clearly through the mumbo-jumbo.

In the ancient world the way to destroy your enemy was to attach his name to a demon and the demon would kill him. "Go on," said the Christian, "attach my name to a demon.  I don't care.  I have a name which is above every name to keep me safe."

The Christian thought fearlessly and clearly.  The number of heresies shows the freedom and vigor with which the Christian thought.  He had a freedom of thought and speech that no one else had ever had.

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If we are to persuade the world that Christianity is worthwhile, the way of the early Christians is the only way.  We have to outlive the world in service, in charity, in purity and in joy.

We have to out-die the world in that we show the world that we are still prepared to pay the price of being a Christian.

We have to out-think the world, not clinging to the old ways and the old words, but ever ready for the adventure of thought in whatever age we live.