Missions Paul

Spreading the gospel

Acts 13: 49

“The word of the Lord spread through the whole region.”

It was not only in Antioch that a new exciting church was being planted but across the region including the districts of Phrygia, Lycaonia, and Galatia, many were coming to Christ, turning away from their gods to worship the One true God and to follow Jesus.

In a book devoted to the Acts of the Spirit, this verse becomes even more important to us who believe, desire and pray for such moves of God in our generation.

Here is what we have discovered so far on our journey verse by verse through Acts:

• Following the first persecution, they “spoke the word of God boldly” (4:31).
• Following the second persecution and flogging, “day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (5:42).
• After the selection of deacons, “the word of God spread” (6:7).
• Resulting from Saul’s persecution of the church, “those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went” (8:4).
• Samaria “accepted the word of God” (8:14).
• The Gentiles of Cornelius’ household “received the word of God” (11:1).
• And here today, on Paul’s first missionary journey, “the word of the Lord spread through the whole region”.

The Bible, the Gospel, the Word of God is high on the agenda on every move of the Spirit. Disciples disciple and churches plant churches because of the expansion of the word of the Lord.

It is the way that people come to know God and it is the sign that what is happening is actually God.

The ministry of Paul and Barnabas did not spread throughout the whole region. Miracles or any other of the gifts of the Spirit were not the primary agent that was impacting this area. The exciting power of the gospel was the fire of Jeremiah (20:9) “But if I say, “I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name,” his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot”.

Some members believe that if their Pastor had a better ministry then the church would take the town for Jesus.

Some Pastors believe if they find that one truly anointed travelling evangelist, healer or deliverer then the whole region would sit up and take note.

Some believe if they pray hard and long enough then the divine visitation of revival will come.

Some long for the public display of the gifts of the Spirit to be used on the streets to beat hands down the efforts of David Blaine, Dynamo, Derren Brown and other magicians, to bring true hope to the crowds.

I could go on. All these things are understandable and some have noble desires. But we must remember that the main character in this amazing book is not a personality like Paul or Peter but the gospel.
So how does the word of the Lord spread today? The answer is simple isn’t it?! Too simple in fact. Now that’s a good new years resolution!

 

Predestined to be able to choose.

Acts 13: 48

“When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed.”

Happy New Year!!

And what a great start to our year reading of the Gentiles coming to faith in Antioch!

This verse for the last 4 centuries has been used to support the argument of predestination. “Appointed” or “ordained” has been used in its English translation to support the teaching that people are chosen to believe and some are not. I can see how it reads like this. Many have argued over the meaning of the Greek text and I am not going to enlighten today with anything new. I do believe that its meaning shows that the Gentiles were actually coming into the faith which God had pre-ordained everyone to come into which the Jews had just rejected. But this coming into the faith was an action of God. He moved them into the faith. However, he did not pick Tom and Harry but decide not to move upon Sally. All the time they could have rejected this move of God but they did what the Jews refused to do, they accepted the message of Jesus. God was not flipping a coin to see who He would be saving. God was moving there and then at that moment (not from some prescriptive eternal text book) and bringing souls into the kingdom. At the end of the day does He know who will accept Him? YES! Rather confusing perhaps but it does show the immense love God has for people that He is prepared to move upon them even though He knows their free-will is going to reject Him.

This year masses will come to Christ across the world. In your Church you will see people receive the joy of God because of salvation. You can be used to lead people to Christ. You can do this over the next 12 months.

In every salvation lies a miracle of grace. I am thankful that God in His ordained plan for the world, appointed man to be saved. It may not be that you were appointed and your neighbour wasn’t appointed. But you are both appointed, however, at the moment, you are the one to have responded. What does that tell you? It is not the lucky throw of a dice bur rather:

1. The emphasis is not on your decision for Christ but the gracious opportunity that was given you because of God’s plan of salvation.
2. You can be very thankful for the person who told you about Jesus clearly.
3. You can bathe in the beauty of being chosen because that is what you are.

 

What will it take to GO? When will we look outside the synagogues of worship?

Acts 13: 47

“For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’

Gentiles have crowded the Synagogue in Pisidian Antioch. The Jews longed for such days and yet they now through jealousy become antagonistic towards Paul and his team. The main problem was that their message was providing easy access to God for the Gentiles.

In this pivotal moment, Paul could have used his own testimony from the Damascus Road where Christ appointed him as a witness to the Gentiles. He could have said ‘I was commanded to do this work.” He could have used the Great Commission of Jesus commanding the disciples to ‘go into all the world’. But he chooses carefully and he uses their Scriptures. He uses Isaiah 49:6 and says the Servant that they have all been waiting for commanded them to have a ministry and a Salvation message for the Gentiles and this Servant is Jesus. An Old Testament commandment that the Jewish listeners had not been following and were now opposing!

It was pivotal because this huge rejection would form in Pauls mind in particular the now moment. This is the moment he goes to the Gentile world.

Rejection often confirms mission.

I have seen many men and women who having gone through a season of rejection then realise that God was opening a door of mission to them, a quite beautiful moment.

Is the Church today any better than the Antioch Jews in that synagogue?

I believe that is a huge question.

Though unusual for me I want to include some statistics to help provoke your thinking. Each statistic has been chosen for that reason (I could have given ten times the amount). But ponder on each one and ask how far have we really come? Unfortunately these figures are largely from the US, they lead the way in their statistical research. But if you are in a western country then these figures apply to you.

1) There are 7.3 billion people in the world. (Joshua Project)

Of the 7.3 billion people in the world, 3 billion live among unreached people groups of the world and 1.6 billion are completely unevangelised. (Joshua Project; Barrett and Johnson 2001, 427)

2) In AD 100 there were 360 people for every believer. Now there are 7.3 people for every believer. In AD 100 there were 12 unreached people groups for every congregation of believers. Now there is 1 unreached people group for every 1000 congregations. (Winter et al., 3)

There are 16,562 people groups in the world. Of these people groups, 9,715 have been reached with the Gospel message. 6,847 people groups are still unreached with the Gospel. To be unreached means less than 2% Evangelical Christian, the sizable proportion thought to be needed to reach their own people. (Joshua Project).

90% of foreign missionaries work among already reached people groups. 10% work among unreached people groups. (Winter and Koch, 543)

3) In the last 40 years, over 1 billion people have died who have never heard of Jesus, and around 30 million people this year will perish without hearing the message of salvation. 70,000+ people die everyday in the unreached world without Jesus. (Baxter 2007, 12)

4) Of foreign mission funding: 87% goes for work among those already Christian. 12% for work among already evangelized, but Non-Christian. 1% for work among the unevangelized and unreached people. (Baxter 2007, 12)

Christians make up 33% of the world’s population, but receive 53% of the world’s annual income and spend 98% of it on themselves. (Barrett and Johnson 2001, 656)

5) 60% of unreached people groups live in countries closed to missionaries from North America. (The Traveling Team)

22 million internationals visit the US each year. Of these, some 630,000 are university students from 220 countries, 25% of which prohibit Christian missionaries. 80% of those students will return to their countries having never been invited to an American home. (The Traveling Team) 60% of international students come from the 10/40 window. (The Traveling Team)

There are 430,000 missionaries from all branches of Christendom. Only between 2 and 3% of these missionaries work among unreached peoples. (The Traveling Team)

6) US mission agencies have an annual budget of over $5.2 billion. (Weber and Welliver 2007, 13)

Indigenous missionaries do 90% of pioneer mission work, but only receive 10% of mission funding. Meanwhile foreign missionaries do 10% of pioneer mission work, but receive 90% of mission funding. (Finley 2004, 178 & 244)

And yet …..! There is good news happening …. Recently one Elim UK Church Pastor texted me to say that they will be giving just under £20,000 to missions this month! In the Islamic, Buddhist and Hindu world I am seeing hundreds of people come to Christ each year and many churches being planted in the strangest of places. So there is hope! Also …

7) One indigenous ministry surveyed the believers in the churches they planted and found that 80% had come to faith in Christ because they had seen a miraculous act of God or experienced an answer to prayer. That same indigenous ministry holds that their average missionary will plant 3 churches within the first 5 years on the field. (Chacko 2008, 138)

The New Testament is translated into the languages of 94% of the world’s population. (Johnstone and Mandryk 2005, 7)

Two of the largest Gospel radio broadcasters, Far East Broadcasting Company and Gospel for Asia, both receive around 1,000,000 listener responses each year. (Far East Broadcasting Company, 15; Gospel for Asia)

There have been 4.1 billion viewings of the Jesus Film, representing about 3 billion individuals. More than 99% of the world’s population could view the film in a language they know. (Johnstone and Mandryk 2005, 7)

In one year alone, Global Media Outreach, the internet outreach branch of Campus Crusade for Christ, reported over 10 million internet users came to faith in Christ through their websites. They also received close to 4 million emails. (Global Media Outreach)

In one month alone, Trans World Radio saw over 500,000 downloads in China of their online broadcasts. (Libby, 2)

I include point 7 just in case you think I am being too sombre! But the statistics are uncomfortable for the church in the West, maybe not just in the West either.

“For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’

What would Paul say to us today? What would Jesus say? What would Isaiah say?

Are we like the Jews of Antioch?

Do we need some rejection, some persecution for missions to be truly birthed in our lives and churches? Is that what it will take?

JUSTIFYING GRACE AWAY

Acts 13:46

“Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: “We had to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.”

The Jews were rejecting the message that had been given to them first as a privilege. Paul and his team were following what they believed was the plan of God, first the Jew, then the Gentile. To the Jew first because it would fulfil the promise of Abraham that all the peoples on the earth would be blessed through him.

They had been considered worthy by God to be the first to receive His blessing, He came to them, He came as a Jew. But their rejection of Jesus has meant that they have counted themselves not worthy for this to have happened, they have turned their back on this blessing. This is not the kind of ‘worthy’ that we hold to for no one is ‘worthy’ of salvation because it is a free gift of God. But rather this is the Jew despising salvation, refusing the gospel being preached to them anymore and as a result are proclaiming that they should not be saved. God was not rejecting them for salvation, they in rejecting Christ was rejecting salvation. Salvation comes to those who recognise they are sinners, in need of a Saviour and who see the death and resurrection of Jesus as that way of salvation, that’s what makes us worthy. Our recognition of our sin, Saviour Jesus, salvation plan, this qualifies us.

The most righteous people in the eyes of man were guilty of rejecting the righteousness of God. But let’s try and see it from their perspective.

• Their message of the good news contained the need for good living, rules to keep, it was hard work but worth it. Paul’s message was too easy, cheap and available to anyone who doesn’t appreciate the Scriptures and probably the Gentiles did not even know one story from the ancestors.
• They worked hard every day to keep the laws found in their Scriptures. Working hard was showing God their love for Him. Working hard was showing them that He was pleased with them. Paul’s message had no work attached to it at all. It seemed in Paul’s message the only person working hard was God.
• They had already established a way for the Gentile to be saved, God had established it: the Gentile becomes circumcised and they become Jewish in belief, worship and practically working this out in their life. There was already a way. Paul’s message offered an alternative way and there wasn’t a need for any changes to what was in their eyes the perfect way.

Those who bring warning against GRACE have their justifications. GRACE brings you in and JUSTIFICATIONS can keep you out.

 

Jealousy

Acts 13: 45

“When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy. They began to contradict what Paul was saying and heaped abuse on him.”

Suddenly the dream is fulfilled, the Temple is full of people. The Jewish leaders had been trying to do this no doubt for ages. Today it was done. But they were not happy. They were jealous.

If the goal of your life is to be popular then you will battle jealousy. (When others are more popular than you).

If the goal of your life is to have the biggest church then you will battle jealousy. (When your church stops growing and the one across town increases rapidly).

If the goal of your life is to be separated from sinners then you will battle jealousy. (When God starts to manifestly love on the sinners with grace and favour).

If the goal of your life is to appear to be better than you really are then you will battle jealousy. (When you see others who are lesser than you being used by God equally as you).

If the goal of your life is to solely remain entrenched in an interpretation of Scripture then you will battle jealousy. (When something happens that challenges that interpretation that is promoted as being from God).

If the goal of your life is to be the only mouthpiece of God then you will battle Jealousy. (When God decides not to speak through you for a change).

What is the true goal?

 

A lot can happen midweek!

Acts 13:44

“On the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord”.

In modern history preachers have managed to draw huge crowds. George Whitefield in the 18^th century drew crowds of 20,000 plus in Britain. In the next century Charles Spurgeon also drew 20,000 plus crowds. There are so many preachers we could mention but the most famous of all in our time has to be Billy Graham. From May 30 to June 3, 1973, an estimated 3.2 million people attended his crusade in Seoul, South Korea, with 1.1 million traveling mostly by foot to the final service on the airstrip at Yoi-do Plaza.

A lot can happen midweek.

Paul and Barnabas had continued to meet with smaller groups of Jews and Gentiles teaching them more about the grace of God. The grace of God is a fire that will not go out. When followers have it they cannot stop speaking of it. Grace attracts where rules eliminate.

There was no means of promotion other than word of mouth. But these followers spent their midweek talking to many and the many talked to the many until the whole city had heard.

A lot can happen midweek.

Paul and Barnabas were certainly not in the gym or the golf course all day every day of that week. Nor were they holed up in their offices with their books making sure their next sermon is the sermon of all sermons. But when the crowd gathers you then realise what has happened midweek. Being a gatherer of people takes hard work. It is not a move of God only but the rolled up sleeves of the leaders and the followers wanting as many as possible to be in one place to hear something quite amazing! In some churches today the midweek consists of praying for crowds and when the few do gather it feels like hard work.

Interestingly and for the first time within the crowd were not just the Jewish leaders, the holders of ‘the truth’, but the Gentile outcasts, this was revival! They didn’t come because of some new found truth, if it was truth the city dwellers were after they would have gathered long ago. Even today people are not searchers of truth. They want someone to help them in their life. The oldest problem of mankind is that every day people wake and want their life to be better.

But of course in every crowd there are people there for different reasons as we will soon find out. Some were genuine, others inquisitive and others quarrelsome. A swell of numbers doesn’t always indicate success of discipleship.

A lot can happen midweek!

 

 

GRACE

Acts 13:43

“When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.”

When the church service is over what will you do?

This is Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas are teaching the grace of God to a group of Jews who are more focused on the rules of true believers and followers of Jehovah. Then they are dismissed.

These people were not just following the 10 commandments. That would be easy compared to the 613 commandments found in the Torah that they were trying their hardest to fulfil. How many rules do you have?

We didn’t have rules when we came to Christ. We came because of grace, amazing grace. It was undeserved kindness by a loving God. However as we continued in Christ, the Church and/or other Christians introduced us to some rules depending on the generation we were saved in depended on the rules.

This week I am thinking of going to the cinema. If I go then I would be breaking one of the rules that Pentecostals held to in the 1960s. Yesterday I discussed make-up with my 21 year old daughter who was asking me if I thought she should wear it. In the era I was born in then my answer of a father to a daughter would have been, ‘No Christian girl wears make-up.’ Thankfully we are not in these days now. But there are still rules that show whether we are a true follower.

The message of Paul and Barnabas still applies today, don’t believe any message that says you must do A, B and C to please God or receive His blessing on your life or even to prove to others you are who you say you are.

Grace is challenged continually across the world by leading preachers who are concerned about a sinful Church. The fact is the Grace of God is the answer to a sinful Church.

And we need to urge people to continue in it, not abandon it to a set of rules.

God is an upside down God. He is not where you may think He may be. He hangs around communities you would not want to go near. His grace is amazing but it also offensive. It is not fair. There seems to be no justice.

It throws parties for sons who have wasted the inheritance.

It promises assurance to dying thieves who ask to be remembered in the next life.

It is found in defeat not victory.

It refuses to break the bruised reed that everyone wants to break or snuff out the smouldering wick that everyone sees as useless.

You may be hurting, beating yourself up, troubled in your heart, held in the addiction to sin, feel this is for anyone but you, but the call remains, ‘come to my grace’.

To live by grace means you are not denying or trying to forget the sin in your life, but by allowing grace to expose it you find who you really are. Not that we end up depressed and whipping ourselves in a frenzy of guilt and shame over our sinful lives. Self-pity will never motivate you. Self-pity will not move you to grace any more than the victories, visions, successes and miracles will. Self-pity will keep you locked in failure, away from your home.

Grace calls you to keep coming back to Jesus, let Jesus bind up the wounds, don’t let your self do it.

Continue in grace.

Speak again!

Acts 13:42

“As Paul and Barnabas were leaving the synagogue, the people invited them to speak further about these things on the next Sabbath.”

Happy Boxing Day!

There is more!

You have more to give!

There is more. Your experience of Jesus in the past, no matter how amazing, is just a part of what can be fully experienced. There is more. Speak again. God hasn’t finished with you yet.

There will come a day when you will no longer be here, you will have been taken to heaven. Until that day carry on. Until that day do the work. Until that day speak up and speak out. For when that day comes then your opportunity will be gone.

There are things in you that need to be revealed. You operate out of these beliefs, values and goals. There is a hidden DNA in you that people only see the benefit of. Reveal what is hidden.

What is most important in life?

How do you do what you do?

Why do you say what you say?

Don’t give up, don’t back down, keep going, the missions is not over, speak again!

Someone needs to hear this today!!

These are two words that every missionary has in the back of their minds. Yet they know they are a missionary because they have already laid their life down.

Acts 13: 40-41 “Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you:  “‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.”

Happy Christmas!

Paul using a prophecy from Haggai when God told His people that He was ready to send the Chaldeans (the Babylonians) against them, Paul is saying make sure it doesn’t happen in this generation simply because you are blind and deaf to what God is doing. The fact is that in AD70 Rome demolished the Temple and trampled the Jewish nation. Why? It was because they did not recognise Jesus’ birth!

God will use the enemy to come against even His own people if that is what is needed. The enemy is just a pawn in His hand.

I do not think God is purposely seeking to move the enemy to persecute His people but what I do believe, what I have to hold on to, is that God knows about it. He is sovereignly permitting it.

As we pray for the persecuted today let us also pray that the purposes of God will be done because He is not in a crisis nor is His arm too short to do something about it.

In his Christmas message, Prince Charles reflected on the religious persecution that Christians and other religious minorities face throughout the world, calling it “beyond all belief” that it still continues even after the horrors of the Holocaust were exposed.

“I was born in 1948, just after the end of World War II in which my parents’ generation had fought, and died, in a battle against intolerance, monstrous extremism and an inhuman attempt to exterminate the Jewish population of Europe,” the Prince of Wales said in his message, released on Thursday.

“That, nearly 70 years later, we should still be seeing such evil persecution is, to me, beyond all belief. We owe it to those who suffered and died so horribly not to repeat the horrors of the past,” he added.

Charles said he recently met with a Jesuit priest from Syria who told him that unless major action is taken, it’s possible that there might not be any Christians left in Iraq in five years time.

He pointed to statistics from the United Nations that show the world’s refugees now number close to 65.3 million people, which is close to the entire population of the U.K.

Charles said that Christians think about the birth of Jesus Christ during Christmas, and this year they are reminded of the full story surrounding why Joseph and Mary fled to Bethlehem.

“I wonder, though, if this year we might remember how the story of the Nativity unfolds — with the fleeing of the Holy Family to escape violent persecution. And we might also remember that when the [Islamic] prophet Muhammad migrated from Mecca to Medina, he did so because he, too, was seeking the freedom for himself and his followers to worship,” he insisted.

Charles suggested that regardless of one’s religion, people should seek to value and respect other people, “accepting their right to live out their peaceful response to the love of God.”

The Prince of Wales attended the consecration of a Syriac Orthodox Church in London in November, where he also spoke about the persecution Christians are facing at the hands of the Islamic State and other terror groups.

“It is surely deeply encouraging, at a time when the members of the Syriac Orthodox Church in their homelands of Syria and Iraq are undergoing such desperate trials and such appalling suffering, that in Britain the Syriac Church is able to expand and gain in strength,” Charles said in a speech during the ceremony at the Cathedral of St Thomas in Acton.

The future king of England has talked about the disappearance of Christians in Syria and Iraq on a number of occasions, and in December 2015 also warned that Christianity might be entirely erased from the land of its birth in the Middle East within five years.

“This affects us all, consequently the greatest challenge we face is how to ensure the spiritual and cultural heritage of Christianity in the Middle East is preserved for future generations,” Charles said.
 Please pray for those who are persecuted today, who may have tried to take care but through the Sovereignty of God are now under the grip of the enemy.

Advent – Not free but very much set free!

Acts 13: 39

“Through him everyone who believes is set free from every sin, a justification you were not able to obtain under the law of Moses.”

Paul is saying that the Law of Moses could never totally free them from the guilty sentence of their sins. It is only through Jesus that people experience true freedom.

Today and tomorrow I want to ask you to pray for those in our world who have been set free by Jesus but are now held in prison, being tortured for this freedom.

 Two days ago the BBC website reported this story, I was so moved by it:

As churches around the country prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ, with peace and goodwill toward men, spare a thought for those who must live out their faith in a foreign land.

This will be the seventh consecutive Christmas mother-of-five Asia Bibi will spend in solitary confinement within the Islamic Republic of Pakistan – a country that has what the United Nations describes as “one of the worst situations in the world for religious freedom”.

A member of the Christian minority, just 1.6% of the population, 45-year-old Asia Bibi was jailed after being found guilty of breaching Pakistan’s strict blasphemy laws.

Her case has provoked global protests, with supporters accusing the judiciary of fabricating the charge to persecute a Christian. There have been no fewer than three attempts at appealing against the verdict.

There’s also been a direct intervention by Pope Francis, who received a delegation of family and friends at the Vatican. But still she languishes in a small cell as the world awaits a final decision from the Supreme Court in Lahore.

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“The case of Asia Bibi is precisely the reason why I continue to fight for religious minorities around the world,” says crossbench peer Baroness Cox, who recently returned from visiting oppressed Christians in Nigeria.

“Only those of us in open and free societies can be a voice to the voiceless and Christmas is the perfect season for us to renew our appeal for humanity and tolerance.”

The original incident, which occurred in June 2009, centred around Asia Bibi sharing a bowl of water with fellow workers in a field, about 30 miles (48km) from Lahore, where they were working as farm labourers.

It’s alleged that an argument erupted after some of the women felt it was sacrilegious for Muslims to share the cup with a Christian. Within weeks, the allegations had escalated to the charge of blasphemy, with some fellow workers accusing her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. She was arrested and imprisoned.

Despite reports of inconsistent witness testimony and fragmentary evidence, she was found guilty in November 2010. Large crowds gathered to celebrate her sentencing, and there soon followed a trail of death and destruction.

A month after sentencing, Asia Bibi was visited by the Governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer. He emerged from jail and stated that the blasphemy laws had been misused and wrongly applied in her case. Within days, he was murdered by his bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri.

Two months later, in March 2011, the Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti – the only Christian in the Pakistan cabinet – criticised the country’s blasphemy laws as being open to abuse and manipulation.

After leaving his mother’s house, his car was sprayed with bullets: a second assassination in a matter of weeks and both apparently linked to the case of Asia Bibi.

Beyond the application of blasphemy laws, 2016 has also witnessed the continued targeting of Christian minorities by militant groups in Pakistan.

The most severe attack was launched on Easter Sunday in Lahore. A large number of the Christians had chosen to visit a neighbourhood park following morning worship. Spirits were naturally high.

“Things were going well,” said the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Lahore, the Most Reverend Sebastian Shaw, “but it was very cautious. A priest called us and told us that we must be alert all the time.”

As parents pushed their children on swings and enjoyed the company of friends, two suicide bombers entered the park. Within minutes, the hum of children’s voices was overwhelmed by the sound of tragedy. More than 340 people were injured and 75 died. The vast majority were women and children.

“It was very difficult,” said Archbishop Shaw, who rushed to several medical facilities where the injured had been taken. “Even in the corridors of the hospital, at the entrance [there were] so many people. It was very difficult to console people.

“I visited a lady. She came from Hyderabad. Her husband and two children were killed and another cousin was also killed. So the lady was totally out of her senses and didn’t know what had happened.”

Within hours a group affiliated to the Pakistan Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, said it had carried out the bombing and was reported to have deliberately targeted Christians.

Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations, condemned the attack and urged the Pakistan government “to do its utmost to put in place protective measures to ensure the personal security of all individuals, including religious minority communities living in the country”.

But Pakistan is not alone.

Earlier this month, an individual wearing a suicide vest attacked a Coptic Christian church in Cairo, during Sunday morning prayers. There are conflicting reports about whether this was a man or a woman.

But the effect was unequivocal: at least 25 people were killed and a further 45 injured. Orthodox Copts comprise just 10% of Egypt’s 90 million people but are the Middle East’s largest Christian community.

The latest attack followed complaints by Christians in the town of Minya, about 140 miles (225km) south of Cairo, where several buildings were burned after they were suspected of hosting prayer meetings.

Christian worship in countries such as Pakistan and Egypt remains the most dangerous practice and this year of horrifying attacks could yet end with further bloodshed.

If Asia Bibi’s appeal is rejected by the Supreme Court, she will become the first woman in Pakistan to be executed for blasphemy. Christians throughout Pakistan are praying for a miracle this Christmas.

Please pray for those who are free but who are not free this Christmas Eve