A Force To Be Reckoned With...

“Christians were never persecuted by Rome because of their religion.”

I perked up in the middle of my 7 AM church history class. I frowned, waiting for the teacher to explain further.



“The first time anyone was martyred for something they believed in, was much later in the middle ages. And then it was Christians executing whoever they believed to be heretics.”

Not being very tolerant of heretics myself, I half-understood that. But I was still perturbed.

“Rome persecuted Christians for being part of the Church.”

Then I understood.

Beliefs are harmless. Beliefs are intangible People can believe whatever they want, so long as nothing happens.

But the Church is tangible. The Church is effective. It’s an organization designed to partner with God in the renewal of all things. It gets stuff done. It changes peoples’ lifestyles. It changes society on the whole. It meets regularly. It cares for its members, the poor, the widows, the orphans, the social outcast. And it’s on the move.

Or at least, it should be.

So maybe we should stop arguing about what we believe. Maybe we should stop burning each other at the stake. Maybe we should get up and go.

Maybe we should become an institution that’s so effective, it made the most powerful empire the world has ever seen get nervous. Simply by loving the unlovable and unflinchingly believing in a God who made everything.

Maybe it’s time we became a force to be reckoned with.

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Ben Michaels 



is a Junior at Ozark Christian College studying preaching and church planting.  He blogs at A Rainy Day in Switzerland frequently and considers himself a coffee addict who loves to tell stories. When he was little, he had a dream to become a garbage man, because he thought they only worked one day a week.