Can The Government Destroy The Church?

“On that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.  Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church.  Going from house to house, he dragged off men and women and put them in prison.” Acts 8:1-3

There’s a lot of concern right now among American Christians about the increasing levels of persecution directed against the Church. No, we’re not shedding our blood yet (Hebrews 12:4), but we are being hassled, harangued, excluded, despised and marginalized to a degree that we haven’t experienced in this country.

Some evangelicals might be practicing a bit of denial, like the child who covers his eyes and claims “You can’t see me!”  I recently heard a Christian leader say flatly that nothing the government can do will have any effect on us at all.

Other Christ-followers are frightened and angry, ready even to “take up arms” against what they see as a government which has been totally taken over by the enemy.

Admittedly, the Bible doesn’t give us as much guidance as we might like on the subject of Christian social ethics, the responsibility of Jesus’ followers to impact their world.  I consider this subject to be a “debatable issue” – as in Romans 14:1-15:7 – one of those subjects regarding which the Scriptures say little and well-intentioned Christians disagree.

It wasn’t an issue, of course, in the world of the first century Church. “Activists” – people who tried to change their world – who weren’t Roman citizens were crucified.  Activists who were citizens had the privilege of being beheaded.

What we know for sure, and brethren, we need to act like we know these things for sure, is that we are to:

(1) Be salt and light (Matthew 5:14-16) in the midst of a dark world (Philippians 2:14-16)

(2) Be more concerned with King Jesus and his kingdom than any of the kingdoms of this world (John 18:36,37)

(3) Be joyfully obsessed with making disciples (Matthew 28:18-20), not making democrats or republicans

(4) Submit ourselves to the current civil authorities and acknowledge that they have been “established by God” (Romans 13:1-7, I Peter 2:13)

(5) Give respect and honor to our civil leaders (Romans 13:6-7, Titus 3:1, I Peter 2:17)

(6) Pray for all those in positions of civil authority (I Timothy 2:1-7) – pardon my paraphrase – that they will leave us alone and let us live in peace and proclaim the gospel. For Paul, the supreme test of good government seems to have been: Does it protect our freedom to proclaim the gospel, the message which all persons desperately need to hear?

In the worst-case scenario, with a government and a culture determined to stamp out the Church, what are the prospects of this actually happening?

Doctor Luke intimates (above) that it looked pretty bad in Judea for a while!

But did Saul destroy the church?  God had other plans, such as the scattered believers sharing the gospel everywhere and the church’s worst opponent becoming its most formidable proponent.

Could Saul and ten thousand more Sauls like him have actually destroyed the Church?

Of course not.  Jesus’ Great Prediction will not fail: “I will build my Church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18b).

My great concern in 2021 is not what the government – or other persons or institutions who don’t like us – can do to the church, it’s what we can do to the church.

Whether we live in a gloriously free, Christian-friendly nation or a totalitarian, Christian-hating nation, we win when we draw upon the resurrection power of Christ and live the way we are supposed to live.  We lose when we react in foolish and ungodly ways to our enemies and present an ugly caricature of the church.

How does the average American see Christians in 2021?  When they think about evangelicals, do they think of the “brand” Jesus chose for us?

Love that extends even to our enemies – John 13:34,35, Matthew 5:44

Unity that is clearly supernatural in origin – John 17:21-23

Hope that our neighbors can’t deny – I Peter 3:15

Sweet-reasonableness in an unreasonable world – Philippians 4:5

Joy and thanksgiving as normative characteristics of our lives – I Thessalonians 5:16-18

Here’s the bottom line:  We have the power to be the most proactive, intentional, self-differentiated people on the planet. We can’t choose what is done to us, but we have unusual, heaven-sent resources for choosing God-honoring responses.

I’m not too concerned about what our enemies do to us – witness Paul’s faith in Philippians 1:18-21 – but I’m quite concerned about what we choose to do to ourselves.