Knowing God—What Kind of Knowing?

By Scott Boren

“…the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” —Philippians 3:8

“…the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…” —Philippians 3:8
We use the word “know” in many different ways. For instance, someone might ask you if you know Jerry? With this question, you are being asked if you have been introduced to that particular person and thereby have a knowledge of identity. Another use can be imagined if your pastor uses the word “eschatological” in his sermon and you have recently attended a class where he provided an extensive understanding of what that word means. This gives you a knowledge of information. A third use is illustrated by your overhearing a conversation in Spanish and you took a few classes and you actually paid attention and worked at it. As a result of putting the language to use, you are able to understand what they are saying. This is about having a knowledge of practice.
When we hear Paul talking about the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,” we must ask what kind of knowledge he is talking about. Is he talking about knowing the identity of Jesus? Was he referring to information about Jesus? Was his meaning about having a knowledge based on the practice of the faith?
The answer to each question is both yes and no. Knowing Jesus of course referred to knowledge of his identity, of specific information and of an understanding formed by specific practices. However, the knowing Paul wrote about here went beyond this. This is the kind of knowing that we might refer to as knowledge of union. This kind of knowledge is personal because it affects us at the core of our being. We can experience this kind of union in a variety of ways. For instance, when asking my grandmother how to make one of her dishes, she would say something like, “Well you turn on the oven to medium heat. Then you add mix a bunch of flower with some milk, a bit of water, add a few shakes of salt…” At that point, it became clear that there was no way that someone could do what she did in the kitchen. She was not working from a technical knowledge of the information about cooking. She was working from a knowledge of cooking that had shaped who she was.
Information builds upon identity, as we cannot know something that we are not acquainted with. Practice builds upon information. My grandmother did not arrive at that point of knowledge of cooking without practice. However, knowledge of union takes us beyond all three, as illustrated.
Or think of it this way: Someone who grew up on a farm, went off to school to study the science of farming and then managed a farm for thirty years has been shaped by the vocation of farming. He knows farming. While he might have plenty of knowledge of information about farming, that information is not the ultimate goal. The end goal is the kind of knowledge that arises out of the experience of working on the farm.
While the knowledge of identity, of information and of practices are important, if we stop there, we keep that which we are trying to know at arm’s length. It remains objective information that we can dissect and analyze. When we apply this to God, it becomes the kind of knowledge where we try to figure out how we can get what we want from God. If I believe the right facts, then I will go to heaven when I die. If I can only learn the right information, then my life with change. If I can start obeying God in the right ways, then I’ll be faithful. If I pray the right way, then I will find God’s favor. But this kind of knowledge leaves us in control.
Knowledge of union is the kind of knowledge that we cannot control. If I want to learn how to cook like my grandmother cooked, I have to move beyond my need to control and let the otherness of cooking get inside of me. The same could be said about almost anything we want to know. And it’s even more true of God. If I want to know God, it requires that I let the Otherness of God be Other than I am, that is, something that I cannot control or manipulate for my own benefit. It requires that I let the Otherness of God draw me into mystery, into adventure and into intimacy. It’s not the kind of knowledge that we make happen. It’s the kind of knowledge that we discover along a journey.

Scott Boren

M. Scott Boren is a Teaching Pastor at Woodland Hills Church in Saint Paul, MN and consultant who partners with The Missional Network (www.themissionalnetwork.com). He has written and co-written eight books, including Introducing the Missional Church, Missional Small Groups and MissioRelate. He share life with his bride, Shawna, and their four children, all under the age of eight. He can be reached at his website: www.mscottboren.com.

Scott on ChurchLeaders   Scott's Website

Put Your Mask on First

By Ron Edmondson

“What is one thing you would need to change in order to live a healthier life?”

If you’ve spent any time flying commercially, you’ve most likely memorized the flight attendants instructions prior to take off.

Perhaps this will sound familiar:
Oxygen and the air pressure are always being monitored. In the event of a decompression, an oxygen mask will automatically appear in front of you. To start the flow of oxygen, pull the mask towards you. Place it firmly over your nose and mouth, secure the elastic band behind your head, and breathe normally. Although the bag does not inflate, oxygen is flowing to the mask. If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person. Keep your mask on until a uniformed crew member advises you to remove it.
Years ago I was listening (I usually tune these announcements out—sorry) and one line jumped out at me.
If you are travelling with a child or someone who requires assistance, secure your mask on first, and then assist the other person.
I was instantly reminded of an important leadership principle. This is probably something you already know, but it’s always good to be reminded.
Leader, if you aren’t taking care of yourself, you can’t continue to lead at the level needed to help your team be successful. You certainly can’t lead a team to be healthy if you are living an unhealthy lifestyle. The healthier you are—physically, emotionally, spiritually and relationally—the more health you can bring to the team.
Just like on the airplane, you can’t help your team if you are having trouble breathing on your own.
Be honest.
What is one thing you would need to change in order to live a healthier life?
Grab your mask—get some needed oxygen—get the help you need, whatever it is, so you can lead at your best again.

Ron Edmondson

Ron Edmondson is a pastor and church leader passionate about planting churches, helping established churches thrive, and assisting pastors and those in ministry think through leadership, strategy and life. Ron has over 20 years business experience, mostly as a self-employed business owner, and he's been helping churches grow vocationally for over 10 years.

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Everyone Can See the Log Hanging Out of Your Eye. Why Can’t You?

By Matt Rogers

“The log has been around for so long that we assume it’s just how we are made.”

It’s hard to miss Jesus’ point in the Sermon on the Mount. The imagery is just too clear.
“Look at the birds and the flowers, I take care of them and I’ll take care of you also.”
“Don’t hide your light under a basket. It’s useless there.”
“Invest in things of eternal value. Things on this earth will just fall apart or get stolen anyway.”
And then this one:
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do you not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5 ESV)
The contrast is compelling, almost comical, and the implications are straightforward. Before you judge the actions of another person, address your own sins, which may be far greater in comparison. This passage, and others like it, are often misread to imply that we should not point out the sins of others. That’s not Jesus’ point. Christian love requires that we call one another to holiness. But before we can do that with a tone of grace, a posture of kindness and a motive of restoration, we must first consider our sins and seek, by God’s grace, to turn from them. We’ve got to take out our log before we can point out another’s speck.
But here’s the problem—at least in my own life. The log is so hard to see. It doesn’t seem to make sense considering the image Jesus uses. No one should miss a log hanging out of their eye, much less be able to notice the meager speck in someone else’s. But we do it all the time. Why? Why is the log of my own sin so hard to see?
On one level, the answer is pride. At the root of my sinful actions lies a prideful heart that is unwilling to acknowledge and turn from my sin. True enough. Since Augustine, pride has rightly been seen as the ground of all sin, the well from which all sorts of sinful actions are drawn. Yet, pride is a somewhat nebulous concept, an easy target to place blame and a challenging enemy to address. Bubbling up from my pride are a number of concrete factors that shape my inability to see, and remove, the logs of my own sin.unrecognized, growth of a log over time blinds us to its existence. Like a scar, we just get used to it being there. Someone else might immediately recognize the blight, but to us, it’s just a part of who we are.
The log might begin as a dry wit that masks deep insecurity during a person’s middle school years. Over time, this dry wit morphs into biting sarcasm that eviscerates other people in loveless hostility. Or, the log might begin as a feeble lie meant to make yourself look better than you actually are. Rather than addressing the subtle speck, in time, the log grows to the point that you’ve become a mere caricature of the good Christian who’s all style and no substance.

The Log Is Excused as Part of Your Personality

As a result, we are prone to conflate our sinful actions with our natural predispositions or inborn personality traits. The log has been around for so long that we assume it’s just how we are made.
Take the sin of worry for example. If I allow the sin of worry to fester in my heart as a teenager, then the log will continue to grow. Over time, I’ll get used to the log and fail to notice that it’s there at all. Then, when I do notice it—most likely when someone else points it out—I’ll excuse it away as just part of who I am.
“Well, I’ve just got an anxious personality,” I might say. Or, “I’m just the kind of person who speaks my mind” rather than “I’ve got a sin issue with controlling my tongue.” Such excuses more deeply embed the logs we are meant to extract.

We’ve Tried to Remove the Log Before and Failed

The best time to remove the log is when it first starts growing before you get comfortable with its existence. Some try—they see the sin for what it is and seek to extract it. But they fail.
It’s much like the process of removing a splinter. You get out the needle and the tweezers and go to work—but it hurts, the splinter is deep, so you give up. Intuitively you know that an ingrown splinter will lead to greater pain in the future, but for now, you’d rather not endure the pain.
Anytime you are reminded of the splinter, you remember the pain of the last time you tried to remove it and quit before you even begin. Then, if you ever go to remove the splinter in the future, you find an infection that makes it painful to even touch the skin around the splinter. Now, any hope of removing the culprit will come with great pain.

The Log Is Socially Acceptable

So the logs remain, glaringly obvious to others but hidden from our eyes. To others, our speck looks like a log, and to us, their speck looks like a log, so few are actually seeing logs for what they are.
This problem is compounded by the cumulative effect of logs in a culture. If enough people fail to remove their logs, and their logs look a lot alike, over time certain logs become the cultural norm. Everyone has one. Like flannel shirts and skinny jeans, if enough people have them then no one is willing to call attention to how funny we all look with logs hanging out of our eyes. Logs of materialism or sexuality are difficult to address if everyone else is walking around with the same log protruding from their eyes as well.

We Kind of Like the Log

All of these factors build up a head of steam in our lives. We’ve had the log for many years. We begin to assume it’s just part of who we are. We think we can’t get it out if we tried. And, we start to spend our time with a bunch of log-eyed people.
In time, we find that we start to like the log. We begin to think we should just embrace it—after all, we couldn’t get it out if we wanted to. So, masked behind the foolish cliché of “just be yourself” we begin to flaunt the log in our eye. We wear it as a badge of honor and foolishly call “what is evil good and good evil” (Is 5:20).
This process, over time, makes the simple command of Christ one of the most difficult to practice. It produces a horde of log-eyed people who simply can’t see their log anymore. Not only are we blinded to our own sin, but we are incapable of helping our brothers and sisters address their sins either. Far better to assume today that I have a log in my eye, begging the Spirit to allow me to see it for what it is and remove it before it’s too late.

One Way to Wade Through Grief

By Ernest Grant II

Provided by

“I do not want to indicate that journaling is a required discipline, but it is powerful. I’ve seen it in three ways.”

While I sat in the pews, shoulder to shoulder with distinguished clergymen and political figures from the city, I could feel the geyser of my emotions about to explode.
As a pastor in one of the most dangerous cities in the nation, I’d grown accustomed to attending funerals of promising young people whose lives were cut short by gun violence. But sitting there with this one in front of me, I’d reached my emotional breaking point.
After a pre-sermon selection by the gospel choir, the pastor walked toward the pulpit. With tears welling up in his eyes, he adjusted his tie and leaned his head over to peer at his nephew’s body one last time. Through a cracked voice, Job’s searing words spilled out:
“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
I lost it.
I leaned down to tighten my laces on my wingtips, and tears streamed onto the pebbled leather of my shoes.

A Father, a Mother and a Body

“Jesus,” I thought to myself, “I can’t bear the burden of burying children who’ve been murdered by other children.” Finding my breath after the emotional deluge, I regained my composure and wiped away the tears.
I looked across the sea of mourners. The historic African-American church that seated over 2,000 people was filled to capacity, but my eyes gravitated to the front pew. There sat a mother consoled by her husband while they both stared at the body of their son, senselessly gunned down on the eve of his 13th birthday by a classmate. They led the sea of mourners, living every parent’s worst nightmare—burying a child.
As the funeral ended, the feeble, grieving mother stepped up to the podium to give her closing remarks: “Please, let’s celebrate at the repast, because it’s his birthday.”
That’s right. We celebrated his birthday with his body in the morgue.
The place was silent as we helplessly looked both ways at the intersection—celebrating life and lamenting death.
It was heart-wrenching.

Grace Comes Through Pen and Paper

This is the stark, gritty reality of urban ministry—we tend to bear the emotional burdens of that community (Galatians 6:2). Ultimately, only God’s grace through his Son can help us lift the heavy emotional burdens that we shoulder. After spending some time in prayer and devotion, the Lord helped me to experience that grace through the unlikeliest of sources—journaling.
I found a model in King David, who wrote many of his Psalms like journal entries that express a myriad of raw, honest emotion before God. I began to try it, journaling my experiences to process through the stress of inner-city ministry.
In his book Habits of Grace, David Mathis reminds us:
“Even if many of the Psalms do read like divinely inspired journal entries, nowhere does Scripture command that we keep a journal. Unlike other spiritual disciplines, Jesus left us no model for journaling; he did not keep one.”
I do not want to indicate that journaling is a required discipline. It is optional—but it is powerful. I’ve seen it in three ways.

1. Journaling Is an Option for Honesty

Journaling has been immensely valuable in my spiritual life because it allows me to coherently engage and explain my emotions in a controlled, “judgment-free” zone. Too often, inner-city missionaries suppress their feelings. Eventually, those pent up emotions can lead to dissatisfaction with God and frustration in ministry. Journaling aerates the soul before God.
So, before the close of the evening, I take about 10 minutes to trek through my day and honestly express my emotions before God. It unclutters my thoughts and puts the brakes on my racing mind, which normally leads to real rest when I sleep.

2. Journaling Is a Chronicle of Faithfulness

Periodically, I’ll pick up my journal not to write but to read. As I flip through the entries, my eyes pass over many green, highlighted sentences—the prayers which God has answered. Re-reading those prayers, I’m quickly reminded of the concreteness of God’s goodness and faithfulness.
Mathis writes:
“[God] made our minds such that we’re able to take thoughts further, and do so in greater detail, than our short-term memory can keep track of in the moment. When we write, we not only disentangle our thoughts, draw out our emotions and dream about fresh initiatives, but we also develop them.”
So these hand-written letters help me not only to form my thoughts but also to record them. When I look back on my journals, the entries fill my mind with a panoramic view of God’s continued grace on me and those around me. Every time I see a green highlight, it nourishes my soul by reminding me to “forget not all his benefits” (Psalms 103:2).

3. Journaling Ventilates the Soul

When keeping our nose to the grindstone of ministry, we can often lose our tender affections for the Lord. Pondering God’s faithfulness and journaling his deeds reminds us that we are sons and daughters, not employees. Mathis is right when he says, “Journaling is not just an exercise in introspection, but a pathway for joy.”
Journaling reinvigorates our joy, our love and our drive to serve to the praise of God’s glory. It scrubs away the dust on our affections. It ushers in fresh views of God’s mercy.
Journaling is not commanded, but it is encouraged. Try it. God may use journaling as a means of opening a window to your soul, allowing the fresh air of his grace to ventilate stale affections and renew your passion to serve him, both in the traumas and triumphs of life.

Top 10 Things I Wish Worship Pastors Would Stop Saying

By Jared Wilson

Provided by

“Don’t take this too seriously, except maybe do.”

In which a crusty old curmudgeon rants a little about annoying songleader banter. Don’t take this too seriously, except maybe do.
10. Are we ready to have fun this morning?
The answer is, “Probably not.” The truth is, when this is your welcome at the start of the music time, it tells me where your head’s at. Nobody goes to church to have a bad time, of course, and I’m sure plenty of people go to “have fun,” but is this the point of worship? Is “having fun” where you want hearts directed as you lead people to exalt God? No, it’s where you want hearts directed when you’re just trying to “crush your set” or “rock it out for Jesus” [see #5]. “Are we ready to have fun?” is just slightly worse than this next common opener:
9. How’s everybody feeling?
If I wanted to stretch to justify this statement, I could say that what you’re asking the congregation to do is self-reflect on their spiritual condition and present their real, whole selves honestly and submissively to the glory of Christ as you lead them in adoration of him. But my guess is that 9.9 times out of 10 what you’re really trying to do is get people to say, “Woooooooo!”
8. You can do better than that!
Or some other form of nagging about how we’re not singing or participating to your liking. It’s never really on my mind at a church service to think of ways to impress the worship leader. Similarly shaming is:
7. I can’t hear you!
Well, maybe turn the volume down. We can’t hear us either.
6. [Introducing a hymn] Here’s an oldie we dusted off.
Please don’t apologize for leading us in the rare song that is theologically rich and doctrinally solid. Apologize for not leading us in them more often!
5. “Rockin’ worship.”
Please stop. I know you’ve got a good drummer and amps that go to 11, but referring to church music as “rockin’”—or using the phrase “rockin’ it out”—is somewhere in the category of fanny packs and duck-face selfies.
4. Lord, we invite you to be here.
This is the worship leader’s equivalent of “asking Jesus into your heart.” I think I know what the phrase means, but it reveals something about our thinking related to worship. For instance, is it true that God is summoned by our worship? Or is it actually the other way around? He calls us—we then respond in worship. God isn’t a genie and worship isn’t like rubbing a golden lamp. Nor is he a cosmic butler to be summoned. Don’t invite the Lord into a space like he doesn’t already own it and isn’t already there.
3. God showed up.
Again, I think I know what is meant by this phrase. It can be a way of saying “we felt emotionally touched during the music time,” which can be an OK thing—it would be weird for Christians to never feel engaged emotionally in worshiping God—but it can also be a way of equating emotional reactions with God’s presence in an unhelpful way, in a way that inadvertently communicates to people that when they don’t feel good, God must be absent.
2. Let’s give God a hand.
Translation: I would like to hear some applause.
1. Turn to your neighbor and _____________.
There’s really nothing wrong with this approach, but as a socially awkward introvert, this kind of instruction is a huge heaping bowl of panic attack soup.

Jared Wilson

Jared is a husband, a father of two, a writer of books, and the pastor of a great church. Most importantly, He is a follower of Jesus. His passion is to spread the gospel wakefulness in the evangelical church. His book "Your Jesus is Too Safe" and "Abide" are available now, and is currently writing a third book entitled "Gospel Wakefulness".

Jared on ChurchLeaders   Jared's Website

Everyone Can See the Log Hanging Out of Your Eye. Why Can’t You?

By Matt Rogers

“The log has been around for so long that we assume it’s just how we are made.”

It’s hard to miss Jesus’ point in the Sermon on the Mount. The imagery is just too clear.
“Look at the birds and the flowers, I take care of them and I’ll take care of you also.”
“Don’t hide your light under a basket. It’s useless there.”
“Invest in things of eternal value. Things on this earth will just fall apart or get stolen anyway.”
And then this one:
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do you not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5 ESV)
The contrast is compelling, almost comical, and the implications are straightforward. Before you judge the actions of another person, address your own sins, which may be far greater in comparison. This passage, and others like it, are often misread to imply that we should not point out the sins of others. That’s not Jesus’ point. Christian love requires that we call one another to holiness. But before we can do that with a tone of grace, a posture of kindness and a motive of restoration, we must first consider our sins and seek, by God’s grace, to turn from them. We’ve got to take out our log before we can point out another’s speck.
But here’s the problem—at least in my own life. The log is so hard to see. It doesn’t seem to make sense considering the image Jesus uses. No one should miss a log hanging out of their eye, much less be able to notice the meager speck in someone else’s. But we do it all the time. Why? Why is the log of my own sin so hard to see?
On one level, the answer is pride. At the root of my sinful actions lies a prideful heart that is unwilling to acknowledge and turn from my sin. True enough. Since Augustine, pride has rightly been seen as the ground of all sin, the well from which all sorts of sinful actions are drawn. Yet, pride is a somewhat nebulous concept, an easy target to place blame and a challenging enemy to address. Bubbling up from my pride are a number of concrete factors that shape my inability to see, and remove, the logs of my own sin.

The Log Has Been There a Long Time

Logs don’t develop overnight. They’ve been around for a while. The subtle, almost unrecognized, growth of a log over time blinds us to its existence. Like a scar, we just get used to it being there. Someone else might immediately recognize the blight, but to us, it’s just a part of who we are.
The log might begin as a dry wit that masks deep insecurity during a person’s middle school years. Over time, this dry wit morphs into biting sarcasm that eviscerates other people in loveless hostility. Or, the log might begin as a feeble lie meant to make yourself look better than you actually are. Rather than addressing the subtle speck, in time, the log grows to the point that you’ve become a mere caricature of the good Christian who’s all style and no substance.

The Log Is Excused as Part of Your Personality

As a result, we are prone to conflate our sinful actions with our natural predispositions or inborn personality traits. The log has been around for so long that we assume it’s just how we are made.
Take the sin of worry for example. If I allow the sin of worry to fester in my heart as a teenager, then the log will continue to grow. Over time, I’ll get used to the log and fail to notice that it’s there at all. Then, when I do notice it—most likely when someone else points it out—I’ll excuse it away as just part of who I am.
“Well, I’ve just got an anxious personality,” I might say. Or, “I’m just the kind of person who speaks my mind” rather than “I’ve got a sin issue with controlling my tongue.” Such excuses more deeply embed the logs we are meant to extract.

We’ve Tried to Remove the Log Before and Failed

The best time to remove the log is when it first starts growing before you get comfortable with its existence. Some try—they see the sin for what it is and seek to extract it. But they fail.
It’s much like the process of removing a splinter. You get out the needle and the tweezers and go to work—but it hurts, the splinter is deep, so you give up. Intuitively you know that an ingrown splinter will lead to greater pain in the future, but for now, you’d rather not endure the pain.
Anytime you are reminded of the splinter, you remember the pain of the last time you tried to remove it and quit before you even begin. Then, if you ever go to remove the splinter in the future, you find an infection that makes it painful to even touch the skin around the splinter. Now, any hope of removing the culprit will come with great pain.

The Log Is Socially Acceptable

So the logs remain, glaringly obvious to others but hidden from our eyes. To others, our speck looks like a log, and to us, their speck looks like a log, so few are actually seeing logs for what they are.
This problem is compounded by the cumulative effect of logs in a culture. If enough people fail to remove their logs, and their logs look a lot alike, over time certain logs become the cultural norm. Everyone has one. Like flannel shirts and skinny jeans, if enough people have them then no one is willing to call attention to how funny we all look with logs hanging out of our eyes. Logs of materialism or sexuality are difficult to address if everyone else is walking around with the same log protruding from their eyes as well.

We Kind of Like the Log

All of these factors build up a head of steam in our lives. We’ve had the log for many years. We begin to assume it’s just part of who we are. We think we can’t get it out if we tried. And, we start to spend our time with a bunch of log-eyed people.
In time, we find that we start to like the log. We begin to think we should just embrace it—after all, we couldn’t get it out if we wanted to. So, masked behind the foolish cliché of “just be yourself” we begin to flaunt the log in our eye. We wear it as a badge of honor and foolishly call “what is evil good and good evil” (Is 5:20).
This process, over time, makes the simple command of Christ one of the most difficult to practice. It produces a horde of log-eyed people who simply can’t see their log anymore. Not only are we blinded to our own sin, but we are incapable of helping our brothers and sisters address their sins either. Far better to assume today that I have a log in my eye, begging the Spirit to allow me to see it for what it is and remove it before it’s too late.

A Frightening Look Inside North Korea’s Physical and Spiritual Torture of Christians

By Megan Briggs

“The knowledge of the one true God is the greatest threat to the regime.”

The human rights advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) has just released a report on the plight of Christians in the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK), or North Korea. Among other systemic torture, CSW says there are documented incidents of Christians “being hung on a cross over a fire, crushed under a steamroller, herded off bridges and trampled underfoot.”
After years of unprecedented censorship and secrecy on the part of DPRK’s leaders, CSW’s report gives us a glimpse into the torture and horrific murders of Christians in this closed nation—unfortunately, this report confirms some of our worst fears. Starting on page 10, the persecution of Christians are listed out.
The report explains that Christians try to keep their faith a secret—even attempting to keep it from their loved ones. However, the government is so suspicious of Christianity that they ruthlessly find believers out and punish anyone associated. “If discovered, [Christians] are subject to detention and then likely taken to political prison camps (kwanliso); crimes against them in these camps include extra-judicial killing, extermination, enslavement/forced labour, forcible transfer of population, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, persecution, enforced disappearance, rape and sexual violence, and other inhumane acts.”
As to how CSW obtained the information presented in the report, the group explains: “This report is entirely based on secondary sources. On-the-ground research inside North Korea is not possible, and access to recent North Korean escapees with firsthand accounts of violations of freedom of religion or belief has proved challenging.” The majority of their testimonies come from the few escapees who are able to relay the stories of atrocities happening inside the country.
So why are the leaders of DPRK so wary of Christianity, yet somewhat lenient toward other beliefs like Buddhism and Shamanism? According to CSW’s report, Christianity “is identified as a dangerous security threat and a tool of ‘foreign intervention.’ It is seen as a means of conducting espionage and gathering intelligence by South Korean and American intelligence agencies.”
But the government’s fear of foreign intervention isn’t the only reason Christianity is seen as suspect. There is also a leader-worship factor that smacks of the ancient leader-idol worship we are told about in the Old Testament. Suzanne Scholte, the chair of the North Korea Freedom Coalition and vice co-chair of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told the Christian Post, “Because the DPRK regime was set up so that North Koreans are raised to worship the Kims as their gods, there is nothing the regime fears more than the spread of Christianity.” Furthermore, “The knowledge of the one true God is the greatest threat to the regime.”
This leader-worship system was put in place by DPRK’s first leader, Kim Il-sung. “Kim [Il-sung] set himself up as a god, perverting the holy trinity with Kim Jong-il as the Christ and juche as the Holy Spirit,” Scholte explained. Juche is the political ideology Kim Il-sung made all North Koreans adhere to and believe to the point of brainwashing. The regime carries on with the teaching today, calling juche the “original, brilliant and revolutionary contribution to national and international thought” that Kim Il-sung left them, according to Wikipedia. “North Koreans are taught from childhood to give prayers of thanks to their father, Kim Il-sung, to say a perverted version of the Apostles creed to their great leader, and to study their ideology in thousands of centers across North Korea,” explains Scholte.
North Korean citizens are also force-fed the Ten Principles from a very young age. These principles are used to indoctrinate citizens with the thinking of the regime on a daily, hourly basis. They are a kind of 10 Commandments by which citizens “regularly evaluate themselves.” The principles speak of the Kim family and emphasize loyalty to them. One escapee recalls learning that Kim Il-sung “was sent from heaven, a leader of the people and leader of the world” while in school.
CSW makes a point of saying that despite the public face the regime shows the international community (one that claims to be upholding the religious freedom of its citizens), religious freedom is not a reality inside their borders. “The violations of freedom of religion or belief in North Korea are among the very worst in the world,” the report claims.
While reports like these are heartbreaking and shocking, it reminds us of the things Jesus told us would happen. “‘Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake… Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved’” (Matthew 10:17-18, 21-22).
So, as you pray for the Christians in North Korea, pray they will be able to endure until the end, that the Holy Spirit will comfort them in their trials and torture, and that they would know the peace of God. Ask God to bring down the idolatrous regime of the DPRK and bring his light and truth to this incredibly oppressed people.
Finally, we would also do well to examine ourselves and ask, “If I were faced with such persecution, would I be able to endure?”

Megan Briggs

Megan Briggs is a content editor and passionate follower of Christ. Two things – she believes – that should be linked together more often. Her experience in ministry to youth and parents as well as the extensive amount of time she’s spent in ministry overseas gives her a unique perspective on the global church. Megan is passionate about spreading the gospel and equipping the church for holiness. When she’s not writing or proofreading, Megan likes to run.

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