The Church Militant Has Become the Church Impotent
R.C. Sproul on Christians and Politics, Part One
[19] But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. [20] But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. [21] When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, [22] strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. [23] And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.
[24] Then they passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia. [25] And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia, [26] and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. [27] And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. [28] And they remained no little time with the disciples.
Acts 14:19-28 (ESV)
“We have already seen in our study of the book of Acts that everywhere the Apostles went to proclaim the gospel, God blessed their ministry. Many people were converted and added to the church. We also see that everywhere they went, they encountered a certain level of hostility and opposition against the proclamation of the Word of God. We read now that the opposition became so severe that the Jews rose up in fury against Paul and, after holding a kangaroo court, used the Old Testament means of capital punishment, stoning, in an attempt to execute Paul.
We tend to pass over that fact of that stoning lightly, not considering how brutal it was for Paul to stand exposed before an angry mob as large rocks were hurled at him. Rocks hit him all over his body, tearing his flesh until he was knocked unconscious to the ground. Thinking that he was dead, the people opposed to him grabbed him by the feet and dragged him outside the city. He was not dead, however, and as the disciples gathered around and ministered to him, he was revived and was able to move on to the next city.
How many of us have been stoned and left for dead because of the proclamation of our faith? How many of us have been burned at the stake? How many of us have been used as human torches to illumine the gardens of Nero? How many of us have been sentenced to the Circus Maximus as fodder for roaring lions or for the sport of gladiators? The blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church. We sing in church about the faith of our fathers, which led them to dungeons, death, and to all sorts of peril, but we don’t live in a place like that. We have freedom of assembly in the United States. Is it because suddenly our country is more open to the proclamation of the gospel, or is it because in a very real sense the church militant has become the church impotent as we seek a safe way to experience our faith?”
R.C. Sproul, Acts: An Expositional Commentary (Sanford: Ligonier Ministries, 2019), 221-222.
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