I think, as Christians, we need to start preparing ourselves for similar events in our own country. God bless this man for his faithful witness and example to the rest of us. May God see fit to free this man back to his family, but if not, that his witness will not be forgotten and stir the hearts of other Iranians to faith in Christ.
The good Lord has myriads of ways to work. It’s too soon, I think, to say it MUST end in a martyrdom. However if it did, the Christians that gained that faith due to his witness will almost certainly be set afire in their own faith.
I see our current situation reducing to something similar to the 1st century. The third century church meant well, I am sure, but went beyond bounds of the founding faith “that was delivered once for all to the saints” (and documented well in the bible as we have it) when it accepted the mission of manning a government. Making unbelievers nice wasn’t a chief function in the original blueprint for the church — that was supposed to be a side effect, salt and light, as the church pursued glorification of God — but even that is a kind of witness. Still the gospel power was dumbed down from something that sold itself to something that could claim government’s coercive powers to back it up. If contempt met such a “gospel” it is only logical. Only the audacious promise of Christ kept the saving gospel alive at all in such shadow.
Now such a situation for the church is rapidly becoming impossible again. In some sense the church’s enemies are right when they urge Christians who are being more and more hemmed in from traditional civil rights “quit whining.” The mourning of the Lord never was our strength. It was the JOY! Satan’s mocking through proxies or directly never changed that, and the idea that it did change is one big faith-sapper. We’re here to snatch Satan’s booty back from Satan by force of the gospel’s weird weapons of love and grace! We aren’t here to whine it back.
Agh, I sometimes find myself using an ambiguous word. Booty in the sense I used it here is what a pirate steals. Not a lewdly viewed part of the human body....
Though in some cases that would coincide... can a rear end be made holy? I say YES! Because God first said yes.
I guess I am on a jag too but after this I got other stuff. I hope his example doesn’t stop with a look at him. I hope it keeps on with a view of the Jesus that is standing right behind him all the way. Because that’s where his energy and determination and direction is coming from. If it was merely Saeed, he would have wilted long ago.
And there is not some special class of people who can claim this very same Lord. However it usually takes a lot of hard and difficult life experiences for a sinner to learn such a capacity for the never-sinning Lord. It normally isn’t an overnight flash after initial belief, though never say never to the Lord of miracles.
Ciao. For now.