I am sure you remember the 21 Coptic Egyptians that were executed by ISIS in February 2015.
In May of that year I was speaking at a church in Auckland NZ, and a member of the church made reference to this event. I was shocked as this man claimed that these Coptic Egyptians were not real Christians. For a moment I was speechless by such a statement. Now of course I appreciate that the Coptic Church is quite different from the evangelical western idea of Christianity, so I do understand the sentiment of what he was saying, though it was a clumsy thing to say at the very least. My response was very direct and to the point, as I felt that this statement could not be ignored. So I asked him, ‘so what is a real Christian? Before he could answer I asked him, ‘how real do we have to be if being martyred is not real enough?’ I quickly explained to this gentleman, that 21 men only had to deny Jesus and they would have gone free.
Sometimes we can be blinded by church traditions and the obvious denomination barriers and miss what is central to our Christian faith, and that is a healthy love for our Lord Jesus. I am not suggesting that doctrine is not important, but would you feel different if these 21 men were Baptist?, Pentecostal? Methodist? Roman Catholic? Would you be outraged if they were of your nationality? Dare I say it, if they were White?
What has moved me to write this article is a story that was told at the World Summit in Defence of Persecuted Christians last week. [This was hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association]. This is not breaking news as this story is not new. Though there were 21 men executed that day, only 20 were Coptic Egyptians. The other man was not even a Christian let alone an Egyptian. He was from Chad. He got to know the 20, as they were his colleagues when working in Libya. He was kidnapped with the group by ISIS and was interrogated with them. The story is told that this man from Chad was so taken by the faith of his work colleagues, seeing that they would rather be executed than deny Jesus, he was compelled to know their God. It is told that on the day of the execution this man from Chad, said ‘Their God is my God’ and refused to deny Jesus as the Son of God.
Wow! Real Christians? I think there are far more real Christians in this world then we give credit for. They may not worship in the same way as we do and hold onto some traditions that really go against the grain, but there is no disputing their resolve. I think we in the west, need an injection of Christian reality. We could learn a great deal about being real.
