The following is a letter sent by the elders of Felton Bible Church to the FBC congregation on 11 Sep 25:
Brothers and Sisters,
Violence, when it rises and seems to prevail, is an overwhelming thing. That’s especially true when, by God’s grace, violence is not our normal daily experience and we’re not yet inured to its shocking outburst. Being unaccustomed to violence personally, we’re therefore acutely aware of how, in our uber-connected world, there seems to be a rising tide of shocking violence around us. Of course, what qualifies as “shocking” and how we measure “rising” are both technically debatable points, but who cares to have that debate right now? There’s no doubt that recent weeks have been shocking. Whether technically true or not in terms of statistics and numbers, violence seems to be on the rise. Three weeks ago, the attack on a Catholic church mass shocked us. Less than a week prior to that heinous act, it was the wanton murder of a young woman on a Charlotte, North Carolina subway. Then, yesterday, came the calculated assassination of our brother in Christ, Charlie Kirk. Charlie’s death is not more significant than these other tragedies, but its ripple effect is likely to be far greater. Such violence is shocking, and it threatens to overwhelm our sensibilities. It tempts us to despair. It suggests we should be fearful, and it works to make us cynical, irritable, paranoid, and cowed. How should we respond in such a moment? Let us propose that we take the writer of Hebrews at his word: “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NASB).
Even before the gruesome acts perpetrated against him, our Lord knew the horror and threat of shocking violence. We refer to the moment in Jesus’ life when he learned that his family relation and forerunner, John the Baptist, died at the command of Herod Antipas. You’ll find the account in Matthew 14:1-14, Mark 6:14-32, and briefly in Luke 9:7-9 (see also Luke 3:19-20). How shocking must it have been for the Lord Jesus who, remember, was and is truly human (even as he was and is truly God), to hear of John’s brazen murder at the hands of a dissolute, evil man? How did Jesus respond? Matthew tells us that, “Now when Jesus heard this [referring to the account of John’s death], he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:13-14, ESV). The very next thing in Matthew’s narrative is the miraculous feeding of more than 5,000 people. In Luke’s account, when the crowds overtook Jesus, he “…welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing” (Luke 9:11).
Notice two things about Jesus’ response to this moment of shocking violence. First, according to Matthew, he withdrew to a desolate place by himself. We should note that for Jesus desolate places were, especially, locations for prayer (see Mark 1:35 and Luke 5:16). Matthew isn’t explicit, but it must be that Jesus withdrew in order to pray. Prayer was his first response to violence. Then, at some point in this process, Jesus’ disciples, recently returned from various ministry excursions, joined him, and together the group sought a time of rest (Mark 6:30-32). It’s out of this prayer and rest that Jesus was then ready, in Bethsaida, to welcome the crowds with compassion and to feed them with the words and power of God (see Matthew 14:14, Mark 6:33-34, Luke 9:10-11). That’s the second thing to notice. After prayer with rest, Jesus pressed on with the ministry entrusted to him by his Father. Violence may rise and threaten, but God’s work is not thereby stymied.
Now, lest we think a response of this sort belongs to Jesus alone (he is the God-man after all, and we are merely human), consider the believers of Acts 12. Shocking violence strikes when “…Herod the king…had James the brother of John [one of Jesus’ twelve disciples] put to death with a sword” (Acts 12:2). At the same time, Herod arrested Peter, and Peter’s life seemed to hang on a thread. What do we find the believers doing in response? Luke writes, “So Peter was kept in the prison, but prayer for him was being made fervently by the church to God” (Acts 12:5). In response to shocking violence, the church first prayed and then, as the rest of Acts reveals, it pressed on.
What will Jesus’ people do in 2025 when violence rises in our experience, whether because it strikes us personally or because we find it persistently splashed across the news of the day? When shocking violence threatens to overwhelm, can we do better than our Lord? Can we do better than the brothers and sisters who’ve preceded us in faith? What is our recourse in such moments? It’s simply and powerfully this – pray, rest, and press on. We pray like the saints of Revelation 6:10 (NASB), “How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” We pause to prayerfully rest and breathe for a moment – maybe even in a “desolate” place with no internet – and then we press on. We lift our eyes to see a waiting harvest of hungry people starving for want of truth (John 4:34-36), and then we go on feeding them with the words and power of God. We do that especially through the powerful, bold act of gathering to worship our God week-by-week, Sunday-by-Sunday, let violence be what it will.
“The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him…The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still…A mighty fortress is our God.”
Love in Christ,
The FBC Elders
Fix Your Mind 