Who is a martyr?

 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. Acts 1:8

And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment of them that slew him. Acts 22:20

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. John 12:32

Earlier this month we were met with the news that our brother Charlie Kirk had been shot. We were stunned. Why would someone so hate him as to take away his life? So we began to call him a martyr, and correctly so. But just what is a martyr? What does the Bible say about this?

The Greek word for martyr simply means "Witness". Only a few times in the Bible is it translated "Martyr", in the sense of one who willingly gives up his life for the sake of Christ. Certainly though Stephen was one of the first such men to die for Christ, all the apostles except John also did so. And through out two millennia, countless others have also been called to follow in their footsteps. And they, for sure, were effective witnesses. Tertullian, writing  about 197 AD, said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church". And he was correct, for the more the Romans persecuted the church, the faster it grew. By the time of Constantine, some 10 percent of the denizens of the Roman Empire were believers, such was the stunning growth of the church in some 300 years. So many have indeed died, and continue to die, for the sake of Christ. But are they meant to be exceptional? 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die". Indeed, Jesus tells us that "if any man would come after Him, he must deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me". So brothers and sisters, we are ALL called to die, to give up the right to ourselves, and exalt Him. We will not, however, all end our life on earth as Martyrs, be we are ALL called to be witnesses. But just what does this mean?

Paul, in his letter to the Corinthian church, writes that as they take communion, they are proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes. The key to this is the denial of self. This does NOT mean making our best effort to be as good of a Christian as we can be. No, as Paul writes in Romans seven, even he found that the very things he would do, he could not do, and the things he would not do, he very much did. In the end he asks, "Who shall save me from this body of death? But thanks be to God, who has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Just as Christ gave himself up and was willing to say, "Not my will but thine", and overcame death, and was raised up triumphantly to a new life", so with His disciples. The key to being a witness is simply to trust the presence of Christ in us that whenever we are put to the test, His life is what the world sees, not our natural selves. This is self denial, refusing to trust our natural ways, but drawing on His life in us. As Peter writes to us, "His Devine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our (intimate) knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness". We have no goodness of our own, but "Christ in us is the hope of glory". 

We will not all take a bullet for Christ like our brother Kirk, but I imagine that he walked in such a way that dying like this would only have been a mere extension of the way he lived. That is, Charley lived as a martyr long before he died as a martyr. He listened to others. He did not mock or belittle anyone who had another opinion. He honored them, building a bridge of trust. He knew that it was not about him, but about the Person of Christ who lived in him. And at a young age, the Lord, in his sovereignty, called Charley home. So though we may not necessarily give up our physical lives for the Lord, we can all live as martyrs, our denial of our right to ourselves being a witness to the world that we are strangers just passing through, citizens of another Kingdom that has not yet fully manifested, but is surely coming. When the world curses us, Christ in us returns a blessing. When the world hates us, Christ in us loves them back. So great is His love in us, that we give up ourselves for others, as that is what Christ, in us, is doing. 

So let us turn our hearts to see Him. As Paul writes, "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the LORD, are changed into the same image from glory to glory". The more we behold Him, the more His life is preeminent in our walk, and the more the world sees Him in us. All glory to the Lamb of God!