The unbending faith of the Christians during the first centuries of the church stood out as a shining example to the pagan world. How could anyone stand unflinching in the face of death and claim the crucified Jesus to be God, if the story was a myth? Such absolute trust in an unseen God was inexplicable to the pagan mind. What was the source of such courage? Many people began their journey of faith asking those very questions.

Ruth A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya: A Biographical History of Christian Missions

Series Introduction

I hated reading. Through middle school and high school I read almost nothing I was assigned. I read just enough to get by, or I’d ask a classmate what the previous night’s chapter was about and hope I could bluff my way through the quiz.

My mom kept buying me Christian books anyway. Every Christmas. Every birthday. I remember thinking, why does she keep doing this? As an avid reader now, I’ll give her at least some credit for the few thousand books, physical and digital, now in my collection

At least a few books did catch my attention. When I was a teenager, DC Talk was one of the biggest names in Christian music, and Jesus Freak was a real step forward for the whole genre. As a companion to the album, the band partnered with Voice of the Martyrs to publish a book of stories about “Jesus Freaks” — people who would not deny Christ even when the cost was their lives.

I read those stories and I was stunned. Not by the violence, but by the certainty. These were ordinary people who had settled the question of who they belonged to long before anyone asked them to prove it.

Since then I’ve read a good deal more, both historic accounts and current ones, about believers who chose faith over compromise. Throughout our series in Revelation we’ll be sharing some of these stories. My hope is that they give you perspective, deepen your gratitude for those who have gone before us in the faith, and stir you to pray for believers around the world who are still laying down their lives for Christ.

There’s a reason these stories belong with this book. Revelation was written to churches under pressure, and its central question was never when the world would end. It was who you will worship when the pressure comes.

Polycarp of Smyrna

Polycarp was a leader in the church at Smyrna, a city on the western coast of Asia Minor, north of Ephesus. If the name sounds familiar, it should — Smyrna is one of the seven churches to whom Revelation is written. To that church the risen Christ said, “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10). Polycarp would have heard those words read aloud in his own congregation. He spent his last day proving he believed them.

The early church remembered him as a disciple of the apostle John, the same John who wrote Revelation. One of the early church Fathers, Irenaeus, who as a boy sat under Polycarp’s teaching, recalled hearing him talk about his time with John. He was a tireless defender of the faith, remembered for deep and constant prayer, and urgent about carrying the message of Jesus into a pagan world.

In the mid-second century, persecution broke out in Asia Minor. Polycarp, by then quite old, was moved from one farm to another to keep him hidden. Eventually he stopped running. When the soldiers finally came for him, he fed them a meal and asked for an hour to pray.

The Romans didn’t particularly want him dead. They wanted him quiet.

In my opening sermon in A Tale of Two Kingdoms, I said that Christians were making a truth claim the empire could not tolerate. Caesar was lord. To confess that Jesus is Lord was to say that Caesar isn’t. So the officials made Polycarp a simple offer: swear by Caesar, curse Christ, and the whole matter goes away. The proconsul pressed him on it. Have some respect for your age. Just say it.

His answer has echoed through Christian history: “For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has never done me wrong. How can I blaspheme my King, who saved me?”

They tied him to the stake and lit the fire.

Eighty-six years and when he faced death for the Kingdom, the decision had already been made across decades of ordinary, unglamorous faithfulness, and the fire only revealed what was already true.

That’s what Revelation does for us. It pulls back the veil and shows us which kingdom is actually standing. The empire that killed Polycarp is dust. The King he refused to deny still reigns as the Ruler of the Kings of Earth.