What does the bible say about persecution of Christians?
Many New Testament studies focus on persevering in faith to the end and responding even to perpetrators of persecution with love and forgiveness. Yet while there are unifying principles, the New Testament is filled with a range of experiences of and reflections on Christian persecution – texts that it is crucial to engage with in order to fully appreciate the bewildering array of experience and strongly held viewpoints amongst believers today.
In When Christians Face Persecution, Chee-Chiew Lee explores the New Testament authors’ theological understanding of persecution. She offers a thorough look at the biblical foundations, covering their responses to early Christian persecution, their evaluation of these responses, and how they encourage or persuade their recipients to persevere in their faith.
Lee also brings these writings together to offer an integrated theology of facing persecution, reflecting on how the understanding of early Christian writers can be applied to the persecution of Christians today.
When Christians Face Persecution is a valuable study that will enrich your knowledge of biblical teaching on persecution, and its continued relevance in the twenty-first century. It offers engaging theological synthesis as well as contextual reflection, and it invites you to a deeper understanding of the breadth of theological perspectives contained with the New Testament.
What does the bible say about persecution of Christians?
Many New Testament studies focus on persevering in faith to the end and responding even to perpetrators of persecution with love and forgiveness. Yet while there are unifying principles, the New Testament is filled with a range of experiences of and reflections on Christian persecution – texts that it is crucial to engage with in order to fully appreciate the bewildering array of experience and strongly held viewpoints amongst believers today.
In When Christians Face Persecution, Chee-Chiew Lee explores the New Testament authors’ theological understanding of persecution. She offers a thorough look at the biblical foundations, covering their responses to early Christian persecution, their evaluation of these responses, and how they encourage or persuade their recipients to persevere in their faith.
Lee also brings these writings together to offer an integrated theology of facing persecution, reflecting on how the understanding of early Christian writers can be applied to the persecution of Christians today.
When Christians Face Persecution is a valuable study that will enrich your knowledge of biblical teaching on persecution, and its continued relevance in the twenty-first century. It offers engaging theological synthesis as well as contextual reflection, and it invites you to a deeper understanding of the breadth of theological perspectives contained with the New Testament.
When Christian Face Persecution explores biblical teaching on persecution in the New Testament and demonstrates how it can be applied to the church today.
Chee-Chiew Lee is Associate Professor of New Testament and Senior Director of Programme Development and Advanced Studies at Singapore Bible College, and is a Graduate of the Langham Scholars Programme. As well as When Christians Face Persecution she is the author of The Blessing of Abraham, the Spirit, and Justification in Galatians (Pickwick), and other textbooks in Chinese for seminary students and pastors.
This well-researched work of careful scholarship addresses a topic
of vital importance to the global church. Lee engages this theme
throughout the New Testament, examining the many passages in their
first-century setting and showing the relevance of the early
Christian writers' wisdom for analogous situations today.
*Craig S. Keener, F. M. and Ada Thompson Professor of Biblical
Studies, Asbury Theological Seminary, USA*
Exactly what constitutes persecution for being a Christian from the
Bible’s perspective? What were all the reasons it happened in New
Testament times? What was the range of appropriate responses? How
do we apply them today? If any of these questions interests you,
Chee-Chiew Lee’s New Testament theology of suffering is a
must-read. If they don’t, given our world’s current religious
climate, they should! An excellent resource.
*Craig L. Blomberg, Distinguished Professor of New Testament,
Denver Seminary, USA*
At its best, biblical scholarship brings out the teaching of
Scripture for the edification of the people of God. This such a
work. By reading the text carefully, Dr Lee traces the various
responses to persecution seen in the New Testament. No study is
ever done without context; in this study, Dr Lee uses her context
to bring the issue of persecution into a renewed and sharp focus.
Recommended to every Christian – and biblical scholar – who wants
to reflect seriously on how persecution shaped early thinking in
the church.
*Dirk Jongkind, Academic Vice Principal, Tyndale House,
Cambridge*
'Dr Chee-Chiew Lee’s book of well-researched scholarship combines a
rich exploration of New Testament theology regarding how to face
persecution, the diverse Christian response to persecution in the
Greco-Roman world, and an analysis of how the different authors in
the New Testament encourage readers to persevere in faith during
persecution. The epilogue is a must read as Dr Lee presents her own
personal reflections on how to apply a theological understanding of
persecution to our current contemporary context. Lee’s appeal for
readers to empathize with the persecuted is certainly the book’s
grand finale.
*Rev Dr Patrick Fung, General Director, OMF International*
Chee-Chiew Lee offers here a constructive engagement with existing
scholarship to explore the diverse causes of, and responses to,
persecution in the New Testament, showing how its authors offer an
empathetic theology of perseverance that has the potential to
empower a response contextually suited for afflicted Christians in
Asian and African settings today.
*Markus Bockmuehl, University of Oxford*
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