Ready To Be Martyrs

America Magazine ^ | 9/10/12 | David Pinault

[marshmallow]

Coptic Christians in Egypt claim their ancient roots.

My sharpest memory from Cairo is what my driver said: al-Masih biygarribna, “Christ is testing us.” I’d hired Sami to drive me around the city. As soon as I saw on his wrist the washma, a faded tattoo in the shape of a cross, I knew he was a Copt, a member of Egypt’s Christian minority, a community that predates the Muslim presence by centuries.

Since the early 1980s I had been to Egypt many times as a student of Arabic, as a researcher and as a tour guide on Nile cruise-boats. But this visit in 2012 was my first time back since the onset of the Arab Spring and Egypt’s “Lotus Revolution.”

As we drove, Sami told me about the persecution Copts endure at the hands of Egyptian Salafists. Salafists are Muslims who want an Islamist government in which the harshest interpretations of Islamic law (shariah) are privileged at the expense of both non-Muslims and progressive-minded Muslims. “Things had been less worse for us under Mubarak,” Sami said. Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s authoritarian ruler until his ouster in the revolution, had suppressed Islamist radicals. But now, said Sami, the Salafists feel bold enough to burn churches, incite anti-Coptic riots and call openly for the expulsion of Christians.

I told him the statistics: in 2011 and 2012, since the revolution’s onset, over 100,000 Copts have fled Egypt. “Well, I’m not going to leave,” Sami insisted. “Christ is testing us. I tell my friends to stay. Christ could end this suffering, this trial, at any time. How will you feel, I tell my friends, if you’re in Canada instead of Egypt when Christ returns?”

I pondered this apocalyptic thought as we skirted Tahrir Square, the scene of recurrent confrontations between demonstrators and Egypt’s military, and.....

[2banana]

And obama is going to reward the muslims with billions in tax payer dollars to “transition to democracy”

[JesusIsLord]

When Peter was imprisoned, the church prayed and interceded for him - and as a result, I believe he was freed to preach the gospel. Let every Believer keep the persecuted body in his prayers and specifically pray that the persecuted be freed to preach the gospel. Let's also pray that the Lord raise up thousands of Paul's from the fields of Islam and Judaism. Paul once thought that he was dong God service by killing and imprisoning Christians - sound familiar? Paul, who claimed to have received tremendous revelation of Christ, prophesied that when the Jew/Israel would come to the knowledge of Christ, it would be like the resurrection of the dead. I say it's high time that Israel take its place in the body of Yeshua the Messiah.

Like any other ism, system or person that exalted itself above Jesus - it will come to an end.

Maranatha!