Is Jesus Worth It?

   Recently, our church showed a documentary film entitled “The Insanity of God,” which traced several narratives of brutal anti-Christian persecution through the eyes and ears of a missionary couple, Nik and Ruth Ripken.   In the early 1990s, the Ripkens experienced some of the persecution first-hand in Somalia, and from there they were inspired to seek out and interview survivors of severe persecution elsewhere — in Soviet Russia, Communist China, and the Middle East.   Within the context of suffering related to the Great Commission, the underlying question in their search was “Is Jesus worth it?”   

   Actual interviews were not shown in the film.   Instead, the victims’ stories were dramatized.   For example, Dimitri was a factory worker in Soviet Russia who had been secretly holding small-group Bible readings and discussions in homes.   He was discovered, arrested, and imprisoned for 17 years.   During that time, he was beaten countless times by guards for his faith and mercilessly mocked by fellow prisoners.  Yet, he never recanted or wavered in praying aloud, singing a hymn to Jesus daily, and writing Bible verses on small scraps of paper, which earned him more beatings.   Even his family was brutalized.   But they did not and could not break him.

   Then, something miraculous happened.   Near what proved to be the ...