Jesus was condemned by the religious leaders of the Jews for blasphemy and by Pontius Pilate for a political crime, as “king of the Jews.” Those who persecuted Jesus are referred to in the Gospel of John as the unbelieving “world.”

In today’s Gospel reading, Jesus says that as the world persecuted him, so they will also persecute the believers. True enough, as soon as the Christian community was formed with the descent of the Holy Spirit, persecution began with the stoning of Stephen with Saul’s acquiescence. Saul/Paul himself suffered persecution when he converted to the faith in Christ.

Herod Agrippa had James, the brother of John, put to death. Peter narrowly escaped death and the rest of the Apostles took flight. The first documented case of imperially supervised persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire began with Nero who blamed Christians for the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64. Christians were likewise accused of following a new and malefic superstition and engaging in blood sacrifice, probably a misunderstanding of the Eucharist.

The number 666, the number of the beast in the book of Revelation, is widely interpreted as a gematria (assigning a numerical value to a name) of the name Nero Caesar, indicating that he is seen as an exceptionally evil figure. Faith in Jesus Christ withstood all kinds of misunderstanding and persecution.

Tertulian wrote that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church,” implying that a martyr’s willing sacrifice of his or her life leads to the conversion of others. In fact, pagans were attracted to the faith of Christians seeing “how they love one another.”

Paul reached also Derbe and Lystra where there was a disciple named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. The brothers in Lystra and Iconium spoke highly of him, and Paul wanted him to come along with him. On account of the Jews of that region, Paul had him circumcised, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

As they traveled from city to city, they handed on to the people for observance the decisions reached by the Apostles and presbyters in Jerusalem. Day after day the churches grew stronger in faith and increased in number. They traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian territory because they had been prevented by the Holy Spirit from preaching the message in the province of Asia.

When they came to Mysia, they tried to go on into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them, so they crossed through Mysia and came down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision. A Macedonian stood before him and implored him with these words, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” When he had seen the vision, we sought passage to Macedonia at once, concluding that God had called us to proclaim the Good News to them.

Jesus said to his disciples: “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”

“Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”