In Matthew chapter 5, verses 10 through 12, Jesus brings up a topic that I think maybe meant one thing back in the day and maybe conjures different mental images now. He said, Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. I think persecution meant something different back in the day than maybe it means right now. Or maybe it means the exact same thing, but our brains just go to different places for uh contemporary cultural reasons. So let's see if in this little 10-minute podcast, we can run the uncomfortable meter all the way up to 10. I think we can do it. Here's how. I want to talk about victimhood and the currency of victimhood that gets traded for political power and social power in this day and age. I know you're already uncomfortable, right? Me too, but I think this is gonna work out. It used to be that when something bad happened to you, that was bad because something bad happened to you. Then in the age of mass media, and especially in the age of the internet, we figured out that it's actually maybe beneficial sometimes to have something bad happen to you because that can be a very helpful optic. So in my brain, that divides things into two categories. You have things that are actually bad that happen to people, which is tragic and horrible and awful, and then you have manufactured slights where you endure the least pain possible to score all of the points of people who've endured real, actual pain. I find this dynamic to be gross, and I don't think I feel like apologizing for finding this dynamic to be gross. I'm not going to name any names, I'm not gonna point to any specific instances, but come on, you all pay attention. Have you seen how often people make up victim situations now? How eager people are to even blatantly lie and manipulate and even hire other people to participate in blatant dishonesty where they take some sort of physical punishment or verbal punishment and then make sure that the world knows that they had to endure that because maybe they'll get money or popularity or power or people vote the way they want. This illustrates an age-old truth that whatever you incentivize as a society, people will do it, no matter how undesirable it might seem. And here's the thing, right now you're probably picturing somebody who thinks other things than you politically. And I think you would be half right on this point. Because it seems like everyone is sort of begrudgingly coming around to the idea that there is suddenly currency and power in victimhood, which is horribly disappointing and horribly insulting toward actual victims. So look, I am enormously empathetic to any person who suffers any kind of mistreatment, any kind of slight, any kind of insult, any kind of pain, any kind of limitation of freedom, any kind of unfair treatment from the law or injustice from the state or from their neighbors. I'm sympathetic to anybody who endures that. I don't care what they're into or what they believe, or if they're into the same stuff that I'm into, that stuff stinks and it shouldn't happen and it hurts. And in some small ways and maybe in some huge ways, lots of us will experience that to one degree or another. Why am I talking about the new currency of victimhood? Well, I bring it up because we're talking about Matthew chapter 5, starting in verse 11, and this concept of Jesus saying that persecution would be a thing for Christians. Again, we've read it a lot lately, but I'm gonna do it again. Uh the passage goes like this: Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. At first glance, it might seem like Jesus is encouraging the weaponizing or even fabrication of victimhood to score points in the public psyche, to make people feel very sympathetic toward Christians, and in doing so to accomplish kingdom ends. But I don't think the original audience, I don't think the people sitting on the hill, I don't think the people listening to this sermon in the first place, I don't think the people reading Matthew chapter five, and I don't think most people throughout the history of earth would have listened to Jesus' words here and thought, we need to go obey that command to be persecuted. Jesus said in his new ten commandments that are the Beatitudes, you know, blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Well, I want the kingdom of heaven, so I better go find somebody to persecute me, and I will do what I need to do until the persecution happens, and then I will score victim points, and people will look at me and start to feel sympathetic and sad about how mean people are to Christians. Then I will earn that currency, I will convert it into political power, people will vote for my team, and then Jesus wins and the kingdom can finally once and for all become true. There's no way people read it like that. Persecution was a really bad thing that no one wanted to suffer, and there was no upside to until very, very, very recently. And I think this moment in history is going to pass quickly. I think the original audience knew enough about how persecution actually worked and how there, at that time at least, was no currency to be gained in it whatsoever, that they would have heard Jesus' words as this you are nobody's victim if you are in Christ. You are nobody's victim if you are a part of this kingdom. People might do stuff to you. People might feel friction with you, you might feel friction with the world, but you're nobody's victim. You're a son, a daughter, an heir of the kingdom. And he's going to flesh that idea out more and more. You jump over to Romans, a couple of famous verses where we're talking about loving while you exist in a society that can be really challenging. It says, be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer, share with God's people who are in need, practice hospitality, and then get this one. Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse. That's crazy. So it's not just even the concept that you will be blessed for being persecuted, but you're supposed to love your enemy. And Jesus is going to flesh that idea out in just like another page here as we flip over. You are to bless your enemy if you're in the kingdom because that's the value of the kingdom. Where do we get the idea that blessing your enemy, that loving your enemy is part of the value of the kingdom? Well, I don't know, it was kind of modeled by the person who initiated the kingdom, right? Like the whole idea is that sin is an affront to God and yet God took on flesh and showed up anyway. So we really are starting to get a clearer picture of what the kingdom is about and how all of the values and actions and impulses that come out of it all flow out of the character and behavior of the God who initiated the thing. Now, again, I know some people think there's no God behind this at all. But even if you are in that camp and you look at this stuff and you're like, that is an amazing human creation. Well, you know what? I salute you because on that point we agree it is an amazing creation. Now, I think there's something supernatural about it. You may not, you may agree with me. But I think we can all look at this thing, even the tough stuff about persecution, and say, this is very different from the currency we trade in today. It's very different from how we cheapen actual victimhood, often overlook actual victims in favor of chasing after victimhood to score points and to trade in what really is the thing, the currency of this world right now, which is power. What Jesus is talking about is different. And whether you think there's a God behind this or not, no matter how you vote, no matter what you're into, no matter what lifestyle you might live, or what you might find to be interesting or cool, everybody from all over the map can agree that there is something absolutely beautiful about this kind of response to people who disagree with you. There's going to be friction, you're going to take your lumps, bless those who persecute you. How insanely different is the currency of the kingdom on this point from the currency of the world. So I know we said out at the beginning of this episode to see if we could peg this at level 10 weird, but just so it doesn't accidentally go to 11 or break the meter, let me clarify how I'm reading this. What I'm seeing Jesus saying here is that there's value to being poor in spirit, that mourning is something that will result in comfort, that meekness involves a reward, that mercy is a high value in the kingdom, that being a peacemaker is a high value in the kingdom. Clearly, that language and the rest of the Sermon on the Mount makes it obvious that justice is a value in the kingdom, that caring for those who've been victims of injustice is a value in the kingdom. So social justice and care for the oppressed and all of that. I mean, think about it. That's the language of Isaiah that Matthew has been drawing on about what will come with the kingdom. I mean, the blind receive sight, the broken stuff gets fixed, all of the uneven things get leveled out and squared away. That is center-cut Christianity kingdom values. But what clearly isn't a kingdom value, according to the Bible, according to the words of Jesus, is Christians playing the enormously dishonest score victim points very publicly thing to try to get ahead. I know some people of any and all political stripes might think this is just what you have to do now in order for your cause to get ahead. But if we're going with what the text says, kingdom citizens don't play that game. And at the same time, if we're going with what the text says, kingdom citizens are patient and gracious toward people who do. All right, I always enjoy kicking this stuff around with you. Thank you so much for making time to hang out with me. I know you have a lot of other things you could be doing, but uh you're carving this time out to bum around for whatever, 10 or 12 minutes and talk about something important. And uh it really does mean a lot to me. So thanks for doing that. I hope it makes your day better too. I'm Matt, this is a 10 minute Bible hour podcast. Let's do it again soon.