An Attention Getter!

This reporter ran across the following article that was saved a long time ago and written by Amos Osei Kofi.  I find it fitting to share with my readers as a reminder to us that our sufferings here are indeed minor compared to the intense persecution and cruelty faced by the apostles and disciples during their times.

Why is it so easy to ignore a message about God, yet we forward the nasty ones? Why are prayers getting smaller, but bars, clubs and casinos are expanding? Why is it so easy to worship a celebrity but very difficult to engage with God? Why do we feel sleepy in prayer but stay awake through a three-hour movie?  Why are we so bored when we look at the HOLY BOOK but find it easy to read other books?  

Let us consider the lives of the disciples who followed Jesus. I found this very interesting even though I had read about their lives before.  The circumstances of the apostles may be true but not known for sure.

Let’s look at how the apostles died.  There were twelve and the thirteenth one was Matthias, the apostle chosen to replace the traitor, Judas Iscariot, who eventually hanged himself.  Matthias was stoned and beheaded.

Matthew suffered martyrdom in Ethiopia and was killed by a sword wound.  Then there was Mark who died after being dragged by horses through the streets in Alexandria, Egypt, until he was dead.

Luke was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous preaching to the lost. Peter was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross.  According to church tradition, it was because he told his tormentors that he felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died.

John faced martyrdom when he was boiled in a huge basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution in Rome.  He miraculously survived but was then sentenced to the mines on the prison island of Patmos.  He wrote his prophetic Book of Revelation on Patmos.  He was later freed and died as an old man, the only apostle to die peacefully.

James, the leader of a church in Jerusalem, was thrown over a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.  When it was discovered that he had survived the fall, his enemies beat him to death with a club.  This was the same pinnacle where Satan had taken Jesus during the temptation.

Another James, the son of Zebedee, was a fisherman by trade when Jesus called him to a lifetime of ministry.  As a strong leader of the church, James was beheaded at Jerusalem.  The Roman officer who guarded James watched amazed as James defended his faith at his trial.  Later, the officer walked beside James to the place of execution.  Overcome by conviction, he declared his new faith to the judge and knelt beside James to accept beheading as a Christian.

Bartholomew, also known as Nathaniel, was a missionary to Asia.  He witnessed for our Lord in present-day Turkey.  Bartholomew was martyred for his preaching in Armenia where he was flayed to death by a whip.

Andrew was crucified on an x-shaped cross in Patras, Greece.  After being whipped severely by seven soldiers, they tied his body to a cross with cords to prolong his agony.

Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his missionary trips to establish the church there.  Jude was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his faith in Christ.  Paul was tortured and then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero after enduring a lengthy imprisonment, which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the Roman Empire. 

I find these tidbits of information a really good reason to sit down with a Bible and learn the past from the disciples of Jesus who spread the word of the gospel so that we may know Jesus today!