How can you SPOT those Christians?for jesus

How can you recognize a true Christian from anyone else in society? What’s different about them? Don’t they live amongst other people and work in the same workplaces? If so, what makes their faith special or how are they different?

Here’s a story about a conversation that took place shortly after Jesus died, between some Roman officers. It took place shortly after the disciples had been baptized on the day of Pentecost.

A new Roman governor was appointed in Jerusalem, by the name of Julius Alexis.  When he arrived he met with his predecessor to find out more about the stories that he had been hearing regarding this group of religious fanatics, called the Christians.  He had never met one yet, but only had heard that they were followers of a 33 year old man who had been crucified a few years previous by Pilate who was governor of Jerusalem, who had been enticed by the religious leaders to do away with him.  Yet this one man alone had started a movement which was spreading throughout the whole Roman empire.

        Those Christians were said to have POWER given to them by this messiah of the Jews.  Troubled about this revolutionary group who played an important part in Jerusalem and the surrounding provinces, he asked his predecessor, what is a Christian?  What makes them a Christian?  How do they act?  And what power do they have? In other words, how can one recognize one of those people.

He said, “I have heard all of the bad about them.  I have heard that they are fanatics, bigoted, not interested in the power of Rome, but I have also heard that they are not violent, they ban together…and what else do you know about them?”

Ben Hur replied, “Not only are they not violent, but they are compassionate and merciful.  Not only towards each other, but even towards their enemies.  They are long-suffering.  Most of them are happy, joyous, exceedingly in fact.

You try to catch them in the wrong, but to the contrary, they are truthful, good citizens, they’re honest and have integrity.  They aren’t greedy.  And most of them are self-effaced even tho they speak with boldness and authority.  They sit in the lowest place at meetings, but none-the-less it is as tho they shine, as if they carry a light, a wisdom in their speech.  

        They speak in love as if they look at the heart when speaking to people, rather than the exterior of a man.  They themselves seem to possess so little, yet they say they are extremely ‘rich’ in love, in freedom.

I met one of their leaders recently…a humble woman with kindness in word and in deed.  She greeted me with a blessing.  We ate together and she explained to me something about a corn of wheat dying in order to bear fruit. She was telling me how that is a principle, a moral law to live by–And they live to die to themselves so that their Christ…who apparently resurrected…may live in them and through them.

They live in hope, separated from the riches and the lusts of this world, as if they look at things that we cannot see.  They believe in a spiritual world outside of the world that we see.  They pray together, and they receive much persecution, but they have no fear. They are willing to die as martyrs for the sake of that Kingdom of the Spirit. They call Christ, their King, that man who was crucified, whose body our soldiers could not find after three days.

        They say they are of royal blood, having been accepted in the kingdom of Christ.  You should hear them pray.  They speak in very weird tongues, and they praise their god, whom they say they love with a passion.

“They don’t dress any different than anyone else.  They are very united. They walk humbly, therefore there is no strife.  They don’t envy each other’s possessions and they aren’t proud!  –And even when you try to provoke them, they smile, as if they love and care for you.  They may look meek, but they are like warriors; very focused and very disciplined.

They don’t go to the doctor because most of them are healers through the authority that was given to them by Christ, their Messiah. They’ve healed many of our soldiers’ families, even some of our slaves. You can also meet them in prisons… not as prisoners, but they go encourage and pray for them to be delivered and freed, not from prison as you might think, but from evil spirits…

        You meet them talking to the beggars…and even to the lepers. I have even seen one of them helping those dirty Samaritans, who had been wounded and was about to die, had he not been cared for and that Christian even paid for his hospital bill.

“They are different, alright, because they don’t desire any of the world that we Romans bring through the great teachings of the Emperor, the great Cesar. But on the other hand, they respect our authority.  They are weird to say the least.  But they are peaceful.  They don’t lie, they don’t steal, they don’t vain babble.  They speak evil of no one.  They are kind towards everyone and they forgive whoever might hurt them. 

        Of all citizens, they are the ones that walk in love the most.  They don’t live in debauchery.   I would call them brainwashed by this Jesus doctrine.  And people don’t like the fact that they are so close to each other, almost fitly joined to one another.  They depend on each other.  But on the other hand they are very outgoing and the most generous in our community.

        Not only to the poor.  This woman I had dinner with, paid for my dinner and gave the slave a handsome tip and talked to him as a dignified member of society and told him how God so loved him.  — a slave.

        They have beautiful families and their children are well behaved.  You will never see them drunk, but sometimes you think they are!  They sing and sing so loud!

Of course we obey the orders of our Caesar who has commanded us to kill as many of them in the arenas, but there are so many of them. Lately we have used them as lanterns of fire to light up our streets at night.  But I want you to be prepared, they sing hymns of praise to their God while they burn.  And people are starting to get fed up hearing their loud happy songs while they are trying to sleep.

There is one thing I don’t understand.  They get the most persecution from the religious leaders, the one who ordered their Messiah to be killed.  It is as though those old fogies are envious of the freedom of those Christians.  They call them a ‘sect’ of little Christs. Yet they are the least trouble-makers.