Not Every Persecution Must Be Endured

Note from today’s Bible reading: 2 Corinthians 10-11

In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul described the various hardships he faced during his labor as an apostle and preacher of the gospel (2 Corinthians 11:23-28). He endured imprisonments, beatings, shipwrecks, hunger, sleeplessness, and more.

Paul was certainly not going to compromise in order to avoid persecution. However, there was a time when he did something else to avoid persecution – he simply left. He explained, “In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and so escaped his hands” (2 Corinthians 11:32-33).

We often talk about the need to endure persecution (cf. Revelation 2:10) and that a degree of persecution is inevitable for Christians (cf. 2 Timothy 3:12). However, there are times when we can avoid it – not by compromising the truth, but simply by removing ourselves from the threat. This was what Paul did when he fled Damascus. In that case, avoiding persecution in Damascus allowed him to continue his work for the Lord elsewhere. While we should be ready to face persecution, we should also be ready to continue serving the Lord elsewhere when the situation demands it.

So remember that not every persecution must be endured. Yes, we must be willing to lay down our lives for the Lord. Yet sometimes – especially when persecution is particularly severe in a local area – we may be able to continue doing the Lord’s work simply by going elsewhere.