More Than Conquerors: Biblically-informed Courage
Courage is not without context!
Saint Boniface was a missionary in north-central Europe in the 8th century. His evangelistic efforts were winning many former worshippers of Thor to the cross of Jesus Christ. Some villagers were threatened by the wave of Christian converts worshipping their new-found Lord in a makeshift church. So, they decided—axes, picks, and swords in hand—to surround the Christian congregation and threaten them with death if they didn’t renounce their faith.
Boniface, stepped up and assured the Christians threatened with death,
“This now is the day we’ve been waiting for, the moment of freedom we’ve been yearning for is now here. So, be heroic in the Lord and suffer this royal grace of His will gladly! Keep your hope in the Lord and he will set your souls free!”
Church history tells us in the next moment, Saint Boniface and the whole Christian congregation were bludgeoned and killed.
Boniface, informed and under-girded by the assurances of the Apostle Paul, would boldly assert, even in such violent death, that they—the believers surrounded by threats of obliteration—were “more than conquers!”
The Apostle Paul provides a list of possible experiences that on the surface would seem to separate the believer from the love of Christ. Let’s face it, whenever we face trouble, or when it seems people or institutions are working against us, or the difficulties of life are making it hard to put the essentials of life on the table, or when we find ourselves in precarious, even dangerous places, (a paraphrase of Romans 8: 35) it’s not our typical first-thought to be singing “Jesus Loves Me!” Hardships usually don’t have us in the habit of asserting eternal comforts. But we must develop that habit!
Where’s Boniface when we need him?
The Apostle Paul has the audacious confidence to tell us none of these problems, no matter how profound and difficult, even life-threatening, can separate us from the love of Christ.
Then the apostle asserts, with even more boldness, that whatever the trying, even threatening circumstances, “We are more than conquerors!” (Romans 8: 37)
The result of these assurances about the abiding love of Jesus Christ is not a denial of difficulties and threatening circumstances, but a biblically-informed courage that helps us walk faithfully in them and through them. For biblically-informed courage is certainly not the absence of fear, but such courage involves practicing the rectifying graces necessary to deliver the good, the kind, and the merciful (Micah 6:8).
Knowing that we are more than conquerors provides the over-arching, eternal context for the necessity of courage in the face of trials. Confidence in Christ Jesus’ eternal victory over every imaginable foe is further adorned by the promised of God’s presence being with us in the storms and battles of life.
God has called us to be courageous (1 Corinthians 16:13) and that call throughout the Bible is accompanied by the promise of His presence. It was true of the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as they faced King Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace (see Daniel, chapter 3), Daniel in the Lion’s Den (see Daniel, chapter 6), but also true of Stephen as he faced his accusers, who would eventually stone him to death (see Acts 7). Yahweh, our God and King was present in life and death, delivered those who trusted in Him to serve on earth or in heaven. And He was present in the martyrdom of Boniface and his congregation.
And God is present in the midst of your storms, struggles, and insecurities. “Nothing shall separate us from the love of Christ!”
“We are more than conquerors!”
Paul D. Patton, Ph.D., is a professor of communication and theater at Spring Arbor University in Michigan. He has graduate degrees in Guidance and Counseling, Religious Education, and Script and Screenwriting, and a doctorate in Communication with an emphasis in theater arts. He has been married to his wife Beth for over forty years and has three daughters (all actresses)—Jessica, Emily, and Grace, three sons-in-law, David, Joe, and Eric, and four grandsons, Caleb Rock, Logan Justice, Micah Blaze, and Miles Dean.