{"id":615,"date":"2026-09-26T11:18:42","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:18:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/?p=615"},"modified":"2026-09-26T11:18:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T11:18:42","slug":"the-persecuted-church-by-dr-ernest-fink-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/2026\/09\/26\/the-persecuted-church-by-dr-ernest-fink-10\/","title":{"rendered":"The Persecuted Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Written by: Dr. Ernest Fink (Senior Pastor | Director) City Harvest Family Church, USA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Bible doesn\u2019t use the phrase \u201cPersecuted Church,\u201d but it does have a lot to say about the persecution of God\u2019s people. Jesus promised his disciples that they would be hated for His Name\u2019s sake (<strong>Luke 21:17<\/strong>). The apostle Paul said that&nbsp;<em>everyone<\/em>&nbsp;who wants to live a godly life in Christ will be persecuted (<strong>2 Timothy 3:12<\/strong>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Persecution is to be expected because <em>\u201cthe whole world lies in the power of the evil one\u201d<\/em> <strong>(1 John 5:19).<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a sense, then,&nbsp;all Christians face&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegospelcoalition.org\/blogs\/kevin-deyoung\/four-thoughts-on-persecution-in-america\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">some level of persecution<\/a>&nbsp;as a result of living in a fallen world. Satan is seeking to devour us (<strong>I Peter 5:8<\/strong>). But having a co-worker who thinks you\u2019re weird for talking about Jesus is different than being thrown in prison simply for owning a Bible. So, who are we talking about when we refer to the persecuted church?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Defining Persecution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Christians around the world experience suffering for a variety of reasons: famine, war, economic hardship, natural disasters, etc. However, when we talk about the persecuted church, we\u2019re not referring to suffering in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Christian persecution can be defined as any hostility experienced as a result of identification with Jesus Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To dig deeper, it\u2019s helpful to distinguish between different kinds of persecution and different levels of severity. When we talk about the persecuted church, we\u2019re usually referring to those Christians and churches that face the most intense and consistent levels of persecution. The point in making these distinctions is not to minimize the difficulties faced by Christians in less-hostile environments, nor is it the goal to treat persecuted believers as a special class of super-saints. The purpose in identifying persecuted Christians is to grow in our awareness of those who most need our prayer and support due to the kinds of opposition they face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Kinds of Persecution<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sometimes persecution can be unorganized, occasional, and sporadic.&nbsp; In other cases, there may be a sustained, intentional effort from the government or another religious group to suppress or stamp out the church\u2019s witness.&nbsp; In North Korea, for example, Christian persecution is state-sponsored. &nbsp;In Nigeria and surrounding countries, the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram intentionally targets Christians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In many places, Christians feel constant pressure from their family and community to renounce Christ. Even if conversion to Christianity may technically be legal, it would be difficult to experience the security that comes from close relationships if you don\u2019t identify with the religion of the surrounding culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Pray<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The most obvious way you can support persecuted believers is to pray for them. Scripture gives us&nbsp;<strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/radical.net\/article\/pray-for-persecuted-christians\/\">various ways to do this<\/a><\/em><\/strong><strong><em>.<\/em><\/strong> <strong><\/strong>Ask the Lord to sustain their faith and bless their witness, even in the face of suffering. Ask Him to protect and provide for them. If those who s<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">eek to harm His people and silence their gospel witness will not convert, ask Him to execute justice on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ultimately, we can pray with confidence because the Lord does not abandon His people (<strong>Psalm 94:14, Hebrews 5-6<\/strong>) <br>He may choose to relieve their suffering now, but if not, they will be rescued fully and finally on the day of Christ\u2019s return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Blessings..!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by: Dr. Ernest Fink (Senior Pastor | Director) City Harvest Family Church, USA The Bible doesn\u2019t use the phrase \u201cPersecuted Church,\u201d but it does have a lot to say about the persecution of God\u2019s people. Jesus promised his disciples that they would be hated for His Name\u2019s sake (Luke 21:17). The apostle Paul said&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[11,260],"tags":[266,41,262,52,90,67,20,19,48,18,315,263,63],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-articles","category-dr-ernest-fink","tag-city-harvest-family-church","tag-discrimination","tag-dr-ernest-fink","tag-incident","tag-javaid-daniel","tag-minorities","tag-nia-tadeeb","tag-niatadeeb","tag-social-justice","tag-tadeeb","tag-the-persecuted-church","tag-usa","tag-63"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Dr.-Ernest-Fink.jpeg?fit=266%2C333&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tadeeb.org\/eng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}