Page 72 - FSB 2020 God's Church for God's World

62 God’s Church for God’s World
¶ WITNESSING
The Church is called to proclaim Christ to the World but when the World is unable or refuses to hear, that witnessing to Christ may call the Church to suffer, individually or corporately. The Greek word for such witness is martyrion from which we derive the word martyr.
A martyr is primarily one who witnesses, but that witnessing may involve suffering and even death in order that the World may see and hear Christ. The challenge to each disciple is to measure the depth of our faith in Christ and ask if we could say:
For Christ, I am prepared to die.
Reading: 1 Peter 3.13–22
Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated, but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
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