Devotion 

Persecution 

Frances Taylor 

Belief in Christ does not mean that we will be free of problems including persecution. Persecution of Christians begins here with the stoning of Stephen and continues to today. You will notice that Saul was doing a lot of the persecution. He believed that he was doing what God wanted. That's been one of the problems with persecution also from the beginning. We think of the Roman persecution of Christians, but what of persecution of one Christian group against another as in Northern Ireland, of the persecution of Jews and Christians during the Holocaust, or in the boardrooms of businesses and the neighborhoods of some of our cities today. Persecution goes on, often in very subtle ways. But overt or subtle, this is not the will of God. Saul came to realize that he was not doing God's will. The Romans failed to stop the spread of the Christian church. And one of the positive effects of destroying the church in Jerusalem was that the disciples and others who fled, actually carried the gospel message to more and diverse areas of the world. Instead of Christianity being a religion of an isolated part of the Roman Empire, it flowed forward until it covered the earth.

Prayer 

Lord, we don't always realize persecution when it appears in our neighborhoods. Give us the grace to keep our eyes open and work to stop it when we see it and not become a part of the problem. Amen.