An Authentic Calling: Representing Christ and His Kingdom through the Church

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An Authent i c Ca l l i ng: Represent i ng Chr i s t and Hi s Ki ngdom through the Chur ch

Appendix 35 Suffering for the Gospel The Cost of Discipleship and Servant Leadership Rev. Dr. Don L. Davis

To embrace the Gospel and not to be shamed of it (Rom. 1.16) is to bear the stigma and reproach of the One who called you into service (2 Tim. 3.12). Practically, this may mean the loss of comfort, con venience, and even life itself (John 12.24-25). As ambassadors of Christ, appealing to men and women to come to him, we must not even count our lives as dear to ourselves, but be ever willing to lay our very lives down for the Good News (Acts 20.24). All of Christ’s apostles endured insults, rebukes, lashes, and rejections by the enemies of their Master (cf. 2 Cor. 6, 11). Each of them sealed their calling to Christ and to his doctrines with their blood in exile, torture, and martyrdom. Listed below are the fates of the apostles according to traditional accounts.

• Matthew suffered martyrdom by being slain with a sword at a distant city of Ethiopia.

• Mark expired at Alexandria, after being cruelly dragged through the streets of that city.

• Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in the land of Greece.

• John was put in a caldron of boiling oil, but escaped death in a miraculous manner, and was afterward exiled to and branded at Patmos.

• Peter was crucified at Rome in an inverted position, with his head downward.

• James, the Greater , was beheaded at Jerusalem.

• James, the Less , was thrown from a lofty pinnacle of the temple, and then beaten to death with a fuller’s club.

Bartholomew was flayed alive.

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