Rejoicing in Persecution Without Romanticizing Pain

Persecution is a subject that fascinates and disturbs us. It’s good and right that we’re inspired by the faith of our brothers and sisters who have suffered, even as we’re horrified by the trials they’ve endured. But there’s another, equally natural reaction to persecution that we should try to avoid—the tendency to romanticize it.

For example, sometimes missionaries encourage people to stay in extremely dangerous situations as a “light” to their communities, despite Jesus’s instructions to “flee to the next [city]” (Matt. 10:23). Think, pastors: would you counsel a battered wife to go home and be a “light” to her husband, or would you help her look for safe housing?

Persecution is not an essential component of maturity. Yet I’ve even heard people say that persecution only makes the church grow more quickly and that we shouldn’t pray for persecution to stop in areas where it is most rampant because an unpersecuted church is lazy and complacent.

My concern isn’t to excuse laziness or complacency where they exist. But speaking as if persecution were necessary for the church’s health comes close to treating persecution as a positive good. That simply isn’t the way the Scriptures read:

• The New Testament repeatedly attributes the persecution of Jesus and his people to the work of Satan (John 14:30; 1 Pet. 5:8–9; Rev. 2:10, 13).
• The early church prays for the release of imprisoned saints (Acts 12:5; Phlm. 1:22).
• Jesus tells his disciples to flee persecution (Matt. 10:23).
• Jesus negotiates for his disciples’ release before giving himself up (John 18:8–9).
• Paul tells Timothy to pray “for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life. . . . This is . . . pleasing in the sight of our God and Savior, who desires all people to be saved” (1 Tim. 2:2–4). Paul believes peace and tranquility—rather than persecution—are most conducive to people being saved.

The New Testament church grieved persecution, attributed it to Satan, prayed against it, and tried to avoid it. Now, God does work despite persecution—even through it—to bring his kingdom in the New Testament. Paul tells Timothy that though he is “suffering, bound in chains as a criminal,” “the word of God is not bound!” (2 Tim. 2:9), and it’s through his imprisonment that Caesar’s Praetorian guard hears the gospel (Phil. 1:13, 4:22). Yet the fact that God works through persecution doesn’t make it good. God works through war, divorce, and cancer, too, but we don’t romanticize those!

And just like the evils of war, divorce, and cancer, persecution doesn’t result in growth alone. It takes a toll, too. It imprisons saints and isolates them. It bereaves, maims, and kills them. Certainly, the persecution in Acts 8 causes the gospel to spread beyond Jerusalem, but it also seems to stop the burgeoning spread of the church in Jerusalem. Similarly, in recent history, we’ve seen the church spread rapidly in China, but we’ve also seen persecution essentially eliminate the church in parts of North Korea and the Muslim world.

We should do all we can to shield people from the ravages of persecution. We should try to avoid and prevent it. We should pray against it. When God sees fit to answer those prayers, we can rest assured that he is bringing his kingdom in gentler ways. Missionaries should generally counsel persecuted believers to “flee to the next city” when persecution is severe enough, even if their departure may preclude their ability to help contribute to church growth there.

Is there still a place for courageously standing our ground? Of course! Jesus and his disciples don’t flee persecution lightly; they only “flee to the next” city when there’s civil unrest or credible risk to life or limb. Fleeing persecution doesn’t necessitate going to the safest, farthest place possible. Often, New Testament believers simply go to an adjacent city until the trouble dies down. Peter left Jerusalem after Herod tried to kill him and returned when Herod died. And when he couldn’t get out of the way of persecution, he had ample courage to die for his faith.

But Peter himself would tell us the strength to joyfully stand with Christ amid persecution comes from knowing that there’s a reward (1 Pet. 4:13). Peter knew that persecution isn’t the point. It is simply a road through the wilderness that God may ordain for us to travel. The point—the destination—is the promised land on the other side of the wilderness. It’s the hope of eternal joy in that land that carries us through our sorrows.

Part of that joy will be the taste of victories won through suffering along the way. The author of Hebrews tells his persecuted readers that Satan uses the “fear of death” to hold people in slavery (Heb. 2:14–15). Today, throughout the world, the terror of persecution still holds millions in slavery. Our sufferings allow us to demonstrate Jesus’s resurrection power, rather than just telling people about it. That’s why Paul said that in our sufferings, we carry “in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our bodies” (2 Cor. 4:10). People who’ve seen Jesus’s resurrection life manifested and trusted his power can’t be held in slavery by fear any longer.

So, is persecution desirable? Most emphatically, no! God himself is against it. If he sometimes chooses to reveal his power in the persecution of his people, he does so to free others from the terror of persecution forever in a new world beyond suffering. Can the promise of eternal joy with them in that world give us ample strength to bear whatever difficulties we may endure along the way? You can bet your life on it.

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Editor’s note: This article has been adapted from Rhodes’s book Persecution in Missions: A Practical Theology (Crossway, 2026).