WHY PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS DON'T WRITE BOOKS

In a modern day missionary biography, The Insanity of God, Nik Ripken recalls some of the stories from a major research project he had undertaken, aimed at understanding how faith in Christ is sustained and even flourishes where the gospel is most violently opposed. His rendering of two particular interactions, one with a group of Russian believers and the other with a Ukranian brother, pierced my heart this morning as I read them.

The following account was after a round of interviews with a number of Christians in Russia where believers suffered significantly over a period of decades under communist rule:

When we stopped to eat lunch, I gently scolded the group, saying: "Your stories are amazing. Why haven't they been written down? Your stories sound like Bible stories come to life! I can't believe that you haven't collected them in a book, or recorded them in some video form..."

They seemed confused by what I was saying. Clearly, we were not understanding each other. Then one of the older pastors stood and motioned for me to follow him. He led me over to a large window in the front room of the home. s we stood together in front of the window, the old gentlemen speaking passable, but heavily accented English, said to me: "I understand that you have sons, Nik. Is that true?"

I told him that it was true. He nodded then asked me, "Tell me, Nik. How many times have you awakened your sons before dawn and brought them to a window like thies one, one that faces east, and said to them, 'Boys, watch carefully. This morning you're going to see the sun coming up in the east! It's going to happen in just a few more minutes. Get ready now, boys.' How many times have you done that with your sons?"

"Well," I chuckled, "I've never done that. If I ever did that, my boys would think I was crazy. The sun always comes up in the east. It happens every morning!" 

The old man nodded and smiled. I didn't understand his point. 

I didn't understand his point, that is, until he continued: "Nik, that's why we haven't made books and movies out of these stories that you have been hearing. For us, persecution is like the sun coming up in the east. It happens all the time. It's the way things are. There is nothing unusual or unexpected about it. Persecution for our faith has always been - and probably always will be - a normal part of life."

Ripken, upon reflection, goes on to confess that, "I had always assumed that persecution was abnormal, exceptional, unusual, out of the ordinary. In my mind, persecution was something to avoid. It was a problem, a setback, a barrier. I was captivated by the thought: what if persecution is the normal, expected situation for a believer? (Nik Ripken, The Insanity of God, p. 160-161)

Following his round of interviews in the Ukraine, Ripken recounts a similar interaction that began with his sense of their extraordinariness:

"Believers around the world ought to hear what you have been telling me here today. Your stories are amazing! These are inspiring testimonies! I have never heard anything like them!"

An older pastor reached out and took my shoulder. He clamped his other hand tightly onto my arm, and looked me right in the eye. He said, "Son, when did you stop reading your Bible? All of our stories are in the Bible. God has already written them down. Why would we bother writing books to tell our stories when God has already told His story..."

He paused and then he asked me again, "When did you stop reading your Bible?" (Nik Ripken, The Insanity of God, p. 179)

That question convicted my heart today and echoed over and over again. When I consider my life and witness with these stories in my mind, I have to admit at some point that my perception of reality shapes my understanding of the Bible far more than my understanding of the Bible shapes my perception of reality. I pray that will be less true of me tomorrow and that there will come a day when it's not true about me at all.