Psalm 119:157 Don't Turn Away

Many are the foes who persecute me,
 but I have not turned from your statutes.
Psalm 119:157

In both the Hebrew of the Old Testament and Greek of the New Testament, the words for persecution have at their root the idea of pursuit, of chasing someone down with hostile purpose. That pursuit, when the word is used in the context of persecution, is for the purpose of either punishing the person being pursued or dragging them away and turning them in a different direction.

In many parts of the world today, Christians are pursued and persecuted in ways quite similar to the persecution faced by David and by Paul. But American Christians seldom have to deal with that sort of actual physical pursuit and physical consequences of their faith.

Instead, 21st century American believers are pursued by the relentless onslaught of a culture that is at best seductively subversive to faith and at worst actively hostile toward Christianity.

That onslaught comes from the same source as always: people of influence who want to distract believers from their focus on God's ways and attack those who cling to faith. But in the new millennium, technology has empowered persecution to become more invasive and ubiquitous than at any time since Eve debated with the serpent.

The people with the most fervent devotion to the most extreme ideologies have found a megaphone in the mass media, targeted media, and social media. Ideas that used to exist on the edges of society now have a consistent and loud voice at the center of society.

While the majority of Americans still believe in a god, such belief is routinely ridiculed and undermined on public platforms. As a result, an increasing number of those who say they believe in a god have developed a diluted version of that belief (especially among young people). It's become more a generic belief in a generic idea of a higher power rather than faith in the God of the Bible and commitment to His Church.

Under such relentless pursuit, believers are turning from the Word as the anchor for their belief system.

This plays out in the lives of these misdirected believers in diverse ways. Some are opting for an emotional spirituality that latches onto personalized expressions, turning from scripture-based spiritual practice to a potpourri of lifestyles.

The humanistic spirituality of self-help and pop-psychology turns some away from Jesus' example of a mission-driven life to a self-expression lifestyle. It doesn't take long before their disdain of the legalistic religion of their youth becomes a complete discarding of the holy lifestyle described in the Word.

Other believers are distracted from Jesus' mission to the political mission of their preference. Some believers focus their priorities on liberal/progressive politics. Others direct their their religious activity through conservative politics. Both have allowed themselves to be pursued by the false power of politics and distracted from the one true power of the gospel.

Who - or what - is pursuing you? Have you already turned your focus away from the Word?