All movements possess what one sociologist calls “true believers.” True believers willingly sacrifice all for the cause to which they are committed. They face whatever comes—persecution and even death—to “witness the truth uncompromised.”
Before his ascension, Jesus commanded the disciples to be His witnesses . . . to the end of the earth (Acts 1:6-8). The Greek word for witnesses simply describes individuals who bear witness or testify to what they have seen or heard or known. Etymologically, the word has no hint of death and suffering. It merely reflects what Jesus said to Pilate, “For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth.”
But bearing witness to truth uncompromised often demands the ultimate sacrifice—a sacrifice that Jesus demonstrated in his own passion and death. Jesus’ call for witnesses or martyrs took on historically, if not etymologically, a bloody reality. The Apostle Paul himself described Stephen, the early church’s first martyr —and one whose blood he himself help shed—as “Jesus’ witness (Act 22:20).”
It seemed that the propagation of the early Christian movement demanded such martyrdom. All the apostles but John died violently for their faith. Into the third century A.D., early Christians often faced such sacrifice—becoming at times a community of those” persecuted and martyred for the Gospel’s sake.” One early church father, Tertullian, even wrote that “the blood of martyrs was the seed” of the early church.
But what of us? Living as we do in the 21st Century? Must we too pay the ultimate sacrifice to expand contemporary movements of evangelism and discipleship?
Perhaps.
If martyrdom is indeed the seed by which the church—or any movement—-grows, we ought not be surprised by it. Church historians now argue that the 20th Century produced more martyrs than in all other centuries combined. At the very least, we ought not forget the modern” cloud of witnesses(Hebrews 12:1)”. Their faith can invigorate our own. Their sacrifice can ignite our own.
As one writer noted, modern martyrs “gained the grace to lose their lives for an ideal. We must pray for the grace to lead our lives in the same pursuit.”
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