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These days the BBC seems to be criticised from every direction. Whatever your view about a topic, you can guarantee that before too long, there will be criticism that the BBC has over represented the other point-of-view. Perhaps that means that they might be getting the balance right much of the time, but it does lead to situations where someone advocating something believed by almost no-one can be given equal airtime to someone advocating something believed by almost everyone, in the interests of ‘balance’. It is, then, a good job that the BBC were not around to report on these letters – what’s said about Smyrna is anything but balanced in how it reports relationships between Jews and Christians!
In this passage the writer is reassuring a small, struggling, church that is subject to persecution. It is quite true that the church in the west is facing an uphill battle against the combined enemies of suspicion, secularisation, and apathy, which between them make the Christian task very hard sometimes. However, when a prominent Christian appears in the media to claim that we’re persecuted for being Christians here in the UK, I think they’ve probably lost touch with reality. Christians are really being persecuted in Iraq and Syria, in ways that are simply barbaric.
So, if you’re having a hard time, if you’re finding things difficult, spare a thought and a prayer for Christians in other countries who are facing things far worse than we are, and remember the reassurance that Christ is with all his people, we can do far more with him and for him than we can do alone.
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