A Message to Die for

I haven't really said anything about the conference we attended for two week in Pennsylvania, and I would like to do that now. There were 400 Christar members gathered for this conference, and this was the real reason we were in the USA. The International Conference is only held every five years, and this year's conference was very special because Pat Cates, our mission president of 16 years was stepping down and Steve Coffey, the former International Director, was moving into his place as President of the mission. The conference was two weeks long and we stayed in the dorms of Penn State Berks campus and rode a bus every morning to a nearby church for the meetings. We had wonderful speakers, covering different topics, all of which were absolutely relevant to our calling and the work we do. It was almost too much teaching to make good use of, but we will be able to listen to it again on a CD which we ordered. But I want to tell you about the first speaker, since it was the which impacted us the most, I think.

Dr. Joseph Tson, of the Romanian Mission Society, spoke to us on the theology of martyrdom. While he was speaking, no one in that large room moved. Most of our people work in dangerous places--dangerous to them, and even more dangerous to those will embrace Christ as a result of their message. Is this a belief and a message to die for, or to ask someone else to be willing to die for? Yes, it is. I will try to summarize some of his main points.

God allowed Satan so that we would have the freedom to choose. God is the God of creation, love, goodness and truth. Satan rules this world with hate, destruction, evil and lies. We freely choose whom we will believe, and whom we believe is the one we obey, and whom we obey is the one to whom we belong, and the one to whom we belong is whom we will be like, and the one whom we become like is the one we will spend eternity with. Satan's weapons in this war are from his basic nature: lies, violence, hate and selfishness. Christ conquered evil by His death on the cross, the ultimate self-sacrifice from a heart of goodness and love for those who hated Him. Our weapons in this war are from Christ's nature: truth, goodness and love, and the willingness to die forgiving our enemies, without fear and with joy. We conquer as He conquered, because Jesus is our model. We are sent as lambs among the wolves, and when the wolves kill us, they see how we die and become lambs. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. This is what happened to the centurion who witnessed Christ's death, and also to those who witnessed the death of Stephen, one of which was Saul, who later became Paul.

We bought Dr. Tson's (the book has it spelled Ton, not Tson) book, "Martyrdom, Suffering and Rewards in Heaven," which we highly recommend to those who love theology. Here is just one jewel from that book:

There is a third description of the afflictions of the apostle and it is located in 2 Corinthians 6:3-10. At the conclusion of this dramatic narration, Paul indicates another outcome of his suffering: "as poor yet making many rich, as having nothing yet possessing all things" (6:10).

We can capture the exhilarating feeling Paul has when he says that he is making many people rich, if we go on to chapter eight and listen to him speak about the special "grace of God" that was given to the Macedonians. They were so utterly poor and were going through such a great ordeal of affliction" that Paul simply overlooked them, when it came to the collection for the saints in Jerusalem (8:2). But they begged Paul "with much entreaty for the grace of partnership in the service of the saints" (8:4, literal translation).

Paul calls giving to the saints out of one's personal poverty a "grace." Paul sent Titus to Corinth to "bring also to completion this act of grace on [their] part" (8:6, MV). Now he urges them again to abound or "excel in this grace of giving" (8:7, MV). For what reason? "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich" (8:9, NASB). Strange grace, indeed, that someone becomes poor in order to enrich others! But that is the grace of Christ, and Christians have to learn to practice this grace by becoming poor so that they might enrich others! It is the lesson that Paul learned from Christ. In accordance with Christ's example, Paul accepted a life of afflictions and of poverty in order to make many people rich. That is why he was able to write to the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1).

Paul invites them to imitate the example of Christ and that of his own life after he talks about this strange attitude of unselfishness: "Let no one seek his own good, but that of his neighbor .... just as I also please all men in all things, not seeking my own profit, but the profit of the many, that they maybe saved" (1 Cor. 10:24, 33).

How did Paul come to learn this attitude or, to use his own language, this grace? He tells us the story in 2 Corinthians 5:13-17. He begins by saying that a life like his, characterized by constant affliction and constant dying, may be considered by some to be sheer madness. But if that is the case, then he is mad for God. On the other hand, his way of life may also be one of a "sound mind," and if that is true, then "it is for you" (5:13). Then Paul explains himself. It is the love of Christ that "constrains" him to live such a life. Paul refers to the love of Christ as he saw it on the cross at Calvary. Paul meditated on the meaning of that love on the cross and came to see it as the most unselfish act that has ever taken place on this planet. He knew that when the first man fell, he placed himself in the center of the world. Man became a selfish, self-centered being. With His absolutely unselfish act of dying on behalf of the selfish creatures of mankind, Christ "died for all, that they who live should no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf" (5:15). If we look carefully at the explanatory links between this verse and the following two verses, we can see that "the new creature" of verse 17 is the one achieved by Christ by His death described in verse 15: "the new creature" is a person who stops living for self, a person who gives up his self-centeredness. Constrained by the love of Christ on the cross, he lives for Christ and, consequently, for other people.

Because of this radical transformation under the cross, Paul was able to live a life of poverty in order to enrich many others. As a result of this transformation, he stopped seeking his own profit and began living for the profit of many. He saw in the selfless act of Jesus the most attractive model he could ever find, and that is why he decided to be an imitator of Christ.