Theology of the Cross and Martyrdom — Dean Taylor

The Theology of the Cross and Martyrdom

Let us meditate on hardship, and we shall not feel them. Let us abandon luxuries, and we shall not regret them. Let us stand ready to endure any violence, having nothing which we may fear to leave behind.

That's the drive of what the cross is doing to us. So today I'm gonna continue on to this, the series in 1 Corinthians chapter one, and I was gonna go all the way to 31. I'm not going to 31. It just got too big, and the themes were too different.

This one today, I'm gonna focus in on right to verse 25, and I'll read it to you, and then we'll maybe have a prayer that asks the Lord to illuminate his word. And so I'm gonna focus on this theology of the cross and the theology of martyrdom that comes with that.

It's a theme I preach on frequently, and during this message, I really just tried to study some of the nuances of how this theology drives us and how it directs us. And so I wanted to look at how, I'm gonna have some quotes from early Christians and things like that, of people who speak of the concept of martyrdom and the cross and how that motivates our behavior for life.

And so let's read the scripture, and then we'll pray. So I'm gonna take it from verse 18 to 25. 1 Corinthians chapter one, verse 18 through 25. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring it to nothing, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. To the Jews, a stumbling block, and to the Greeks, foolishness. But to those who are called, both Jews and Greek, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God, because the foolishness of God is wiser than men and the weakness of God, wow, the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, this is a sobering topic in many ways that you've given us here, but you've given it to us as an encouragement, as a power, as a something to look forward to. Well, God, please let us be one of those that are being saved, that we will understand the message of the cross and the power and the joy that comes with that.

I pray that you would be with this message today, that you would let your word and these testimonies of people that have gone before us encourage us to run this race, oh God, with endurance. So God, I pray you'd be with us now in Jesus' name, amen.

So the passage that strikes me a lot, and I do ponder it a lot, and it's the theology of martyrdom here, is found in this passage. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing.

So this idea of the message of the cross and everything that the cross represents, it's sacrifice, it's suffering, it's resurrection, it's power, it's saving grace, there's so much to it. And that message of the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing, that are dying, that you're gonna die and just die.

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And so what I'm trying to bring out of this message is particularly how some of these ideas of the spirit of martyrdom and the theology of martyrdom actually can be a life-giving, a power-giving spirit in us that can just bless our life and encourage us.

And it says, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. You know, I remember the first time I was challenged with this topic, it was actually this day.

I was in the court hearing, and this is when Tanya and I were in the court hearing for our conscious objector trial in Germany. And I remember during that court trial, the officer who was challenging us, he said, and I was beginning to talk to him about how Christians can have an alternative to war, and that that alternative is the cross many times, and it means dying, it means suffering, and I was telling him of some of the sacrifice and things that were before that Christians have endured, and he hit me with, he said, well, isn't that just a martyrdom complex?

Isn't that just a martyrdom complex? And that's what he asked me. I remember, I don't know if it was the first time I ever heard it, but it was something kind of new to me, and I just thought, well, it's not, I don't know if it's a martyrdom complex, but it is a theology of martyrdom.

And the idea that in the cross, and when we consider that our life is dead and of ourself, but alive to Christ Jesus, and that they can't kill you, that is so life-giving. I mean, I want you to imagine from a military standpoint.

Let's say we had a military secret, and we had a bunch of soldiers, and we said, okay, here's the way we're gonna do. We're gonna run out in this field, and we're gonna try to do this battle, but here's the great part.

They can shoot you, and it's gonna look like you're gonna die, but you're not gonna die. You're gonna live. Imagine if the soldiers really believed it, and it was true, how empowering that would be. You would just run and fight and say, oh, I know it's gonna hurt a little bit, but I'm gonna wake right up, and we're gonna keep going.

That would be so life-giving to a soldier. And I think that that's part of what's being said here in 1 Corinthians chapter one, is that there's power for us that we know that we will live forever. Jesus told us those who are in him never die, but those that are perishing, what a vain thing the cross is.

What a worthless thing. And so as I went from that and went further into studying the early church, I saw that they looked at it in such a, I don't know, a really rich and deep way that was just totally, totally blew my mind.

And that they would look into this with joy. And as I remember, I can remember, it's funny looking back on it, and I don't know, I was just starting to read some martyr stories in some of the early church at the time, and getting out of the army, I remember that they take your blood to see if you have HIV or these are different things when you leave the army.

And I'll never forget, I was just filling my head with a lot of these martyr stories, and they came and took my blood, and showed you how much of a wimp I am, and I completely passed out. I remember, and I remember just thinking, man, I am such an unbelievable wimp.

If I can't get my blood checked without, I mean, literally, I was passed out. Tonya said I was like shaking, and they were putting smelling salt on my nose. I was out cold. And it was because they were just, and what had happened, he had messed up, and the thing sort of had a, yeah, terrible scene.

Martyrdom as Forward Bravery

And I just pondered the strength, and the readiness to suffer persecution that I was reading in the early church, and what a wimp, a total wimp, I still am, in comparison to this. And it's like a mindset, and that's one of the nuances that I really wanna get.

It's a mindset in two different ways. It's a mindset of being able to suffer, and because of that, we prepare our life in that way. I'm gonna show you some really cool quotes on how the early church would speak of our lives as a life of the cross in this preparation for a day, like the picture you see there.

But then also, there's something powerful about it, and I'm gonna try to show some little thoughts on that, on how it's forward acting, like the scene of the battle, soldiers. But you don't die. It's like this top secret, this top military secret, that we can run forward into the most, the terrible places of earth that has persecution, and we can take the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And martyrdom is not just, it is half, but it's not just dying bravely. Praise God that it is, and it's big to the early church. It's not just that, though. It's forward bravery to take the gospel forward, and that's just the amazing thing that I've seen on it.

One of the early things you get when you start reading into the early church is these letters from Ignatius. And Ignatius was an early bishop of Antioch, and he was on his way to persecution, and he was writing several letters to all the churches because of Gnosticisms and all this kind of thing that he was fighting.

But the one thing that really made him nervous is that he was nervous that people were gonna stop him from getting martyred. And I don't know, it seems like a little over the top, but I think it's because we have no idea of what a precious thing this is in their mindset, and we're so weak, because I pass out when I get my blood taken.

And here's just one of the letters that he wrote. He wrote several of these with the same kind of spirit. I'm going for my reward and this joy of the persecution. He said this, he was writing to all the churches, and I bid all men know that of my own free will, I die for God, unless you should hinder me.

I exhort you, be not an unreasonable kindness to me. Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God. I am God's wheat. I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread of Christ.

Rather entice the wild beasts that they may become my sepulcher, and may leave no part of my body behind so that I may not, when I am fallen asleep, be burdensome to anyone. And this kind of spirit, you see the same thing with Polycarp, was another one around the same time period, and many of these early martyrs of this day, would just, you see them just caught up in a rapture of joy, of the idea of the joy of being able to suffer for Christ.

And there's something to this that I just feel so soft, so weak, so easily to feed my own comforts. There's an interesting one I like to check because it's one of the earlier commentaries we have from Chrysostom, who wrote in the ancient Greek.

And he's taking that passage, and he's challenging, I skipped it for time's sake, but he's challenging Plato and the different philosophers. He said, you produced nothing. What, you died of hemlock, and you killed yourself with the hemlock, you philosophers.

And he goes on, he said, and then he says, but I can produce for you these armies of martyrs that are representing the early church. And I got these quotes from him, and this is from the line, from his sermon on this very passage that I'm preaching today.

Chrysostom on the Power of the Cross

And this is what his take on that was. So remember, the foolishness of the world, God made nothing compared to the cross. So that's the comparison, and Chrysostom is preaching on that. He says, but the cross, you Platonic philosophers did nothing, but the cross wrought persuasion by means of unlearned men.

Yet it persuade even the whole world, and not only about common things, but in discourse of God, and the godliness, which is according to truth, and the evangelical way of life, and the judgment of things to come.

And of all men it made philosophers, the very rustics, the utterly unlearned, behold how the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness stronger. How stronger? Because it overran the whole world.

This is 350 or so. It overran the whole world, and took by main force, and while men were endeavoring by 10 ,000s to extinguish the name of the crucified, the contrary came to pass. I mean, you tried everything to kill us, everything.

The contrary came to pass. That flourished and increased more and more, but they perish and wasted away. The philosophers, they perish and wasted away. And the living at war with the dead had no power, so that when the Greeks call me foolish, he shows himself above measure foolish, since I am esteemed by him a fool, evidently appear wiser than the wise.

When he calls me weak, then he shows himself to be weaker, for the noble things which publicans and fishermen were able to affect by the grace of God, these philosophers and rhetoricians and tyrants and the sorts of the whole world running 10 ,000 ways here and there could not even form a notion of it.

He goes on. For what did the cross introduce? Ponder this. So all those philosophies, all those things, what did the cross, the whole concept of the cross, the philosophy of the cross introduce? The doctrine concerning the immortality of the soul, that concerning the resurrection of the body, that concerning the contempt of things present, that concerning the desire of things future, yea, angels it has made of men, and all everywhere practice self-denial and show forth all kinds of fortitude.

You see how this is interesting with Chrysostom? He's mentioning that the cross, it's not just a philosophical thing, that it creates a character, a character in people. And here's the way that they spun this concept of the difference between Christianity and philosophy, and why the foolish things of this world, and my message next time will be getting more on this.

With a philosopher, you kind of climbed your way up the ladder in more and more brilliance. You figured this out and that out and that out and that out, and finally you get to the final spot, and you're getting to the point where you're trying to perceive God.

And what Chrysostom in the early church would say, but the difference in Christianity was handed to you. Here it is, the truth in Jesus Christ, the incarnation, it looks like Christ. And so the most simple can take this as a treasure and as an inheritance, and then we can take all lives and all kinds of things to try to explain it, but we start from receiving instead of just trying to philosophize.

And that's how we interpret that concept that Paul was speaking of in 1 Corinthians. Where's the wisdom of the wise? Where's the great debaters? It's come to naught over just the simple receiving of the word of God in Jesus Christ.

And I love this, and he gets challenging with them. He says, okay, so who did you convert? You died on your own. How did it work for you? What did you even die for it? And he makes this challenge. This is his explanation of Christianity in his day.

Challenging the philosophers, and there were still a lot of philosophers. It's interesting, I've interviewed, read Chrysostom's Confessions. You know that one of the things that got me in that, and this is around 400, 420 or so, and how many philosophers, there still were schools of philosophy.

There were still things, and Augustine was still trying to find his way through all that stuff. And here he's challenging the philosophers of his day in the middle 300s with this. And he says, but show me someone enduring firm in torments for godliness' sake.

And I want you to pay attention to the way Chrysostom talks about the character building qualities of the cross. But show me someone enduring firm in torments for godliness' sake. And I'll show you 10 ,000 everywhere in the world who, while his nails were tearing out, notably endured.

Who of the philosophers, while his body joints were wrenching asunder? Who, while his body was cut in pieces, member by member, or his head? Who, while his bones were forced out by levers? Who, while placed without intermission upon frying pans?

Who, when thrown to the cauldron, show me these instances, for to die by hemlock is always one with a man's continuing in a state of sleep. Nay, even sweeter than sleep is this sort of sleep, if the report is true.

But if certain of them did endure torment, yea, of these too, the praise is gone to nothing. For on some disgraceful occasion they perish, some for reviling mysteries, some for aspiring to dominion, others detecting in the foulest crimes, others again rashly and falsely and foolishly, there being no reason for it, made away with themselves.

But not so with us. Listen to the confidence he says about Christianity. But not so with us. Wherefore of the deeds of those nothing is said, but these flourish and daily increase, which Paul having in mind said, the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Suffering as the Pattern of the Christian Life

The weakness of God is stronger than men. This idea of coming to, oops, I lost my notes, of seeing Christ and walking in his ways, it's not just the early church. You look through history, and it's a common thread.

The Waldensians and the different groups that were persecuted, certainly the Anabaptists, the different persecuted group in China today. It's like, it's kind of like the way, there was a theology in the 70s or the 60s, maybe a little earlier, the 50s and 60s, called liberation theology, and it was claiming that you can't read the Bible unless you're an oppressed poor person.

The Bible was written for that kind of a thing. And it got big for a while, and then it ended up with some revolutions and things like that. But the early church felt, and maybe in a more way than just being oppressed, that being martyred, and that there's something living in your life, there's something should be living in your life that looks like this suffering Christ, something.

In other words, it's not about your life isn't just about trying to live your best life now, to how to have all the comforts in the world, but Jesus Christ has a purpose. He has a drive that he wants to accomplish in the church, and he's given us a way to do that, and I don't know why, but he's chosen suffering, and he's led the way in that.

And he's told us, I must be baptized. Many of the different martyred churches, Anabaptists and different martyred churches would speak of the baptism of the blood. The concept that this is a suffering, and if we are the body of Christ, and the body of Christ endures, if Christ endures suffering, and the message of these people have always been, then where is the suffering?

What are we doing wrong? It should be making us a little nervous when we're just living our best life. Some of the passages that you frequently see coming out in this genre of, is like this one in Colossians.

It's very controversial if your theology is messed up, but if you have this theology of martyrdom, it's a beautiful passage. And Paul speaking and just pondering his suffering, and the suffering he's seeing in the church, and what he's, and his going forth with this passion to fulfill Christ's command on this earth.

He says, I now, in Colossians 124, I now rejoice in my sufferings for you. What do you, don't just read over that, because we've heard it a lot. I rejoice in my sufferings. Do you think it was just poetry?

Do you think it was a poetic thought of Paul? I think that there's somehow that there's a theology of martyrdom that we don't get, or I don't get, that comes out in those passages. Now, I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

This idea that Christ is the body of Christ, and he's, that Christ is given to the body of Christ, the continuing of his body, and continuing of his growth, that that's gonna continue to require a cross in each of these places, and Paul's rejoicing.

So when he sees this suffering, he knows that it's, he knows that it's prospering, and what Christ has wanted him to do. I've heard it said, if you ever see growth in the church, one or two things are happening.

It's because you're enduring suffering, or someone has suffered for you, but there's built into this, and there's something in this Colossians 124 that someone has suffered for the fruit of what you're experiencing, like what Paul is saying, I'm rejoicing in the suffering that I have, and now to see what's happening in Colossians, in the Colossian church, and this is what was coming out of this.

This became so much a phrase, so much part of early Christianity, that the word for witness, this word, martyress, it became the word for martyr, that this is how we witness, this is how we tell people who we are, is that we die for our faith.

In the second century, that word martyr became a technical term for a person who died for Christ, and they had a different category, it's interesting, and I'm gonna show you some fascinating quotes about how they made some distinctions with this.

They had made, that a confessor was someone who got close. So let's say you're in a foreign country, and they drag you into prison and things, and did all these terrible things to you, and you say, yeah, I'm really suffering persecution.

And many times, that would be considered what, someone who's suffered, and they'd become a confessor. And this was very important to the early church, and that at least the early church had this concept of having confessors, if not martyrs themselves.

I was talking with Brother Zach, and we were talking about, and I have some slides of his No Blood But Our Own coming up here, his concept that I think should just distinguish this forward direction. And he says at Wheaton College, they have a wall there, it's the wall of martyrs.

And have you seen it? I haven't seen it, I have to see it someday. And they have the wall of missionaries, the wall of martyrs, and I just pray God, to pray to God that we here at a local church can have that, and we at Sattler can have that, and you and your families can have that.

I mean, what a, that's a treasure. And that's somehow this concept of what we're seeing in this. Listen to this quote here I found from Eusebius. Eusebius was writing around at the end of persecution, right around the year 325 or so, and he's talking about a persecution that happened in Lyons around Irenaeus' time, and the difference they made between a martyr and a confessor.

And just the language strikes me. I've told you before, I don't know if I've mentioned that here or somewhere else, sometimes when I read other people's letters, like of really holy people, I don't know, I get convicted by their letters to their moms.

You know what I mean? It's just, I feel my language sometimes is so casual, so casual, that I read in these kind of attitudes, and I realize I'm just, am I even scratching the surface of some of the depth that I see in some of these people's letters?

So here's a particular spot where they're distinguishing between a martyr and a confessor, and it says, so Eusebius writing about the persecution in 177 during the time of Irenaeus, quote, they were also so zealous in their imitation of Christ.

Now, catch that. They were also so zealous in their imitation of Christ that though they had attained honor and had borne witness, not once or twice, but many times have been brought back to prison from the wild beast, covered with burns and scars and wounds, yet they did not proclaim themselves martyrs, nor did they suffer us to address them by the name.

If any one of us in letter or conversation spoke of them as martyrs, they rebuked us sharply, and they reminded us of the martyrs who had already departed and said, they are already martyrs whom Christ has deemed worthy to be taken up in their confession.

Having sealed their testimony by their departure, we are lowly and humble confessors. It's just, it's such a different spirit. Interesting, there's a document called the Apostolic Traditions of Hippolytus.

It's kind of a strange document, and it talks about several different things on the way Hippolytus would want someone to get ordained this way and that way, but there's a curious thing that even in 250, it's around the year 250, that he, and he had all this special way that Hippolytus wanted people to be ordained, but when it came, but if you were a confessor, if you've lived this life to Hippolytus, he said this, if a confessor has been placed in chains for the name of the Lord, hands are not to be laid upon him for the office of deacon or elder.

He has the honor of the office of an elder through his confession. I just, I just ponder that. I read something like that, and I'm like, I'm just dipping into a different kind of piety, a different kind of Christianity that I feel so foreign to, but I want so much more in my life to understand it, and I see this in like Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 and the Witness of Suffering

You know the Hebrews 11, the famous passage, there's a, you'll see what I've highlighted there at the end, and we don't usually focus on this last passage in Hebrews 11, but don't read it yet. So you read the Hebrews 11, you know, right at the end, it gets really bad.

First, you got these great stories of Abraham and Noah, and you know, all that, but you finally get to this end in verse 25, it says, others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection.

Still others had trials of mockings and scourging, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wondered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy.

They wandered in deserts and mountains and dens and caves of the earth. That does not sound like the best life now. He goes on, all of these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, the fulfillment in Christ.

God having provided something better for us. Now watch this. That they, all that testimony, all of Hebrews chapter 11, that they should not be complete or made perfect without us. You get that? That that whole story is not done unless we are a part of that story.

That's not finished unless it's finished in us. And that's what he's saying here, the writer of Hebrews is encouraging us to this very thing. So the theology of martyrdom, that kind of a spirit, is a power, but it's also a way of life.

And not in a weird, you know, grumpy, you know, cranky kind of a way, but an enlivened way that you don't have to please your flesh. You're free not to please your flesh and to just serve yourself in this world.

Enduring Hardship as a Christian Soldier

Some of the passages that strike us with that is, in 2 Timothy, he hits it twice, one chapter right after another. He says, you therefore must, you therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.

No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life that he may please who enlisted him as a soldier. It goes on in the next chapter, chapter three, verse 12, 2 Timothy, yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

It's a really challenging sermon. I remember years ago reading from John Wesley in his, coming out of his diary, and he was getting kicked out of one church or another and getting stoned and all the different types of things.

And he said that this should follow Christianity. And when it doesn't, we should question. Now, what does that kind of a thinking do to your lifestyle? And so instead of kind of looking at, oh, modest dress or entertainment issues as something like church standards or something, what if what you're trying to do is to live a life of the cross, and that that's driving you in a positive and forward way?

Listen to the way Tertullian addresses the clothes issue. And the luxuries issues, and living a life of luxury. He's not trying to make just some weird guideline or something, he wants to see that we're facing and we're running this race in that way.

And he says this, talking about just living a worldly life and fancy and fashion and ease, and he says, for such delicacies as tend by their softness and effeminacy to unmanned the manliness of faith are to be discarded.

Otherwise, I know not whether the wrist, listen to this, I know not whether the wrist that has been want to be surrounded by a palm leaf like bracelet will endure till it grows into the numb hardness of its own chain.

I know not whether the leg that has rejoiced in the anklet will suffer itself to be squeezed into the shackle. I fear the neck beset with pearls and emerald nooses will give no room to the broad sword.

Wherefore, blessed sisters, let us meditate on hardship and we shall not feel them. Let us abandon luxuries and we shall not regret them. Let us stand ready to endure any violence, having nothing which we may fear to leave behind.

That's the drive of what the cross is doing to us. If we're taking this kind of a concept, it's a really touching story in the martyr's mirror. Written around the year 1539, Anakin of Rotterdam in Holland.

She was being taken off, that's an etching of her there. And she wrote a letter to her children. And it's really touching. And the last line is really challenging. I have it on a different slide. But so she's being dragged away.

They gave her some time to write a letter and she wrote this letter. I've been in Amsterdam and saw this letter in the archives. Oops. She says this, my son, hear the instruction of your mother. Remember, she's being dragged off to be taken to kill.

Open your ears to hear the word of my mouth. Behold, I go today the way of the prophets, apostles and martyrs. And drink of the cup they all have drunk. I go, I say the way which Christ Jesus himself went.

And who had to drink the cup ever as he said, I have a cup to drink and a baptism to be baptized with. And how am I straight until it be accomplished? Having passed through, he calls his sheep. And his sheep hear his voice and follow him, whether so ever he goes.

This way was trodden by the dead under the altar. And this way walked all those who were marked by the Lord. And she says this, for where you hear of the cross, there is Christ. From there, do not depart.

And that's something. Now that's, the cross is foolishness to those that are perishing. For us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And if you don't hear the cross, run away. This is the message.

You're wondering, will my children stay in the faith? Will my children still be walking with Christ after I'm gone? And she says, let me just put it down into one thing. For where you hear of the cross, people getting persecuted for their faith, there is Christ.

For there, do not depart. Years ago, I had this chance to go to Bonhomme Colony. And the ancient Hutterian chronicles are kept under the bishop's bed there in Bonhomme Colony. There he is. He pulled it out with that wooden box.

You see that picture. There it is laying on the desk. It was mailed to him in the late 1800s. And it's mildewing and it's getting ruined under his bed, but he's not about to take it out. And so I had it and I looked over it and there was one particular scene that I really wanted to see when I was there and he allowed me to flip through it and take a look at it.

And as I look through it, there's one scene that in the English version of these chronicles, you have these columns that mention all the different martyrs and all the different cities and when they were killed and everything.

And I was trying to find that because I was curious what it looked like in the original. And I came to it and here's what I found. And it's really cool. So in the original, it goes straight to the next section and there's not this whole extra page here.

And you see how you, and between this column is verses like, I send you out as sheep before the wolves. And I looked at that and I pondered and the bishop guy was sitting there and I said, why are all those gaps in there?

He said, I don't know, I've never noticed it. I said, well, I think it's kind of obvious, don't you? The guys that wrote this thought it wasn't finished. They thought that people would be continually being martyred for the faith, but something happened and the martyrdom stopped.

Something happened and I said to him, you are supposed to be written in there. What happened? What happened? And that kind of spirit is something that, I don't know, I just feel I can play with, I can encourage my spirit, but I want to understand it in a deeper way.

I want to understand it deeper. They saw, there's a quote from Van Brought in The Martyr's Mirror, he said this, speaking of just the way they understood Christ. He was born under the cross, brought up under the cross, walked under the cross, and eventually died on the cross.

And the way they would see this is a concept of suffering, a concept of a life of surrender, a life of giving to God everything you had. But here's the thing, I've mentioned this before, but I was giving a talk once in a colony and a little Hutterite young man said to me, when I was mentioning all the missionary exploits that were part of them, he said, I knew that we died good, but I never knew that we ever lived, we never did any of these things that I was telling him about.

Dying Well in the Service of the Gospel

Because here's the part, the nuance that I want you to get about the martyrdom, the theology of the cross. Dying well is incredible, but it's dying well in the place of service. In other words, we can have a Marine Corps and we can all be on Parris Island somewhere, you know, it's training, and just die on Parris Island, and that's noble, but even more noble is going to Iwo Jima when you're dying in service in a carnal crown.

And we in the cross, in the cross of Christ, Jesus has a purpose that he wants the church to fulfill, and this goes forth, and this is what you get. Again, it's impressive. Soon as you start getting people writing different things that are about this, one of my favorite stories in the 1527 is a martyr's synod, and they got together all the guys that were kind of, any kind of leaders, and they had 60 of them there, and they came together and they said, okay, you're gonna go this way, you're gonna go that way, you're gonna go this way, and they were excited, and they knew they were all gonna die, and as a matter of fact, you know why they call it the martyr's synod is because in five years of those 60 ministers that were there, only two were still alive.