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When Nik Ripken heard that house churches in Turkey weren’t able to openly worship, he was perplexed. He asked a leader of a Muslim-background Christian community why they refused to do what the Bible instructed them to do. The leader’s response was a strong rebuke about Roman law:

You were born under common law. All of us, and Jesus himself, were born under Roman law. Common law says you were born with the right to everything, and Roman law says you’re born with the right to nothing. Nothing. It’s a blank slate, and it’s the role of government – be it as it may – to tell you what your rights are.

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How Roman Law Affects Christianity Today

Nik journeyed from modern-day İzmir (formerly Smyrna) to Selƈuk (formerly Ephesus), Turkey in the car with a local Christian leader. Here he had a powerful moment of insight into the effects of Roman law. Nik discovered that these old regulations still play a major role in daily life and control people’s spiritual practices.

The legal system in Turkey and China is heavily influenced by ancient Rome which has ultimately led to restrictions on religious freedom and opportunities for evangelization. “If I can choose my God to follow, just by inference, then I can choose everything else. That’s why they are terrorized by religion,” Nik explains. Arrest, imprisonment, and death are typical government responses. Freedom of choice is not commonly observed in societies governed by Roman law.

12 Tables of Roman Law

The twelve tables of Roman law have a lasting impact on the legal systems of many countries. They originated in the 5th century BCE and were the first written laws created by the Romans. Similar laws limit the spread of Christianity in the Middle East and Asia by restricting religious freedom and expression at the will of the state. Nik experienced this first-hand while living with persecuted believers overseas.

In the presence of security police, a Chinese lady delivered a powerful sermon about Jesus talking with the woman at the well (John 4). However, Nik noticed that she omitted the historical context of Jesus’ ministry: why, how, and what He was doing to build His followers. This female pastor later explained, “If I had included the context of this story, along with the content of the story, I would have been arrested and been in jail right now. In China, you can’t teach the context.”

Not in China, nor in Rome. Roman law covered a range of topics from family law to public safety regulations. Religious activity was strictly regulated by the patricians, the privileged class responsible for government. Even today, the influence of Roman law still reaches far and wide.

Patricians vs. Plebeians

The conflict between patricians and plebeians has existed since early Rome. This is due to the interplay of religion and social class that has been in existence for centuries. The patricians were the upper class of Roman citizens, while the plebeians made up the lower classes. Strict control of religion gave higher classes more power and influence than lower classes.

The patrician class had exclusive access to priesthood and religious knowledge that determined their place in society. As a result, they maintained control over political decisions which kept them in positions of privilege and authority. On the other hand, plebeians were excluded from religious knowledge and therefore political power.

Give to Caesar What is Caesar’s

When Christ said “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he was committing an act of high treason. Under Roman law, it was a revolutionary declaration with fatal consequences.

“Jesus was saying there are things that don’t belong to Caesar,” Nik explains. “That was enough to trap him and have him killed.”

In Roman-occupied Judea at the time of Christ’s ministry, loyalty to Rome was paramount. To suggest that there should be a higher authority than Caesar was treason in the eyes of Rome. By saying “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s”, Christ was not only challenging Roman authority but also claiming a higher power for himself; one which ultimately superseded those of earthly rulers.

Plebeians Dreamed of Freedom

The ancient Roman plebeians were a class of citizens that had few rights and freedoms. They worked in the fields to provide food for the city, but their dreams of freedom went largely unheard by their oppressors – the patrician upper class. While they may have dreamt of liberation from oppressive conditions, could they ever have imagined achieving a lasting level of liberty?

Along with little freedom came widespread poverty and economic hardship among the plebeians. Nevertheless, despite these difficulties, they continued to strive for a better life. This fight, known as the Conflict of the Orders, would eventually lead to the fall of the Roman Republic in 27 BCE. Class warfare still occurs today in the persecuted nations.

Freedom in Christ

Christians around the world share a message of hope and freedom. Despite their oppressive circumstances, persecuted believers proclaim that God’s kingdom is a place of true liberation.

“You can never successfully persecute someone who sees that their freedom is grounded at the throne of Heaven,” Nik remarks.

The Bible speaks of God defeating oppression and lifting up those who feel weak so they can stand firm with Him on holy ground. This is why persecuted Christians focus on God’s throne as the source of ultimate freedom.

In this episode, Nik contrasts the narratives of different community leaders in order to define persecution. What’s the difference between true spiritual warfare and a false persecution complex?

Believers who are experiencing real persecution are to be known by their love for one another (John 13:35), he explains, not by their social stances or speaking prowess. Nik concludes that a defining characteristic of true persecution is that the believer is suffering for who Jesus is – and not for any other reason.

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Spiritual warfare

In persecution, everything a believer experiences is from sharing the gospel in difficult places. Matthew 13 explains that some people will experience the challenge of planting seeds on rocky ground.

A family, that Ruth and I remained very close to, was working with us in the Horn of Africa. They were doing it right, and they had reached four families for Christ among the people group that’s very dear to us – maybe some of the closest to our hearts – because we worked among them, and their famine and civil war, for seven years. We went through a lot of hard stuff with that people group. And four families said yes.

Upon the missionaries’ departure, however, their converts announced that they were reverting back to Islam. Despite their faithful work, Nik’s missionary friends felt burnout and despair.

They took them to the airport, and as they were getting ready to go through security in that airport, those four “Christian” families said to this couple, “We don’t believe you’ll ever come back… so we just want to let you know that we’re going back to the mosque. We’re going back to Islam where we belong.” And those were the last words that were said to them before they got on that airplane.

The disillusionment was real. Nik consoled them. This is the nature of the work, he said. In the heat of spiritual warfare, wherever seed is sown, some plants will be scorched. Some plants will wither in the face of adversity because they have no root.

Fortunately, this story had a happy ending. The next day, the four Islamic families announced they were coming back – not for the mission board but for Christ.

As we seek to define persecution, we look at the causes of a believer’s suffering.

Understanding persecution

In contrast, Nik describes a different group that believed they were being persecuted. This other group begged Nik to study them.

[These two groups thought] that they were the real Christians because they were the ones that had suffered the most. They had been beaten, they had lost their church property, they had gone to jails and prisons… they had been killed. The more I watched them… the more disturbed I got.

He observed them for a week or so. Then Nik admonished them for being “some of the most obnoxious Christians [he] had ever met.” They had a tendency to harass people unlike themselves, speaking about their beliefs with a sense of superiority.

Persecution of any kind is an unfortunate reality for many. Just because someone is being persecuted doesn’t mean it is for the right reasons.

It’s essential to examine the root cause of persecution and its legitimacy before drawing conclusions. While some may be persecuted due to Christian beliefs, others may be targeted simply because they are unkind in some way.

The art of spiritual warfare

“In actions and in words, you’ve got to make Jesus the center of the conversation,” Nik explains. “But even before you get to Jesus and the Old Testament setting, they’ve got to know you love them.” It may be after your death that people fully understand what you’ve done for them.

These four characteristics are the hallmarks of a healthy church thriving under persecution, Nik suggests.

Number one is how they know Jesus… number two is the unbelievable, supernatural, intimate prayer. Number three is being able to recreate large portions of the Bible from memory… number four is committing large portions of their indigenous music to memory.

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Memorizing the Bible

Throughout his travels, Nik Ripken has found that persecuted believers have a common practice. They memorize full books of scripture and large portions of their indigenous music with less than 10% error.

Nik tells us his experience with a Soviet Union congregation who had never held a Bible. Yet they were able to recite the full books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John with fewer than 6 omissions.

This may seem like an incredible feat to Western Christians. Literate Christians often believe they have to carry the Bible with them in order to recall scripture accurately. However, Nik reminds us that this way of thinking is offensive to many believers in the world who see this as a sign of not knowing the book.

The Oral Gospel Tradition

The people who lived during the early decades of Christian history didn’t rely on a written Bible. Although some scrolls existed, believers shared the Old Testament primarily in oral form. Publishers did not write down The New Testament until 55 A.D. This means people first shared the stories that we have today orally among family members and congregations, from generation to generation.

The Bible is the most influential book in the world. It contains the truth that people need to hear.

On one hand, the oral form of sharing the gospel allows for rapid transmission. “You don’t have to smuggle the Bible into closed countries if you are the container for it,” Nik explains. On the other hand, the literate form of the Bible preserves the truth so that generations can pass it down accurately. Both forms are valuable for different reasons.

Scripture Memorization in Moscow

Three pastors led over a thousand house churches scattered around Moscow. They took 600 young adults, unmarried from 18 to 30 years old, and brought them to Moscow for seven days. These pastors didn’t have a planned program other than to share the Word of God with these people. They met for about a week.

After the event, all three pastors were arrested and sent to a Soviet prison for three years. “All of them said they would do it again,” Nik remarks. This is the way people memorized and shared scripture in the Soviet Union.

Although Nik disagrees with the idea of limiting the Word of God to a few trained clergy, he’s impressed with how well their congregations knew the scripture. In the Soviet Union, literacy wasn’t the issue. Believers could read and write, but only their pastors could hold a Bible.

Nik went to one of these charismatic groups in the Soviet Union and asked how many of the congregation had touched a Bible. Not a single person said yes. Almost all the members of the congregation had seen someone preach from it, but they had never read from it themselves. When asked to recite the first four books of the New Testament, however, they were able to recite it with just 6 errors.

Unfortunately, persecution seems to create the hostile environment that leads people to know the Bible so thoroughly. Just 15 years later, Nik revisited this congregation after the fall of the Soviet Union.

He found that their spiritual temperature had changed with the new democracy. “It’s so hard to be obedient to God in freedom when someone’s not trying to take your faith away from you,” Nik begins. “Fifteen years after the Soviet Union fell… they could not reproduce the books of the Bible [by memory].”

Memorizing Scripture in China

When Nik observed a group of 150 Chinese believers tearing the Bible apart, he was horrified. He had never seen anything like it before. He didn’t know what to make of it. Nik had always been taught that the Bible was sacred. He couldn’t understand why these people were tearing it apart.

After talking to some of the people, Nik found out that they were distributing the pages of those books to pastors who hadn’t yet taught those words to their own congregations by memory.

International Worship Songs

In recent years, there has been a trend of churches in the West forcing their music and worship style on international believers. Nik adds that this does not work and is actually counterproductive. Western music is often unfamiliar and uncomfortable for international believers, who are then less likely to sing along and participate in worship.

This practice can also be a barrier to people coming to faith, as they may feel unwelcome in a church that is not using music that is familiar to them. Forcing Western music on international believers only dilutes the power of their native words and disconnects them from their heritage:

In South Africa, they’d only known other types of missionaries. Whenever we showed up, they would stop their dancing, and they would stop their clapping, and their drums, and their finger music. They used to play some of it with their toes. The worship was so vibrant and so filled with joy. We’d show up, and they’d start singing something that was our heart song – from America – and worship would just die. And it got to be where we would say to them, with a smile on our face, if you’re going to sing our songs rather than your songs, I don’t think we’ll come again because our presence is killing your worship. And they just loved that.

According to Nik Ripken, the DNA of the resurrection thrives when believers take the Word of God and absorb it to create worship music in their own indigenous styles. We see this in African worship songs, Arabic worship music, and Chinese praise and worship songs.

These international believers can take their newly created songs to any village, town, or city, and all the local people would recognize it as their style of singing and the words that come from their culture. The idioms come from their culture, and they don’t see it as a Westerner’s – or worse, a white man’s – music.

Is Music Haram in Islam?

In Islam, music is generally forbidden (“haram”) with very few exceptions. Their prohibition of music, musical instruments, and singing comes from their interpretation of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, a collection of traditions and practices that Muslims generally follow.

In his Tafsir al-Sa’di (Interpretation of the Qu’ran), Islamic scholar Abdul-Rahman al-Sa’di writes that “singing and musical instruments are from Shaytan” (Satan). Music is seen as a distraction from prayer and worship and a potential source of corruption.

Nik adds that the Islamic teenagers (12-13 y.o.) have absorbed modern MTV music with sexual and aggressive overtones. They don’t understand the severity of the hate speech in these songs. As a result, Islamic teens end up weaving serious swear words into their own conversations.

If this is all they know, Nik suggests, it’s no wonder that music is forbidden in Islam.

How do you teach two billion Muslims to sing?

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The West… and the Rest

When most people in the West think about Christianity, they likely don’t think about the persecuted. Christianity is often thought of as a religion of privilege in the West, but that couldn’t be further from the truth for followers living in other parts of the world. There are countless believers living in places where they experience high levels of persecution. We say countless because not only are they many in number, but also it is often unsafe to give actual counts of how many there are and which communities they’re living in. Public knowledge of their existence often places their very lives at increased risk.

The persecuted face difficulties that most of us can’t even imagine.

In addition, we’re headed into a holiday season where the commercialization of Christmas has led to a growing trend of people becoming more and more confused about the meaning of the holiday. Is it a time to celebrate the birth of Christ or a time to buy presents for our loved ones? Should we be contributing to missions or spending our money on treats and technology?

Consumerism is often seen as a dirty word, associated with greed, wastefulness, and selfishness.

Confusion can lead to inaction.

But managing God’s money doesn’t need to be confusing, and it’s not necessarily one or the other.

Participating in consumerism is actually a privilege. It’s a sign that you have enough money to buy things beyond the basics of food, shelter, and clothing. And it doesn’t mean you can’t also support missions. In fact, many Christians see supporting missionaries as part of our calling to share the gospel with the world.

How can you support Nik Ripken Ministries?

You can donate directly to Nik Ripken Ministries, or you can participate in AmazonSmile. AmazonSmile allows you to select Nik Ripken Ministries as the charity of your choice to receive donations from eligible purchases. Whichever method you choose, you’ll help us raise awareness of the truths and practices we have learned from believers in persecution.

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Let’s continue to support Nik Ripken Ministries and make a difference in the lives of others.

I must admit that I struggle with setting aside 1 day of prayer for the church and believers in persecution. I’m well aware that many people pray for the persecuted church regularly; many daily. There remains a concern that setting aside A DAY to pray for believers in hard places might lend itself to a lessened focus the rest of the year? I wonder if my concern is that we often pray for our brothers and sisters and persecution rather than praying with our brothers and sisters in persecution?

My insightful wife often says, “There’s no such thing as a free church and a persecuted church. There is just the church; always persecuted and always free. If we are one body then, when one part of the body suffers, the entire body feels the pain. Hundreds of times we’ve sat with believers in persecution. Many of these “interviews” would last 4 to 6 hours. Some interviews were so significant that they lasted multiple days. Such was the time spent with a believing brother in Eastern Europe. In addition to knowing persecution in the context of his country, he was well-versed concerning persecution in the context of all of communism. Though locked behind the Iron Curtain, he understood faith and communism within global realities. I learned more from him in just a few days than from most seminary classes. At the end of our days together he surprised me when he said. “ I took great joy that I was being persecuted in my country so that you would be more free to share Jesus in Kentucky.”

I laid down my pen, turned off my recorder, closed my notebook, and said to him. “No! You cannot lay that on me. That’s a debt I can never repay.” He said, looking at me sadly, “Nik, that’s the debt of the cross.  Don’t you steal my joy! I took great joy that I was holding Satan hostage in his own backyard so that you would be more free to share Christ in your country. Never have we really felt so free as when our faith was costing us something.”

My relationship with believers and persecution changed in an instant. Possibly, most of us understand the connection we have with believers in persecution as we lift them up to the Father through prayer. One believer in Eastern Europe reminded me, “the debt that we can never repay the Church in the West is the debt of prayer offered up for us during those 70 years of Communism.” Oh the wonderful truth of being able to carry someone when they can no longer carry themselves!

A debt of prayer. I love the sound of that.

Yet, ultimately, is focused prayer how we identify with them?

They are persecuted for two reasons. One, they have given their lives to Jesus, modeled on Revelation 2:10, being “…faithful unto death.” Secondly, they refused to keep Jesus to themselves. With boldness and sensitivity, they share Christ’s love with family members, friends, colleagues at work, at school, and in the marketplace of life. Therefore, the way that we most identify with our brothers and sisters in chains on this day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church is when we give our lives to Christ. We too refuse to keep Jesus to ourselves. With boldness and sensitivity, we share Christ’s love with family members, friends, colleagues at work, at school, and in the marketplace of life. Thus it is that we identify with our brothers and sisters in chains.

Yet a hard truth remains. If I give my life to Christ but keep His love to myself; ignoring witness in the marketplace, among family members, and from friends – this leads to the harshest of truths.

Not only do I fail to identify with my brothers and sisters in persecution, I identify with the ones who chained them – the persecutors. For there is no greater persecution on earth than to deny another access to eternal life through the love of Jesus Christ.

On this day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church let’s be sure to write ourselves into the right side of the equation. Prayer is not something that allows one to stand at a distance. Prayer joins hearts and actions together. Today I get to decide. I get to decide whether I identify with my brothers and sisters in persecution or to identify with their persecutors.

I pray I make the right choice.