June 17

Using Political Connections

As they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air, the commander ordered Paul to be taken into the barracks. He directed that he be flogged and questioned in order to find out why the people were shouting at him like this. As they stretched him out to flog him, Paul said to the centurion standing there, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t even been found guilty?”

When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and reported it . . . Those who were about to question him withdrew immediately. The commander himself was alarmed when he realized that he had put Paul, a Roman citizen, in chains.

Acts 22:23-26 and 29

The apostle Paul knew full well the answer to his own question about the legality of beating a Roman citizen. Indeed, the question might be viewed as more of a threat than an inquiry. Paul was simply letting his persecutors know his rights. When facing aggression, sometimes the appropriate response is to turn the other cheek; sometimes it is to challenge the accuser.

Lillian Dickson, who served with her husband as a missionary to Formosa in the decades after 1927, made use of threats in her effort to protect Christians in the remote mountain regions where she worked.

Standing at a height of five feet, she might not have appeared to be imposing, but, like Paul, she had political connections that worked to her advantage. She had initiated various humanitarian projects for the people in that country, and as a result had become acquainted with some of the national leaders who were eager to repay her kindness. These political connections gave her boldness in times of opposition.

Lillian had a reputation for toughness. “Once, while making a survey trip to seventy mountain churches to find out what kind of shape they were in, she heard of a chief who had been persecuting members of his tribe who had become Christians.

“A native policeman told her that this chief had been in the habit of going with a group in the middle of the night to a new Christian convert, sometimes a widow or an old person, and beating the victim or demanding protection money. Lil was in a village five miles away from the chiefs when she heard this report. It was near midnight. ‘Let’s go and see the man,’ she said.”

The policeman protested, knowing the chief probably would be asleep and drunk, but Lillian insisted. They found him in his hut in precisely that condition. Lillian “shook him violently” and demanded to know why he had been beating Christians. “I can make big trouble for you,” she threatened. “I don’t want to do it, but I can. If I hear of just one more instance, I’ll get after you.” With that, she left as abruptly as she came, and the chief never persecuted Christians again. ¹⁷