the gospel in a hostile setting

About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them…

Acts 16:25

How should Christians respond to negative treatment by those who are hostile to the gospel? 

• We should take to social media and call out evil and villianize sinners! Right?
• We should form political alliances and enforce more biblical legal systems! Right?
• We should belittle those who oppose us while bolstering our own sense of righteousness! Right?
• We should huddle in cloistered “gospel communities” awaiting the wrath of the King to fall on evil! Right?

According to the examples we see in the New Testament, all those responses are very wrong.

What then do we do to counteract evil treatment and rejection? The simple answer is this: We don’t fight back. We worship and praise and keep committing ourselves to the proclamation of the gospel. That is what Paul and Silas did while in a Philippian prison cell. They were committed to prayer, praise, and proclamation. They were unjustly jailed, lied about, falsely charged, mob mugged, and beaten and chained for simply bringing the healing of Jesus to an oppressed and abused young woman. They didn’t react in emotional indignation. They responded in reverent adoration.

God used this prison praise to start a church… right there in jail cell praise service. God will use even persecution to advance the gospel. An earthquake loosed their chains and opened the doors. A jailer in fear came to faith. A church was born out of this persecution. God turned their praise into power because they refused to act in selfish retaliation but instead humbly trusted God to use even that hardship to advance the gospel they sang!

Later, Paul would appeal to his civil rights as a Roman citizen to point out injustice and seek better treatment (Acts 16:35-39). But by that time a new church was thriving as a direct result of God counteracting the evil actions that originally were meant to suppress the gospel. Christians can boldly believe that NOTHING stops the advance of Christ’s kingdom! Will we keep our pride at bay long enough to let the gospel advance in a hostile culture? It seems to me we are the ones who can get in the way of it. Wisdom calls us to humbly endure and pray and preach on.