LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2016, Page 190

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190

IV. THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS

and flee from it, the early believers in Jerusalem were not known for protest or murder. They joyfully
shared their possessions with those in need, worshiped in the temple, continued in the apostolic teaching
and the breaking of bread, and found favor “with all the people” (Acts 2:42-47). Overseers, or bishops,
were to be “well thought of by outsiders” so that they would not fall into disgrace (1 Tim. 3:7). With the
daily possibility of facing ridicule or shame, we are told, “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to
do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all”
(Rom. 12:17-18; see also Matt. 5:38-48).
There is a reputation at stake here, and it is not ours. We are sheep (in the midst of wolves) and our
Shepherd leads us “in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Ps. 23:3). The apostles rejoiced that
they had been counted worthy to suffer dishonor for confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord (Acts 5:41; Phil.
2:9-10). As we follow in the paths of righteousness set out before us, we are to love our enemies and pray
for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:43-48), reflecting the perfect love of our heavenly Father. Loving our
enemies means desiring, as our Father does, that they be forgiven and saved, for God “desires all people
to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1Tim. 2:4). We must not be “overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21), as Jesus did, when on the day called Good Friday He
overcame the evils of sin, death, and Satan. Jesus prayed for His persecutors, for those who crucified
Him: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Such forgiveness is
admittedly one-sided. Those who nailed Jesus to the cross most likely did not repent of it and were not
interested in His forgiveness. Even we, whose sins He bore in His body on that tree, were “still sinners”
(Rom. 5:8) and “hostile to God” (Rom. 8:7) when Jesus died for us. Such forgiving love may be onesided, but the Word does not return empty; it accomplishes its purpose. We, by God’s grace, have been
brought to repentance and faith. The centurion and soldiers keeping watch would say of the Crucified One
who had prayed for forgiveness for them, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matt. 27:54). Stephen,
following the example of His Savior, prayed for his murderers, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”
(Acts 7:60). In the case of a young Pharisee named Saul, we see one example of the way in which
Stephen’s prayer was granted.

After the murder of five Amish girls in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in 2006, the Amish “verbally
expressed their forgiveness to the memory of the killer. They refused to talk badly about him or
degrade his character. The Amish also designated a portion of the fund that poured in from
around the world for the Amish schoolgirls to the widow and the children of the shooter.”15
In a wave of anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal in India, churches were desecrated and
destroyed, Christian homes were burned, and hundreds of Christians were tortured and
murdered. Yet a man who had been part of a mob later said of the Christians, “They are still
suffering. But they have no complaints and they are living happily . . . If Jesus could influence
people’s lives to such an extent, I would prefer to be part of that faith.”Another man said, “I have
seen the violence and their suffering. Yet they have not given up their faith. So I decided to
embrace their faith.”16
When we face hostility for the sake of Jesus’ name, the wisdom of the world might tell us to simply “rise
above it.” We may instead, in joyful imitation of our Lord, “stoop below it” as our Lord humbled Himself
to become flesh and stooped down to shoulder the weight of the cross for our salvation. As Jesus did, we
can love and forgive those who persecute us, praying that they too will “come to the knowledge of the
truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).
Responsive Reading . . . Psalm 23

The world that hates us needs our witness and our prayers. In 1523, an Augustinian monk and pastor,
Henry of Zütphen, was arrested in Antwerp for embracing the evangelical faith of the Reformation. He
was freed and continued preaching in other cities, but two years later Henry was kidnapped and murdered
by an angry, drunken mob. After Henry was martyred, Martin Luther wrote to the Christians in Bremen to
console them at the death of their pastor. Brother Henry was with the Lord; it was his murderers who
needed the prayers of the Bremen Christians: “His murderers have already been repaid enough and more
than enough by staining their hands so terribly with innocent blood and heaping upon themselves such
great and awful guilt in the sight of God. There is really far more reason to weep and lament for them than
for the sainted Henry, and to pray that not only they, but the whole land of Dithmarschen, may be
converted and come to the knowledge of the truth.”13 God could use even the evil deeds of Henry’s
murderers “to strengthen his Word so that it wins more people than it otherwise would.”14
In the following examples of persecution in recent years, how might God work through these people to
strengthen his Word? How have you witnessed the Word of God at work in other circumstances of
persecution, perhaps even in your own life?
13
Martin Luther, The Burning of Brother Henry (1525), Luther’s Works, vol. 32, ed. George W. Forell
(Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1958), 267. The first martyrs for the Reformation faith were also Augustinians from
Antwerp, Henry Vos and John van den Esschen, who were burned in Brussels on July 1, 1523. Luther wrote a hymn,
a folk ballad titled “A New Song Here Shall Be Begun,” to commemorate the faith and martyrdom of these two
young men. Luther’s Works, vol. 53, ed. Ulrich S. Leupold (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1965), 211-216.
14
Luther’s Works, 32:271. Augustine, the fourth century Bishop of Hippo in North Africa, wrote, “But let [the
Church] bear in mind, that among her enemies lie hid those who are destined to be fellow-citizens, that she may not
think it a fruitless labor to bear what they inflict as enemies until they become confessors of the faith.” Augustine,
The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Random House, 1993), 38.

15

Kate Naseef, “How Can the Amish Forgive What Seems Unforgivable?” USA Today, October 1, 2007 at
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-01-amish_N.htm.
Anto Akkara, “Persecuted Indian Christians Evangelize…by Forgiving,” from the book, Faith Goes Viral, quoted
at CatholicCulture.org, ed. Philip F. Lawler, December 12, 2013, at
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/articles.cfm?id=606.

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Session 3
“Earnest Prayer for Him Was Made to God” (Acts 12:5)
Responding in Prayer and Faithfulness
In August of 2013, Christian homes and businesses and 32 churches in Egypt were looted and burned.
The following month, two suicide bombers struck the All Saints Anglican Church in Peshawar, Pakistan,
leaving 85 people dead and 140 wounded. “Today around the world, over 200 million are suffering for
their faith in Jesus Christ. Believers all around the world face violence, imprisonment, and even death
because of their faith in Christ. More than ever, Christians who suffer need our prayers.”17 In March of
2014, gunmen attacked a church in Mombasa, Kenya, killing six people and wounding other worshipers.
A Lutheran bishop in Kenya writes, “It is imperative that we pray and support each other, especially those
who are being persecuted.”18 The organization Open Doors International, which provides support and
encouragement to persecuted believers worldwide, began the “International Day of Prayer for the
Persecuted Church,” a day usually observed near All Saints’ Day in November. Such prayers, of course,
cannot be limited to a single day. Wherever and whenever the saints, the members of Christ’s Body, face
persecution, they pray—and other members of the Body pray for them. 19

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“Hallowed be your name” (Matt. 6:9). The people of Israel suffered in exile, enduring the discipline of the
Lord because of their faithless idolatry. With Jerusalem in ruins, the psalmist prays, “Help us, O God of
our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!” (Ps.
79:9) When God set out to save His people and return them to their land, He told them, “It is not for your
sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned
among the nations” (Ezek. 36:22). In saving His people God would vindicate, that is, prove or confirm,
the holiness of His great name (Ezek. 36:23). Suffering the hostility of His enemies for the sake of our
salvation, Jesus embodied the words of the prayer He taught us as He vindicated the holiness of His
Father’s name: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have
given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal
life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth,
having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (John 17:1-4). We pray that those who must bear
the cross will hallow our Father’s name, remaining faithful to Him and obedient to the Word.

Old and New Testament believers alike faced persecution with prayer and faithful witness as they
suffered reproach for the sake of Christ (Heb. 11:26). Suffering illness and loss at the hand of Satan (who
was, in turn, restrained by the hand of God), faithful Job “fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said
. . . ‘The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD’” (Job 1:20-21).
Upon learning that an edict had been signed forbidding prayer to any “god” other than King Darius, the
exiled Israelite Daniel followed his usual custom: “He got down on his knees three times a day and
prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously” (Dan. 6:10). In Gethsemane on the
night He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus prayed in agony that His Father’s will be done, His sweat “like
great drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). After the apostle James was martyred, Peter was
imprisoned and “earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church” (Acts 12:5).

“Your kingdom come” (Matt. 6:10). Jesus is the one in whom the kingdom comes. We live within the
kingdom now, because wherever the King is, there we find the kingdom (Matt. 18:20; Luke 17:21).
However, on a day yet to come, we will know and enjoy the kingdom in its fullness and glory. The King
promises, “Surely I am coming soon,” to which the suffering saints reply, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
(Rev. 22:20). The citizens of the kingdom endure persecution for the sake of the King, but we may not
take revenge. That is to be left in the Lord’s hands and the persecuted Church prays for that day of divine
justice to come: “How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? Why do
you hold back your hand, your right hand? Take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them!” (Ps.
74:10-11) Even the saints already at rest in the presence of the Lamb, those “who had been slain for the
word of God and for the witness they had borne” long for the day of judgment and justice: “O Sovereign
Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the
earth?” (Rev. 6:9-10). The kingdom is both “now” and “not yet” and so, entrusting themselves “to him
who judges justly” (1 Pet. 2:23), the persecuted saints still pray, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Consider the above biblical examples. What is the content of the prayers of our Lord Jesus and the saints
as they face persecution? Do you see any similarities in their prayers? Why is prayer so important as
God’s people face hostility and persecution?

Read Revelation 19:11-16. Jesus, the Word made flesh, endured the shame and humiliation of the cross,
but here He is portrayed in majesty as King of kings and Lord of lords. What comfort in persecution is
found in these verses? For what should we pray?

Jesus, “the faithful witness” (Rev. 1:5), that is, the faithful martyr, taught us to pray.20 In the prayer that
we call His own, Jesus sets out the treasured words that provide a pattern for all of our prayers, including
our prayers under persecution.21 “Our Father in heaven” (Matt. 6:9). In this prayer, we do not call out to
“My Father,” but to “Our Father.” As we pray these petitions in the face of hostility we remember that we
are united in one Body with our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the world, with the
martyred saints who rest from their labors, and with our Lord Jesus. We are children of one Father, “heirs
of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified
with him” (Rom. 8:17).

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). Explaining this petition of the Lord’s Prayer,
Martin Luther writes,

17
Matthew Block, “A Year of Martyrs: Praying for the Persecuted Church,” The Canadian Lutheran
(September/October 2013), 20.
18
Joseph Omolo, “Under Attack in Kenya,” The Lutheran Witness (June/July 2014), 5.
19
Resources concerning prayers for the persecuted Church are available at http://blogs.lcms.org/2014/statement-onpersecution and http://blogs.lcms.org/2014/statement-on-christian-persecution-in-iraq.
20
Our English word martyr comes from the Greek word for witness. In the early centuries of the Church (as in many
parts of the world today), to be a witness for Christ may well have meant becoming a martyr for Him.
21
See the 2011 LCMS Commission on Theology and Church Relations document, Theology and Practice of Prayer:
A Lutheran View, especially the discussion of the Lord’s Prayer on pages 44-61. The document is available at
http://www.lcms.org/Document.fdoc?src=lcm&id=1745.

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2016 Convention Workbook

Therefore we who are Christians must surely expect to have the devil with all his angels and the
world as our enemies and must expect that they will inflict every possible misfortune and grief
upon us. For where God’s Word is preached, accepted, or believed, and bears fruit, there the holy
and precious cross will also not be far behind . . . .
Therefore, there is just as much need here as in every other case to ask without ceasing: “Dear
Father, your will be done and not the will of the devil or of our enemies, nor of those who would
persecute and suppress your holy Word or prevent your kingdom from coming; and grant that we
may bear patiently and overcome whatever we must suffer on its account, so that our poor flesh
may not yield or fall away through weakness or sloth.’22
To pray that God’s will be done is not a prayer of doubt or cringing resignation. As in the case of faithful
Job (Job 1:12; Job 2:6) and the imprisoned Christians of Smyrna (Rev. 2:10), the forces of evil arrayed

22

Martin Luther, Large Catechism, The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2000), 448-449.66-67.

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