DANGEROUS

On the topic of Christians being hated by the world, missionary Jim Elliot wrote the following:

"We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are 'harmless,' and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are 'sideliners' - coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!" 

If you are not familiar with the name Jim Elliot, this might sound like nothing more than hyperbole and overblown rhetoric. More negativity directed at the modern church. 

But whatever you think of his criticism of the church, nobody ever accused Jim Elliot of being a hypocrite.

Those words appeared in a letter to his parents in 1948. They were only published for the world to see, along with other letters and journal writings, through the efforts of his widow, Elizabeth Elliot, after Jim and four companions were martyred on the mission field in 1956. He died at the hands of the Auca Indians of Ecuador, whom he was trying to reach with the Good News of Christ. 

Amazingly, a few years later, Elizabeth Elliot was instrumental in finishing the mission, introducing the tribe who killed her husband to Jesus Christ.