Challenges to Fulfilling the Great Commission

Challenges to Fulfilling the Great Commission

Missionaries fulfill the Great Commission in some of the most dangerous places in the world. Despite an accurate and cautionary security briefing from the U.S. Army, Nik’s unfortunate decision to trust a local Somali informant jeopardized his life.

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A Story Full of Holes

Narrowly escaping this open shooting changed his understanding of humanity. Nik asked Hassan, his Somali guide and trusted acquaintance, why he would lie to him and put their lives in mortal danger:

I grabbed him by the shirtfront and pulled him close to me. I was so scared, I was so angry, and I said, “Why did you lie to me? You almost got me killed! The truck is full of [bullet] holes. It was exactly like the U.S. military told me. Why did you lie to me?”

Hassan replied that Nik wasn’t worth receiving the truth because they had just met.

Why Do People Lie?

Perhaps the better question is, “Why do some people tell the truth?”

Honesty is a concept that is deeply rooted in biblical teachings (Exodus 20:16, Leviticus 19:11, Ephesians 4:15). The Bible instructs Christians to be truthful so that we may preserve our relationships. This has created an expectation of moral integrity in Christian communities.

From its founding fathers to modern day politicians and leaders, America’s culture is heavily shaped by its Christian roots. Naturally, Nik expected the people he met in Somalia to behave according to this moral standard.

However, Christians should not expect the same of Muslims who do not share the same worldview. It’s risky business to attribute Christian attributes to non-Christians, and it almost got Nik killed.

Lying in Islam

Muslims have different religious texts and their own set of circumstances that permit dishonesty. In Islam, it’s lawful to lie when preserving one’s honor, demoralizing an enemy, fighting a war, and pleasing one’s spouse, as well as when it’s advantageous for the individual (Jami` at-Tirmidhi 1938). The truth is given selectively, not to all, and not in all situations.

Hassan explained this to Nik after his betrayal:

Dr. Nik, you need to understand.

There’s a truth that Somalia and I tell the world.

Then there’s a deeper truth that my clan and I tell Somalia.

There’s a deeper truth that my family and I tell our clan.

Then there’s a deeper truth that my brother and I tell our family.

There’s a deeper truth that I tell my brother.

And there’s a deeper truth that I tell to God.

But what I really believe – the deepest of all truths – I whisper down a well at midnight so no one can hear.

The existence of so many exceptions where it is lawful to lie suggests that there isn’t much of a relatable standard at all. Nik wonders if the Great Commission can take hold in such places:

How do you make Jesus known when the truth has to go through six or seven filters to be accepted as the truth from the throne of God? How can they see that Jesus died for them, and gave his life for them, and that is the mark of a real man – a tough man – a Godly man?

Nik urges missionaries to remember that the people they interact with may have an adversarial worldview when it comes to telling the truth.

Is the Old Testament Still Relevant Today?

The Old Testament is still relevant today because not all people of all nations have learned of the New Testament. Somalis have lived in Old Testament violence and chaos for the past 2000 years.

Famine and civil war ravage Somalia. Hatred and violence have caused the displacement of millions of people, leaving many with limited access to resources and medical care.

Fundamentalists have taken over much of the territory in Somalia, creating a hostile environment that threatens even the well-intentioned foreigner.

In Somalia, Hassan explained to Nik that it’s every man for himself:

It’s Somalia and I against the world.

And it’s my clan and I against Somalia.

It’s my sub-clan against our clan.

My family works against my sub-clan.

It’s my brother and I against my father, trying to take his place of authority within the family.

Most of all, it’s my brother against me.

Poverty-stricken citizens lack basic resources such as food and clean water while violent crime rates soar due to widespread corruption and instability. In addition, medical professionals are few and far between in rural areas meaning preventable illnesses continue to plague the population. Somali children suffer from chronic malnutrition due to famine conditions which continues to put their lives at risk every day.

Somalia Resembles Dante’s Inferno

Somalia has become an unrecognizable version of Dante’s Inferno. Still, Nik is confident that the Great Commission extends to places like these:

“When you have ten million people, and 150 believers, and they kill all but four of them in the seven years that we were there… pushing back against that darkness is a pretty impossible task. You’ve got to push back against that darkness.”

The majority of Christian missionaries will go to sleep tonight in Christian countries, Nik concludes. If our present generation doesn’t care about places like Somalia, the Ripkens warn us that this darkness will spread to other countries and to our future generations.

Where does faith come from, the genealogy of faith

Where Does Faith Come From?

Faith is a confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of God in the face of persecution and adverse consequences. Where does faith come from?

In this episode, Nik explores the genealogy of faith, starting with the role of parents in teaching their children what faith looks like. He examines how early experiences shape beliefs and how those beliefs evolve over time.

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Parents as Role Models

The journey of learning how to live for Christ often begins with parents as role models. In the households of persecuted believers, parents teach their children the importance of living and dying as a believer. They see it as an essential part of establishing a strong genealogy of faith.

Nik recounts the testimony of grown children:

I remember we were in Russia. My father called us into the kitchen. It was the only room that we heated in the house. He had pulled the chair away from the kitchen table. My mom was already standing there crying, so we knew something was up. And my father sat down in the chair, and he took me, my little sister, and my little brother in his lap, and he put his arms around us, and he said, “Kids, tomorrow, I go to prison.”

This suggests that it is the responsibility of parents to be examples in their lifestyle and character, encouraging their children’s spiritual growth by leading them closer to God. When parents lead their children in this way, they set up a foundation for their child’s relationship with Christ.

Parents have the opportunity to communicate biblical values and demonstrate them through action and example regardless of adverse consequences:

My father said to us kids, “All over this part of the country, they are killing entire families who refuse to deny their faith in Christ. If while I’m in prison, I hear that my family is hung to death rather than deny their faith in Christ, I will be the most proud person in that prison.”

Through prayers, conversations, stories from Scripture, and sincere devotionals together as a family, these moments will create memories that help build a character of faith.

Learning How to Live for Christ

The Holodomor was a man-made famine that occurred in Ukraine between 1932 and 1933. It is estimated that anywhere from three to seven million people died as a result of starvation during this genocide. The Soviet Union’s goal of the Holodomor was to break Ukraine’s spirit and force it into submission with Stalin’s government:

They’re systematically starving people to death in this area. If we are called by God to starve to death, we will do so with joy. I learned it from my great-great-grandmother… my great-grandmother… my grandmother… and my mother…. Now I’m living the genealogy of faith that was passed on to me as a treasure, and I’m living it in front of my daughters.

Nik followed up with the Ukranian families of persecuted believers to find out where they learned how to live for Christ. Younger generations learned to defend their beliefs through death by watching their parents and grandparents:

I learned it from my great-great-grandfather who went to that Russian prison, and they killed him two weeks later. He left us a buried Bible in the backyard, and we dug it up. The last thing he wrote to the family was Revelation 2:10, “Be faithful until death.”

Once again, we see that persecuted parents model for their children life with Christian beliefs intact. “You need faith with skin on it,” Nik explains. Even in the midst of persecution from their government, generations of believers chose to stand steadfastly in their beliefs and refused to compromise them.

The Faith of First-Generation Believers

For first-generation believers who don’t have a genealogy of faith, where does faith come from? Nik advises that we build them one.

Other believers can invite them into their lives, walk with them, and hold them accountable. Ruth and Nik Ripken make them a promise:

We have given you the stories from the Word of God directly that model for you and teach you how to live and how to die as a child of God, a follower of Christ. And now, until you have your own genealogy of faith… watch our lives. Watch Ruth and me…we’re going to stumble… but we’re going to model for you, in flesh, how somebody lives and dies in Christ.

The Ripkens show new believers how to live with Bible study, prayer, and intentionality in relationships. “They’re watching us have this genealogy of faith, and that’s why we go,” Nik concludes. “That’s why it’s important to reach the whole family.”

The challenges faced by first-generation believers stem from an embedded belief that religion and government are inextricably linked.

Religion and Government

The separation of religion and government is one of the most important factors in a democracy, yet there are still many countries around the world that have not adopted this belief. This begs the question: should religion and government be separate?

When church and state are combined, it can lead to unfair laws imposed on citizens based on religious beliefs. Religion may become a country’s identity rather than an individual decision. People may deprioritize their own individual spiritual journeys and instead focus on following what the government tells them they must believe in order to be considered a law-abiding member of society.

Are Muslim and Islam the Same?

Nik explains the religious worldview in Islamic countries:

That’s why they’re looking to go to Europe or America. If you’re born in an Islamic country, you’re a Muslim; if you’re born in a Christian country, you’re a Christian. “Muslims live in Muslim countries,” they believe, “and Christians live in Christian countries.”

If you’re born in an Islamic country as a Muslim and convert to Christ, you lose your job, your family, your children, your marriage, and your identity as a citizen of that country.

Is America a Christian Country?

We can easily become complacent in our faith and comfortable with our religion because of cultural norms. Just because a nation claims Christianity doesn’t mean that everyone living within it truly believes and follows Christ.

“The more we believe that we are Christians in a Christian country,” Nik explains, “the less likely we are to be witnesses for Christ. Our identity is in Christ, but through our government.”

Nik tells us that our identity should be rooted in Christ alone, not the culture or country around us. He encourages believers to understand our genealogy of faith. Only then can we remain true witnesses of our faith no matter what societal pressures we face.

Q&A with Ruth and Nik Ripken

Q&A with Ruth & Nik Ripken

Ruth and Nik Ripken bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and insight about believers all over the world. Join us in this Q&A session as we ask them questions about living abroad as a missionary serving among the persecuted church.

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Can I, in my comfortable Western church, develop the same radical devotion to Christ?

Nik Ripken:

[3:01] If you understand the depth that you’re coming from. The two hindrances to the kingdom of God are racism and consumerism. I grew up so poor that I heard my father say, “I’d rather be poor and go to heaven than be rich and go to hell.”

When I got to Africa, my number one adjustment wasn’t the language, culture, or food. I was able to provide my wife and boys with adequate shelter, adequate food, a couple hours’ drive to medical care, and clean water. She homeschooled. I realized, within the first couple years, I’m in the top 5% of the richest people in Africa. I am the rich young ruler that Jesus commands to go out and sell everything that I have and come to serve him.

When believers in persecution come to America, and Ruth and I keep up with ten of them… after ten years, approximately, only one of them is still practicing their faith in America. And they’ve got scars on their back from being beaten. They have calluses on their wrists and ankles from being chained. They have emotional and physical scars that clearly demonstrate that they were willing to die for Christ, and then somebody rescued them and brought them to America.

And a couple things happened. They looked at the commitment of Christians around them, and said, “This is the Christianity I was willing to die for?” But they also would say things like, “Why would I sell everything to find the pearl of great price, when everybody has a bucket of pearls? Why would I need to go and sell all that I’ve got to buy the field that I’ve discovered treasure in when I already own the houses and fields?”

Racism and consumerism are the two biggest hindrances to the kingdom of God, and that defines the American church which is a multi-billion dollar industry. The answer is yes, but it’s a matter of choice and obedience.

My coming to Christ gives me the opportunity to share Christ with others. When I watch someone else give their life to Jesus, it authenticates our own faith. But the opposite is true. The less that you see lives changed, and you’re just surrounding yourself with institutional Christianity, and you’re not seeing families come to Christ, and people baptized… it’s very difficult to authenticate your faith when you don’t see it being reproduced in others who are so far from Jesus. The answer has to be yes.

Ruth Ripken:

[8:01] I think it has to be a yes, because Jesus commands us to take up our cross and follow him. Whether we’re living on this side of the globe, or alongside our brothers and sisters in persecution, we all have that command to pick up our cross and follow.

Yes, it may be comfortable, but that doesn’t mean you have to stay comfortable. You can do things outside the wall of your church that can help you do something that is very uncomfortable to you so that you can experience a boldness that Christ gives when you’re walking alongside people who don’t know Christ.

As Nik was saying, watching someone turn their life over to Christ… that can radically change you, and you’ll never be the same.

Nik Ripken:

[9:44] I think that when I described America the way I did, I didn’t do so to be ugly but to let people know it’s a hard job.

When people are begging you to tell them about Christ, and they’re coming to Christ literally by thousands in some of the places we’ve served, that just does something. Your soul is singing all the time when you’re from a culture where 93% of people baptized were born in the church.

While we rejoice over those that are true salvations, it’s still very difficult to watch as a lot of these baptisms become teenagers and high school students. We see them no longer continuing their faith.

What is your top advice for strong marriage on the field?

Nik Ripken:

[20:39] Before you go to the field, buy some presents for your wife that you can gift to her on birthdays, Valentine’s day, and special days. Buy some things, even intimate wear. Buy special things and do that secretly. Then, when you have those times and it’s just you, or things get hard, giving your wife gifts not only makes her know that I’m thinking about her in that moment but that I was thinking about her three or four years ago on that furlough.

Now I have a big problem. Everywhere I go in this world, I buy Ruth gifts… anniversary presents, Christmas presents, and birthday presents. I bring them home, and I lose them – I hide them, and I can’t remember. She finds them when we move to somewhere else. So a whole lot of good that one did me.

Ruth Ripken:

[22:47] Make it an adventure. The two of you are on an adventure, and each day is a gift. Don’t get tired of loving your husband, but do things together that allow you to minister together but also have fun together. Make your children, if you have children, part of that together. When you’re tired, don’t say things that you regret. Be cautious. It can wear you down. You might snap and say things… bite your tongue sometimes. Make sure you do devotions together. Make sure you pray together. Those are things that are very important.

One of the things I love about my husband is that I love to listen to him pray. I have loved this from the day I met him. When I hear him pray, I hear his heart. That allows me to connect to him and to his Lord. I get to experience that. Praying together, doing life together. For many weeks, we would be apart… spending time in prayer even when we’re apart, knowing our routine of praying before we go to bed at night and praying in the mornings.

Those were important to continue for ourselves and for our boys. They needed to know that this was something Dad expected of them. As Dad would go off into Somalia or around the globe, our boys would step up. They would continue the process of being the men of the house by protecting me, helping me, and doing all those things they watched their dad model.

The best way you can teach your children about marriage is to allow yourselves to love each other in front of them. They see you loving, they see you doing life together, and that is a thing I hope we’ve gifted our boys with.

Nik Ripken:

[25:30] I find that when I’ve been gone for weeks at a time, sometimes months at a time, that’s when it’s hard to keep my marriage fresh. There’s always coming home and celebrating that. Ruth would set up a weekend where we could immediately go away and have someone take care of the boys.

You have to be creative about it. You have to premeditatively take things with you. Make sure you have each other on your heart.

When you have temptation, run from it. It’s not only what you do; it’s what you don’t do.

It was intensely marriage-oriented and parent-oriented because we were all that we had.

Intimacy at night starts with the breakfast table.

Are there any new books in the works?

Nik Ripken:

[45:32] It’s going to be a children’s book. It will go and cover the children 8 years of age up to 13 years of age. Especially in Eastern Europe and China, the government does horrible things in schools to the children of Christians and religious leaders. I think that might not be a very long book, but it will be an illustrated book about what it’s like to stand in the middle of your gym in middle school with your principal and administrator standing beside you. He leads the entire school to make fun of you because you’re the children of the pastor or the leading local Christians.

What is it like to be made to stay after school and go to the principal’s office? Around the walls of the principal office are the administrators and your teachers ridiculing you because your dad and mom are Christians, or your dad’s the pastor or Christian leader. What would our children do if they were the only Christians in their school, and the leaders of their school led their friends to make fun of them? It’s for parents to read with their children and talk about what it would be like if your faith cost you this.

Then I’ve got a book in me that I’ll probably publish right before I die. I’ve got here a list of stories that missionaries never tell. Every missionary has airplane stories, toilet stories, funny stories of underdressed people in the village – all this kind of stuff that goes on. We’ve got some of the funniest stories on Earth, but people don’t expect it from the Ripkens. We’re probably going to write a book on the things that missionaries will never tell you, but we’re going to tell them. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

How much has transition affected your family life?

Ruth Ripken:

[50:12] Of course it did, but I don’t think it affected it in a negative way. I think it was a real positive… it was always an adventure. We’ve moved quickly several times where we had to just sell everything and move. That was stressful, but it was always fun when we got to the new place. In one place, we even built a house. That was really good for us. The boys always seemed to find friends to play with, and we would always try to walk the neighborhood to see what was going on, where the shops were, and where things were.

Some of the difficulties were when we moved and Dad was traveling so much. We were living in a smaller part of Nairobi and we ended up having to haul water. That was difficult.

The boys always stepped up and helped. When we lived in South Africa, we lived on a generator. Our oldest learned to fix the generator and the water pump. It never failed that when Dad would travel, things would break.

Nik Ripken:

[51:57] We had one time where we moved… I helped move us, but the moment we put the boxes in the house, there was a crisis in Somalia. I had to go in for about a month, and she had to unpack the whole house and set it up. For the next four years, I couldn’t find anything. I was lost in my own house.

But you know what? Children feed off their parents. If the parents get all stressed out, which we do from time to time, then we need to go to our children and apologize. That is really important. Just say, “I yelled today.”

Ruth Ripken:

[56:44] Moving 38 times has helped me realize I don’t need to have all this stuff. Then I don’t have to pack and move it.

Parenting & Corporal Punishment

Nik Ripken:

[52:43] I found, in 38 years in and out of Sub-Saharan Africa, we never saw a child spanked but one time. We were driving in Malawi out in the bush, and all of a sudden our oldest son said, “Dad, look!” The way his voice was, I thought someone was being murdered. We looked in the distance and a male was spanking his child. It never happens. They never touch their children.

What Africa taught me is that most of the time when I spanked my children… I was having a bad day. Africans don’t discipline their children. What do we discipline our children over? They don’t eat all their food, or they don’t put all their clothes away? We’ve never met a rural African kid that doesn’t go to bed hungry. All these street urchins are at deadly risk, and they’re going to eat everything they get. When they wash their clothes in rural places, they don’t have clothes on because they have one set of clothes. If they have a toy, they made it.

We punish our kids because of the stuff we give them.

Think of all the things we discipline our children for. They are not old enough to handle the material wealth we give them. Our children don’t put their clothes away, they don’t put their toys away, they are disrespectful. It’s just that we don’t do things with them, take them places, and spend that quality time with them. We give them so much stuff that they can’t handle it. They have to work for hours just to put their toys away and fold their clothes and put them in the right drawer.

In the places we lived for 35 years, we saw a child punished one time by spanking because they don’t have to discipline their children because they don’t burden them with the stuff we throw at our children. So I told my kids, I’m not going to give you anything else. I’m going to give you a Hot Wheels for Christmas and a lollipop for your birthday. And they said, Dad, that’s not going to work.

It’s harder not to give stuff to our grandchildren. We do set limits on it, and how much we’re going to spend. There’s no evidence in the Bible that Christmas is about us giving gifts to each other. I’m sure we can find out in history where that started. It’s something that Christians have incorporated into their church life that’s not biblical… not in the way that we do it.

Do you miss living overseas?

Ruth Ripken:

[58:25] Yes.

Nik Ripken:

[58:31] This has been the hardest time for Ruth to have me as a husband. I have been miserable. But listen, it’s all my responsibility. We went from going to 80 countries internationally, on the go, just learning and being with God’s people all over the planet. We came home, ran smack into COVID-19 and two serious back surgeries. It’s not just adjusting to America which is hard enough. We went from going 100 miles per hour in countries all over the world to not leaving our home.

As you know, we booked speaking events two years in advance. For almost two years, we couldn’t do any of those. Health limits what we can do.

Coming back to a place that’s 80% white, visiting but one church that has a person of color in it… coming back to the consumerism, materialism, and racism. I’m sure pastors have left the ministry by the thousands because people were fighting over masks and shots. We come from a continent that’s dying of malaria by the hundreds of thousands, and they can’t even afford an aspirin. I can understand non-believers doing this, but walking in and finding pastors leave their churches because they thought they had a mature church. Watching it fall apart because of masks and shots… Ruth and I were not prepared for that.

How do you plant churches in places with existing hostile churches?

Nik Ripken:

[1:02:32] The hardest place on the planet to witness is Judea. Billions of dollars are being used each year to subsidize the existing church in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan, and India. Christian businessmen tell us that it’s less expensive to send local people to reach their Hindu, Buddhists, and communists neighbors. The issue is that it’s not happening for the most part.

People will evangelize and plant local churches if you pay them. If you’re a businessman, here’s what we ask you to do. If there’s somebody you want to support, go be with that person, walk with that person, and visit with that person. Let them make a business plan and give you a financial accounting at the end of the year. Go when they’re expecting you, and go when they’re not expecting you.

It breaks my heart that 90% of all baptisms reported by local people supported by Westerners… you can discount. I often say to Christian businessmen, “if you ran your business the way you’re giving to the Christian mission world, how many years would your business last?” And they say, “Oh, it’d die in one year.” Why would you do less with God’s kingdom and God’s resources?

There are real reasons, especially in Islam, why local Christians don’t reach out to the next people group around them. You have the racism bit, but… when they reach out to their neighbors of other races and religions, the government and security police will often say… “We’re going to close you down. We’re going to take your church building away.”

The persecutors love to have local Christians funded by outsiders because they can turn it off in one night. They can stop it from coming through the banks; they can stop it from coming through the mail.

Ruth Ripken:

[1:10:57] In many places, Christian girls are kidnapped and married off to a Muslim man and they are never seen again by their parents. When they have children, the grandparents have no clue. I think that it’s real, and these parents struggle with the reality that they will never see their daughter again.

Nik Ripken:

[1:12:47] They say, “Be thankful that one of your daughters is a Muslim.” How many generations does that have to happen for you to say no more?

They say, “Converts have fooled us in the past. We’ve seen them come to Christ. We’ve helped their children get into better schools… we’ve helped them get a job, an apartment, a house. They’ll stay with Christianity until they get every material blessing they can from the church. Then they just go back to their majority religion. […] It’s not cost-effective to reach these people. We have to spend hundreds of dollars in these countries to see one Muslim or Hindu come to Christ, and then they end up going back to Islam and taking whatever we shared with them. […] You don’t know what our neighbors are like.”

The big thing is fear.

Apartheid

Nik Ripken:

[1:17:14] We’ve got to be willing to bring anybody and everybody into the house of God. Indigenous church planting means that they don’t have to become Western to become Christian. But if you take that and you push it to the extreme [where] they are required to worship in their own ethnicity, language, and locations – that’s what we call apartheid. Indigenous church planting is the norm for every mission agency that I’ve known. If you push it to the extreme, that’s apartheid. It’s closer to that than we would care to admit.

Foreign Language Errors

Nik Ripken:

[1:22:07] She said, “Just go to the store. Get some sugar for me, and I’ll bake a cake.” […] It’s one thing to tell a joke. It’s another thing to be the joke.

 

That’s it for this Q&A session on the Witness & Persecution podcast with Nik & Ruth Ripken.

Freedom and Fear, Ramifications of Roman Law

Ramifications of Roman Law

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.

Biblical Christianity is Persecuted Christianity, Why are Christians Persecuted?

Why are Christians Persecuted?

Religious persecution can take many forms, from subtle discrimination to outright violence. The majority of those practicing their faith today live in environments of persecution. In this episode, Nik Ripken explores the historical and present-day experiences of believers to better understand why Christians are persecuted.

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Christianity in Russia

In 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed new restrictions that limits where and how Christians share the gospel. He labeled these as anti-terrorism laws that protect Russia from religious extremism. However, many Christian activists have expressed their concern that the law is a way for the government to control public expression of faith.

Russia’s main religion is Orthodox Christianity. Russian Orthodoxy rejects the Protestant belief that Christ’s death on the cross was a substitutionary atonement for sin. According to Russian Orthodox doctrine, salvation comes through an ongoing process of repentance and participation in liturgical worship.

Putin’s laws forbid evangelism outside of churches and other designated protected places. It also prohibits missionary activities online and requires that all missionaries register with the government or face hefty fines and potential jail time. Additionally, any information shared by missionaries must be approved by authorities before it can be disseminated publicly. Nik expresses regret that it’s harder to get missionaries into Russia these days than during the communist regime of the Soviet Union.

Christianity in Asia

In East Asia, time spent as a believer in prison is considered equivalent to attaining degrees at a theological seminary. This phenomenon may be due to the lack of higher-level religious education available and strict laws on religious expression.

East Asian prisoners have become some of the most devoted followers of the Bible – even after their release from jail. A prisoner who spends years incarcerated in solitary confinement can come out with an intimate knowledge of Christianity that rivals any seminary graduate. Even without formal instruction, they gain great insight through prayer, contemplation, and intense study while serving their sentences.

Persecution is Normal in Biblical Christianity

Christians are persecuted because it is biblically normal for it to occur. Jesus himself said his followers would be like sheep among wolves – meaning they will always be subject to persecution.

The Bible speaks of how the people of God have experienced suffering since the beginning of time and this shouldn’t surprise anyone today. It is part of our spiritual heritage and should remind us that sometimes we must be willing to experience hardships in order to live out our faith authentically. It doesn’t mean that we should specifically seek out martyrdom, but that we don’t have to run from persecution when human nature takes its course.

Nik believes that if we accept this principle as true then it will help us understand why so many believers suffer greatly around the world due to their faith. As Joseph shows us in Genesis, it’s often part of God’s greater plan.

How Long was Joseph in Prison?

In the Book of Genesis, Joseph is betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery in Egypt. Most sources suggest that he was in prison between two and twelve years. The Bible makes it clear that Joseph was in prison for as long as God needed him to be.

He believed that God had a plan for him and therefore would give him the strength to withstand it. In the end, Joseph’s imprisonment saved both the Jews and the Egyptians.

Joseph’s imprisonment gave him the opportunity to interpret Pharaoh’s dream. He predicted seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. After this interpretation, Pharaoh appointed Joseph as his second-in-command. By storing up grain during the years of abundance and then selling it to the Egyptians during the years of famine, Joseph saved both nations from death by starvation. His confinement gave God ample opportunity to provide through the persecuted Joseph an incredible rescue mission for both countries.

Do we know when to leave Joseph in prison, or will we always try to get him out?

Defining Persecution

Defining Persecution

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.

This is Church to Us

The Church as the Body of Christ

This train was headed to Siberia, a place of exile, desperation, and dread. On board the train were the wife and children of the highest ranking pastor in Eastern Europe. The KGB had arrested this pastor and taken him to a torture facility. The family had no understanding of where they were headed or what cruel fate awaited them at their destination.

Were it not for the intervention of the church as the body of Christ, this family would have been abandoned in a shack with no hope for rescue or reprieve.

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Soviet Train to Nowhere

The kids were crying and confused. They had just seen their father arrested and taken away by the Soviet Union KGB to be tortured for his profession of faith. Their mother could only tell her kids to trust in God because she had no other answers.

A stranger approached this family and asked if this was the pastor’s family, referring to the pastor by name.

Hesitantly, she responded, “Yes, I’m his wife, and these are his children. They’re taking us away somewhere. I don’t know where they’re taking us. And we’re afraid.”

The man replied:

Well, you don’t know me. I’m from a church near the last place the train stopped. Last night, we were praying, and the Holy Spirit told us you were going to be on this train… and told us your husband’s name… and told us to take up an offering, and I was to bring it and to give it to you.

Then he gave her the cash.

Role of the Church

According to Nik, church is where we depend “spiritually, physically, emotionally, [and] psychologically” on one another. The local church – not her own – had collected their possessions, energy, and time to provide for this family in need.

The man added:

Here’s enough money for the next six months. Not only that, I’m going to stay on this train, and I’m going to watch where they dump you…. We’ll find a place for you to live. I will be back in a few months, with more money and more people, and we’re going to take care of you.

The arrested pastor’s church would later take over the duties of caring for this family. For now, it was not two divided churches but one unified body of believers that worked together to find ways to support this persecuted family.

Unity in the Body of Christ

“We are one church, [and we must] carry each other when we cannot carry ourselves any longer,” Nik explains.

The body of Christ is so much more than money. Fellowship includes being lifted up, cared for, and prayed for by those who have devoted their time and energy to loving others. Foreign charity can be a great help to those in need, but it should never replace the invaluable human connection of the body of Christ. This connection brings healing, hope, and peace that cannot be matched with any amount of money.

No matter where we are in our spiritual journey – whether just beginning to explore Christianity or deepening our relationship with God – it is essential to have the physical presence of people around us who share our faith. These people become a support system as we grow spiritually and can provide us with vital encouragement in difficult times. The local church helps keep us accountable when it comes to serving others in a meaningful way that not only meets physical needs but spiritual ones as well.

The Believers Share Their Possessions

Months later, this pastor’s family again found themselves in a dire situation in the middle of Siberia. With temperatures dipping to 30 below zero and neither firewood nor food remaining in their one-room house, the kids of the tortured pastor wondered if they would soon die. The family had no way to contact anyone, and they didn’t know if help was coming. Their mother again told her children to trust God.

The next morning, the family heard a loud knock on the door. When they opened it, there stood a deacon from 20 miles away with boxes of fruit, vegetables, and other food that the church had collected for this family.

Despite the freezing weather and fierce Siberian wolves, the deacon had felt that delaying this trip meant the family would die. But he summarized his obligation to the body of Christ: “You have to go. You don’t have to come back.”

The deacon made the overnight trip not expecting to survive the return.

What's Your Verse? What's Your Song?

Memorizing Scripture and Worship Songs

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?

Zebra Meat

How Do You Pray for Zebra Meat?

Surrounded by 30 Muslim children struggling with hunger at the top of the Shebelle River in Imi, Ethiopia, Nik Ripken opened a case of military MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat). To his shock, all of the prepackaged meals were made of pork, unsuitable for feeding a group of Muslims. He regretted not checking them before this moment. How do you pray in a time like this?

In this episode, Nik wrestles with the efficacy of prayer.

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How do you pray?

“Dr. Nik, you can’t feed them this. But Dr. Nik, you cannot not feed them this, because they’re going to die,” commented the guard and the driver.

Nik thought for a moment. He remembered hearing stories of how Ethiopians loved zebra meat. Nik suggested, “What if I lay my hands on this last box that’s all pork and I pray to my God in Jesus’ name that he changes it all to zebra meat?”

The guard and the driver replied, “That’s what you must do.”

And so I bowed my head, I laid my hands on that box of food, and I prayed over those starving children, I prayed over this situation, I prayed on how they were going to die if we didn’t do something at that time and buy some days to where somebody else could get there. I just prayed my heart out, and said God, you’ve got to change this pork into zebra meat, and you’ve got to do it in Jesus’ name, and I said Amen. When I looked up, they were taking their bayonets, cutting open those MREs, and distributing them to all of those starving children around them – anybody who made it up that bank.

But when Nik Ripken prayed for divine intervention, he wasn’t sure that it would work.

Every Muslim… 100% of those Muslims believed that my God turned that pork into zebra meat that was kosher for them to eat. Why is it that the only person who doubted that miracle was the person who prayed that prayer?

Despite feeling unsure about whether his prayer would be answered, Nik knew that if God chose to intervene then there was still hope for the children in front of him.

Why Muslims don’t eat pork

For Muslims, the prohibition against eating pork is not a cultural or dietary restriction, but rather a religious obligation. Their Quran expressly prohibits the consumption of pork out of a shared belief that it is unclean. Those who intentionally choose to eat pork are considered to be in violation of Islamic law and are subject to punishment.

Nevertheless, Muslims believe that if they eat pork without intending to, they’re not responsible for the mistake. In other words, their Quran says that “there is no sin on [them]” (al-Ahzab 33:5).

Does God answer all prayers?

According to Psalm 139:4, God knows our prayers before we speak them. 1 John 5:14–15 explains that if we ask anything of God according to his will, he hears us. 1 Peter 3:12 tells us that God is attentive to prayer. Rest assured that all prayers are heard.

Yet the question remains… are all prayers answered in the affirmative?

No, not all prayers are answered in the affirmative. Just because somebody prays for something does not mean that they will automatically get what they want. In 1 Chronicles 28, David desired to build a temple but later said that God declined his request. Instead, David’s son Solomon would be the one to build this temple. Sometimes people may not get what they prayed for because it is not in their best interest or because God has other plans.

Does prayer work?

What really happened that day when Nik prayed for the food to be changed from pork to zebra meat?

First, we can have full confidence that God heard his prayer.

Second, because the children eating the MREs would not have recognized the taste of pork, it’s hard to be sure whether God answered it in the affirmative or negative.

We might have known more about what the children ate if Nik had eaten some of the MREs himself. As the only non-Muslim in the group, Nik might have recognized the difference in taste between pork and some other meat. He might have been able to compare the taste of the last case of MREs with the ones he had in the weeks prior. However, with more than 30 starving children in front of him, eating some of these emergency rations would have resulted in less food for them. This seems objectionable in itself.

The efficacy of prayer

So was it pork or zebra meat? If Nik had eaten some of the MREs after praying, he might have relayed to us that this was indeed zebra meat, thereby strengthening his testimony. In contrast, if it tasted just like salted pork, he may have had to face the cognitive dissonance of having fed pork to a full group of Muslims.

To know what would have happened? No. Nobody is ever told that.

But we do know that the group of children felt Dr. Nik’s love and care for them, and they were fully convinced he had their best interests at heart. The children saw that he was willing to intercede with God on their behalf. In this way, they were able to stave off hunger another day.

In retrospect, Nik’s deepest desire was that the children in front of him were fed that day. We see that came true, just as the psalmist said it would (Psalm 37:4).

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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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