100 Sermon Illustrations on Prison

According to a recent report by the Pew Center on the States, there are more than 2.3 million people in American prisons and jails: one in every 99 adults. We are by far the world’s largest jailer. Our closest rival, China, has a third fewer prisoners than we do, despite having four times as many people.

The numbers get worse the closer you look: One in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 are behind bars. And for African-Americans, the number is one in nine.

Then there are the costs: an average of nearly $24,000 a year to incarcerate one inmate and that does not count the building. At least five states spend more on corrections than on higher education. For the rest, the cost of corrections is “saddling cash-strapped states with soaring costs none of them can afford.”

These increases in prison population and the “soaring costs” are the result of policy choices we have all made. Since the late ‘80s, elected officials have responded to the public’s fear of crime by lengthening sentences and enacting laws like “three-strikes” and you are out. I know, I was a Senator and Attorney General during that time and was in the midst of it.

If these measures had made us safer, they might be worth it. But they have not. For starters, most of the increase in prison populations took place after crime rates began to go down and continued even after they bottomed out. In a sense, the process is on “auto-pilot,” doing what it does regardless of the crime rates.

As a result, according to David Muhlhausen of the Heritage Foundation, “we are not incarcerating all the people who commit serious crimes — but we are probably incarcerating people who even don’t need to be.”

Among the people “who don’t need to be” in prison are nonviolent offenders — especially nonviolent drug offenders. The lion’s share of the increase in prison population has been driven by drug offenders. And we are not talking “drug kingpins,” either. As Kentucky’s Justice Secretary put it, “We are just getting the people who went out and got caught. We are getting the low-hanging fruit.”

This cannot continue indefinitely. “Tough” has had its chance — it is time for “smart.” We need to punish “low-risk offenders” in ways “that save tax dollars, hold offenders accountable,” and actually rehabilitate them.

This is the position that Prison Fellowship and its criminal justice affiliate, Justice Fellowship, have advocated for nearly three decades. Non-dangerous offenders should be punished in ways that “make it more likely [that they] will be able to pay victim restitution, child support, and taxes.”

That includes things like intensive probation, electronic monitoring, and community service. The only limit here is our creativity.

And our foundation is Scripture. When Zacchaeus admitted to Jesus that he had defrauded tax payers, he offered to pay restitution — which was in keeping with the Law.

Christians can lead the way. We can move beyond the mere “toughness” rhetoric that locks up Americans in expensive prison cells for reasons that are only tangentially related to public safety. Let’s lock people up that are a danger to society. Let’s not lock people up whom we are just mad at.

________

Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

According to the Department of Justice, one in every thirty-two American adults is under some kind of correctional supervision: either behind bars or on probation or parole.

One in thirty-two American adults translates to more than seven million people: approximately 2.2 million in prison and jail; 780,000 on parole; and more than 4 million on probation. To put these numbers in some perspective, 7 million is more than the population of all but twelve of the states!

Once billed as “the most dangerous man in Mississippi,” former Ku Klux Klan member and terrorist Tom Tarrants became a Christian while in prison for attempted murder and now serves as president of the C.S. Lewis Institute in Washington, D.C.

Born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, during the years of racial segregation, Tarrants bitterly opposed the move toward racial equality in the 1960s, directing his hatred toward Jews, whom he believed were involved in a communist plot against America and whom he viewed as God’s enemies.

As a young man in his early 20s, Tarrants aligned himself with Sam Bowers, a man who was later convicted for his part in the murder of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi -– the story fictionalized in the movie “Mississippi Burning.” The FBI referred to Bowers’ group, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, as the most violent right-wing terrorist group in the nation.

As an operative for the White Knights, Tarrants was involved in some 30 bombings of synagogues, churches and homes before being apprehended in an FBI sting operation in Meridian, Mississippi. In the ensuing shootout between Tarrants and law enforcement officers, Tarrants’ female accomplice was killed and he was shot 19 times, almost ending his life.

After months of recovery, Tarrants began a 30-year sentence in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, one of the most volatile prisons in the nation at the time. He escaped shortly after being incarcerated but was apprehended in yet another shootout that took the life of another accomplice.

His only diversion from prison life was to retreat into reading. One day Tarrants picked up a Bible. The words of Jesus haunted him: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”

Although he had attended a Southern Baptist church as a child, Tarrants realized he was not a Christian and his life had been a contradiction to biblical teaching. Alone in his cell, Tarrants gave his broken life to Christ. He renounced his racism and hatred and committed his life in service to Christ and mankind.

The realization that he had only narrowly escaped death when he was apprehended convinced him that God had another purpose for his life.

Later, Tarrants found out that the wife of an FBI agent involved in his capture had been praying for his salvation for years. After his conversion, the FBI agent and his wife, along with others who had been the targets of his hatred, were instrumental in securing his release after eight years in prison.

Tarrants then earned college and seminary degrees and served in various ministry positions, including a co-pastorate at the evangelical Christ our Shepherd Church in Washington, D.C.

Tarrants has authored the book, “The Conversion of a Klansman,” and coauthored “He’s My Brother” with African American evangelical leader John Perkins.

Once a crusader for hate, Tarrants now, as president of the C.S. Lewis Institute, fills a role of educating and equipping those who, like Lewis, want to defend their faith and impact their world with truth.

C.S. Lewis, Tarrants said, was a radical disciple of Jesus who happened to be an Oxford don and a brilliantly gifted writer. Tarrants reminded the NOBTS group to give all to God -– both heart and mind. Tarrants told them Lewis believed “that true knowledge of God comes from obedience.”

“I was deeply encouraged to hear how a single biblical encounter broke through years of insincerity and hatred to transform a man’s life beyond recognition,” New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary student Jason Palmer said of Tarrants’ testimony.

A Chinese zoo is running a Big Brother style competition with a difference -- the contestants have to live in a monkey enclosure.

Six people will live with the monkeys in the zoo in the northwestern province of Shaanxi “to experience the lack of freedom the animals have,” the China Daily said on Thursday.

The last person remaining will win 11,888 yuan ($1,534) and title of honorary animal lover, the newspaper said.

“It is the first such activity in China, and any Chinese from 18 to 60 years old, in good psychological condition with wild animal protection and survival knowledge may participate,” the report added, without elaborating.

________

copyright Reuters, February 8, 2007. All Rights Reserved.

I would venture to guess that JUSTICE is not a word that comes quickly to mind when you think about Easter. Maybe my years studying law, fighting for criminal justice reform, and ministering to prisoners have given me a different perspective.

You see, I can’t help but think of justice on Easter Sunday, because for the last almost thirty years, I have spent Easter behind bars worshiping the risen Christ with prisoners. Yesterday and Saturday, Mark Earley and I preached in two prisons in Florida.

And it is there, in a prison yard, where I see so vividly the contrast between man’s justice and the justice of God. Prisoners, of all people, know that they are paying a price for their crimes — the price of confinement, isolation, soul-crushing boredom, and yes, even fear. Yet they know that their time in prison does not ATONE for their crimes. They know that their imprisonment alone does not make things right.

But the men Mark Earley and I worshiped with this weekend in Florida DO know what God’s justice is all about. It’s about the Son of God who mounted the cross and paid the debt of justice in our place.

As Christ goes to the cross, He fulfills the words of the prophet Isaiah. He is “pierced for our transgressions” and “crushed for our iniquities.” In His death, “the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him” (53:5). What do these ancient words mean?

Justice has been crying out since the first law-breaking bite of forbidden fruit. Can’t you imagine the cry for justice that rose up when Abel’s innocent blood was spilled in the first recorded act of violence? But it did not stop there; the injustice only intensified. From the Egyptians enslaving the Israelites, to the death of an innocent man named Uriah, justice howls for the omnipotent God to set things straight.

But not only do WE cry out for justice, God also demands justice. Looking at His creatures, He sees a people who are created to worship Him, and yet they defile His image at every turn. He speaks His list of grievances again and again through the prophets. The earth and heavens above groan for justice.

On the cross, Jesus Christ pays for all of those who turn to Him in faith. His death is a satisfaction for all of the injustices that people have committed or will commit. When Christ is raised from the dead on Easter Sunday, we see that there is hope of restoration for all perpetrators of injustice. That is something, by the way, that men and women in prisons fully appreciate.

The good news though is that the risen Christ is risen hope for all who demand justice and for all whose crimes demand payment. Imagine every prayer that has risen to God for justice from the time of Abel to the atrocities we hear about today in Darfur. Imagine every prayer of true repentance that has also wafted to the throne of grace: from King David, from the prisoner in his cell — or from the man or woman listening on a car radio.

Easter is good news indeed for all who look to Christ. Not only do we celebrate the mercy of God, we also celebrate justice satisfied — which is why the psalmist says that in our salvation righteousness and peace kiss each other (Psalm 85:10).

________

Copyright (c) 2007 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Seventeen years of prison and a lifetime of hate, violence and racism is mapped on Steven Neill’s body. Druids, swastikas, skulls and symbols of the occult circle and mesh darkly up his arms and disappear into his shirt. The letters “skinhead” are tattooed across the knuckles of both fists. Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous phrase –- “God is dead” -– stands defiantly in black, inked into his wrist.

But God is very much alive to Neill, pastor of Northside Baptist Church in Mineral Wells, Texas, and his markings weave a visible testimony of a life transformed.

“These are the roadmap of my life story,” he said unashamedly, running a rough hand up his arm. The tattoos are an easy way to share Jesus, just like “Share Jesus Without Fear” -– the witnessing method that stopped Neill in his tracks and led to his salvation.

The hate and resentment came at a young age for Neill, festered in a broken, abusive home and reinforced in Houston’s dangerous 4th Ward district. After a violent conflict with Hispanic gangs, a 13-year-old Neill found brotherhood with a group of American neo-Nazis. The abuse and neglect crystallized into hate as Neill studied the teachings of radical supremacists.

“We were extremely violent and militant,” he said. “We wanted to wage the racial holy war that Nietzsche spoke about.” Needing paramilitary training to advance in leadership, Neill joined the Army. The white supremacist attachments weakened in the discipline of the military until another altercation changed Neill’s life forever.

The fight started as an argument, but “I stabbed him,” Neill said. “Punctured a lung, severed the small intestine. He died four hours later. Aggravated murder with a deadly weapon gave me a 40-year sentence.”

Going to prison catapulted Neill back into his past. “It was a fight for survival,” he said. “I fully embraced my past and became violently racist.”

Following the teachings of Nietzsche, who blamed Christianity and Christians as the cause of all ills, “I was going to do anything I could do to eradicate Christianity,” Neill said. “In prison, society is organized into predators and prey. I was a predator. I could sense without a doubt who was prey.”

Religious lines in prison also were obvious, Neill said. Groups would organize based upon what particular ministries had come in and won converts. Converts were weak prey-types, he said. Some would become emboldened and share their faith, an exercise Neill relished.

“If I couldn’t verbally convince them their faith was wrong, I’d beat them up,” he recounted. “But I didn’t have to do that very much because I knew every bit of anti-Christian philosophy -– and I enjoyed a good argument -– so I would utterly crush them.”

FACED WITH THE TRUTH

Against his will, Neill was signed up to attend a prison ministry weekend. With his attendance now mandatory, Neill decided to be as offensive as possible.

“I’m rude, belligerent and I go off on how hypocritical everyone is at this thing,” Neill said. “I cussed everyone out and stormed off the stage. Then this guy jumps up into the aisle and jabs a finger in my chest.”

Until that moment, Paul Harris had begrudgingly endured the prison outreach. His pastor made him come to the prison. Harris had only recently recommitted his life to God after years of charting his own course. But sitting in the prison yard listening to man after man speak about how much they loved God, feelings of self-condemnation and hypocrisy overwhelmed him.

“And all of a sudden I’m hearing this guy on stage calling us all hypocrites, and I’m agreeing with him. As he’s stomping out, I jump out of my seat and stick my finger right in his chest and say, ‘You’re the reason I’m here!’” Harris said, sensing that he would witness to Neill.

“As a former atheist, I had dabbled in everything he’d been in,” Harris said. “We locked horns that first night. We were both determined to win.”

Neill said he knew he was in a place of heavy discontent. “I came in unhappy, knowing I needed to change. But I went in with a combative attitude and Paul met me on that ground.

“It was intense,” Neill grinned. “Everything he threw at me I had an argument for.”

After an entire day of arguing, Randy Wilson, Harris’ pastor, stepped in and changed the game plan. “I hadn’t read all those books,” Wilson said. “Steven and Paul are both so intelligent. They sat there arguing and contradicting each other with humanistic philosophy. I told Paul it was time to present the Word.”

Wilson is a longtime fan of Share Jesus Without Fear, produced by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. The resource offers three simple steps for sharing the Gospel: Five questions to determine where God is working, seven verses to let the Bible speak for itself -– which the unbeliever reads for himself -– and five questions that lead to the point of discussion.

“What’s so appealing is that it’s not about memorizing a thousand verses and quoting them all,” said Wilson, pastor of Carey Baptist Church, located outside Childress, Texas. “It’s easy. You ask five simples questions; the last is a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer.

“Steven Neill could argue all day against [the Bible], but he’d never read it,” Wilson said. “And so we walked him through this simple process -– with him reading the Scripture for himself. At the end, it’s a simple question: According to what you’ve read, are you a sinner? Steven wouldn’t answer.”

That night back in lockdown, Neill said his life came into view. “I saw my life as it really was. But I saw everything as God would see it. I saw that I had gloried in active rebellion against God.

“There was no relief that night,” he said. “There was no hope. If I was prone to suicide, I would’ve done it that night.”

FREEDOM

Neill said he walked back into the meeting the next morning a broken man. Harris and Wilson could only stare at what was a literal physical transformation. “The darkness was dropping from his face,” Wilson said.

“Randy pulled out his Share Jesus Without Fear Bible and had me read the Scriptures,” Neill said. “By the end, I was bawling like a baby.”

“We didn’t lead Steven to the Lord. We just witnessed to him,” Harris said. “That’s what is so good about Share Jesus Without Fear. When I first used it, it triggered something in me -– it wasn’t about me or what I knew anymore. It was up to the Lord, His Word and the Holy Spirit.”

Neill knows it was the Holy Spirit that opened his eyes that day, but “I think the [SJWF] method is the only way I would’ve gotten there,” he said. “Instead of arguing, I was sitting there reading the Scripture. I’m honest enough with myself to reach for the truth.”

Unable to counter the truth, Neill gave his life to Christ and immediately began a journey of growth. After beginning a Bible study with two other prisoners, the group grew to 26 as lives changed and people began to come to Neill for spiritual matters.

“God wanted something more from me than just going to church,” he said. “He was calling me to something bigger. I was studying Scripture 14-16 hours a day and some amazing things happened. I would dream Scripture passages rolling through my head. I would wake up refreshed, often praying even as I woke up.”

Neill earned a diploma of pastoral ministry through Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s extension program and a diploma in biblical studies through Amherst College. After 17 years in prison, Neill was paroled, and he immediately submitted himself to further discipleship under Wilson. A short time later, Neill was ordained into the ministry.

“I want to see this church walk in freedom,” he said, speaking of Northside Baptist, the small West Texas congregation that accepted him with open arms. “I want them to know they can walk with the vilest of sinners because they have in them He who is stronger than the world. Then, lives will change.”

On June 29, Neill, along with Wilson, ordained Harris as associate pastor of Northside to serve alongside the former prisoner he introduced to the Lord. The foundation of the two men’s ministry is grounded in their mandate to share Jesus with boldness and confidence.

“Bill Fay [the writer of SJWF] truly had a great vision,” Harris said. “I believe it’s probably the best way for witnessing. And Share Jesus Without Fear has affected the mindset of our entire church. I believe it’s going to be a catalyst as we look outward.

“The radical power of God to transform lives is what amazes me,” Harris added. “Jesus was a radical man. And that’s why I love to share the Gospel.”

Sermon version (derived from original article):

Life was good for Carol and Gene Kent. Carol was a popular Christian speaker and author. She was doing so well her husband quit his job to help her. Their only son, Jason, was an officer in the Navy and a strong Christian. He had recently married a woman who had two kids, so Carol and Gene had become instant grandparents. Things were so good that Carol had mused, “Does life get any better than this?”

A few weeks later, the unthinkable happened. In the middle of the night they got a phone call that their son had been arrested for murdering his wife’s first husband. He was caught near the scene and his car contained guns with silencers. Jason had been consumed by the idea that the first husband was a danger to the two girls. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Carol wrestled with guilt and despair. She looked through old family photo albums, wondering if she had done something wrong as a mother. Her son got his front teeth knocked out in a brawl in prison, and she could do nothing to help him. She compared the feeling to what Abraham must have experienced when God told Abraham to sacrifice his only son.

Her ministry was the family’s sole source of income, so five days after the murder she had to fulfill a speaking engagement at a women’s conference. She prayed that her brokenness would be more powerful than her professionalism.

==========================

Online version of article:

When her “perfect son” was sentenced to life in prison, Carol Kent learned to trust God in a new way

________

Though it’s been more than five years, Carol Kent still chokes on her words as she recounts those terrible, irrevocable moments in the courtroom galley, watching her only child, just 27, face a verdict on his life. Dusty blond hair neatly combed, prison uniform tidy, back straight, blue eyes calm, Jason P. Kent, former U.S. Navy Officer, awaited sentencing for the murder of Douglas Miller Jr.

The jury handed the judge their decision, and Jason stood. Carol wondered at her son’s composure, more proud of him than she had ever been as he accepted with pure grace his sentence: life in prison, without the possibility of parole.

“Jason received the punishment with quietness and almost reverent respect,” she says. “He didn’t break down. He didn’t show anger. He was much more at peace than the rest of us.” As he left the courtroom, Jason glanced back at his mother and mouthed the words “I love you.”

Carol, a popular Christian writer and speaker, doesn’t want to give anybody the impression her son — who shot and killed a man — is a hero. Instead, she wants to share her painfulpassage of faith. Her journey began on the morning of October 24, 1999: A telephone call at 12:35 a.m. informed her and her husband that their son had been arrested for the murder of his wife’s ex-husband. Carol went into shock.

The Kents desperately wanted to believe there had been a mistake, but it was true. Their son — who loved Christ, lettered in sports, was president of the National Honor Society, donated his time, his money, even his blood to help others, and graduated from the United States Naval Academy — had become so obsessed with the safety of his two step-daughters that he followed their father to a busy restaurant and shot him in plain view of passers-by.

Six days after Jason’s arrest, Carol received another call, this time from a federal institution. Jason wept into the phone, “Mom, I’ve just been beaten up by ten guys. My two front teeth are broken and they stole all my stuff ... They just kept kicking me in the head.” Eleven hundred miles apart, they cried together, embarking on an odyssey of anguish, strife, and prayer.

LEARNING TO LET GO

What Carol learned during her ordeal is the subject of her latest book, WHEN I LAY MY ISAAC DOWN. Her story is one of grief and healing, but it is primarily a story of relinquishment. When her first conversation with Jason was cut short by the institutional telephone system, she sat motionless at her desk as a shroud of grief and fear engulfed her. Whether through her training as a pastor’s daughter, her prayer life, the years she spent reading Scripture, or God’s mercy, Carol found a path to redemption when she opened her Bible to the story of Abraham and Isaac.

“God tested Abraham, and said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I

am.’ He said, ‘Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac,

and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on

one of the mountains of which I will tell you.’ So Abraham rose early

in the morning and saddled his donkey ... Isaac spoke to Abraham his

father and said, ‘ ... Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the

lamb for the burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God will provide for

Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.’ So the two of them

walked on together” (Gen. 22:1-3,7-8, NASB).

Carol realizes that Jason is not a mirror of Isaac, who was blameless. She knows his actions would not have been God’s plan for his life. Yet Jason is her personal “Isaac.” God enabled her to lay down her claim to him with complete trust and submission, even while her mother’s heart recoiled at letting go. In doing so, she sacrificed on the altar her own desires: prideful ambition for her child, longings for grandchildren and memorable family holidays, dreams of an idyllic future.

Abraham trusted God so completely that he was willing to surrender what he loved most deeply, even unto death. And through the blackest vale, Carol learned to trust like Abraham. Almost immediately after learning of her son’s devastating plight, she made a critical decision to choose faith in unthinkable circumstances. In a letter to her family, she wrote: “Included in this walk through the valley of what feels like death is an awareness of God’s presence I have never experienced before.”

A DECLARATION OF HOPE

When Carol finally saw Jason, it was through a thick Plexiglas barrier. “He was beaten and bruised, his two front teeth were jagged pieces. He was broken, hurt, and sad. And so was I,” she writes. “As I looked at my son, I knew that there was nothing I could do about the circumstances that brought Jason to that place. There was no way to bring Douglas Miller back to life, to fix things and make life as it was.”

Yet she trusted. Carol prayed and interceded for two-and-a-half years before her son’s trial. On seven different occasions, the court date was postponed. Each time, she circled the prison in a Jericho-style prayer walk, petitioning God for His will. And when God’s will did not offer the mercy and hope she had expected, it was Jason’s faith that shielded her from despair.

Once the judge pronounced the verdict, Jason returned to his cell in the faith-based area of the prison. A crowd of inmates gathered around him — murderers, child molesters, robbers, multiple offenders who had become Christians — and wept, “If a man like you got a sentence like this, Jason, there’s no hope for us.”

After more than two years of incarceration, Jason had become a leader in his cellblock. He preached, “Men, whether we walk in freedom in this lifetime or the next, one day we will walk in freedom because we know Jesus, and this life is not all there is.”

The Kents spent Easter with Jason following his trial. They sat together in the prison courtyard and determined they would allow God to use their tragedy as a platform upon which to proclaim His goodness to a world in need, to declare that there is hope even in the most hopeless circumstances. A part of that declaration is Carol’s book, which offers real hope to weary pilgrims.

Having walked on the dark side of the penal system, Carol has become an advocate for prisoners and their families. As Jason serves his penalty, she, too, lives out a life sentence of hope deferred. But with the loss of former expectations comes the possibility of new dreams, she says. Dreams forged by fire, heartache, and suffering that are made of strong metals. And in The Alchemist’s hand she finds redemption.

________

Tonya Stoneman is editor of InTouch Magazine. Read more of Carol Kent’s story in WHEN I LAY MY ISAAC DOWN (NavPress).

Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today’s Christian magazine.

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving 2009, a gunman entered a Tacoma, Washington, coffeehouse and, in cold blood, shot and killed four police officers. The murders led to a manhunt which ended with the police killing the principal suspect, Maurice Clemmons.

While the manhunt is over, the fallout from the case has only begun. We quickly learned that Clemmons had served only 11 years of a 100-plus sentence in Arkansas before having his sentence commuted by then-Governor Mike Huckabee.

By way of background, by the time he was 18, Clemmons had been sentenced to 108 years for burglary, theft, robbery, and possessing a gun on school property. This amounted to a life sentence for crimes committed when he was a minor — none of which involved murder.

After Clemmons had served 11 years, the governor and the Clemency Commission of Arkansas commuted his sentence to 56 years. This didn’t release Clemmons — but it did make him eligible for parole. It was granted, and he was released.

This should never have happened. He should not have been released at that time.

What happened next was another series of bad decisions by officials in both Arkansas and Washington. And this tragedy culminated in the killing of four police officers.

The Clemmons’ story is horrifying — and we should strive to ensure that the tragedy of errors that made it possible never happens again. How much more horrific could it be, that four of our most trusted law enforcement officers, who protect us every day, should be gunned down in cold blood by someone who still should be in prison.

We should also strive to make clear that this incident does not mean that people in prison can never change. The Bible teaches us that people can and do change. Indeed, that is at the heart of the Gospel — that someone can move from darkness to light, from lost to being saved. That Moses, who was a murderer, can be a leader of the people of Israel. That Paul, a co-conspirator in murder, can take the Gospel to the gentiles in the entire world.

But the Gospel does not naively accept every claim of change by any offender or anyone else. Nor does it even accept the reasonable recommendation of a pastor advocating for release of an inmate, no matter how well meaning.

It is true that America incarcerates too many people. But that does not mean that we simply release offenders. It means we must distinguish between the truly dangerous and those who can be supervised in less restricted settings without compromising public safety.

As a former attorney general of Virginia, I can tell you that nothing I have read about the Clemmons case suggests that this was the approach. People are rightly outraged over the killings in Tacoma, and we should learn from the mistakes that led to these killings.

We should remember that prisons do serve a vital role in keeping the public safe. But we should also remember there’s nothing misplaced about bringing the Gospel to inmates, nor seeking to reform a system that made these killings possible.

________

Copyright (c) 2009 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Picturesque Biertan, one of Transylvania’s seven Saxon Unesco World Heritage villages, feels frozen in time. Horse-drawn carts are still a part of daily life, and local residents gather to trade their wares in a cobbled village square. At the heart of the village, a 15th-Century fortified church towers over the surrounding structures from its hilltop perch.

Inside the church grounds, along one of its fortification walls, is a small building with a room inside barely larger than a pantry. For 300 years, couples whose marriages were on the rocks would find themselves here, locked away for up to six weeks by the local bishop in hope that they would iron out their problems and avert a divorce.

It may sound like a nightmare – but records show that this ‘marital prison’ was rather effective.

“Thanks to this blessed building, in the 300 years that Biertan had the bishop’s seat we only had one divorce,” said Ulf Ziegler, Biertan’s current priest.

Today, the small, dark prison is a museum complete with long-suffering mannequins. The room has low ceilings and thick walls, and is sparsely equipped with a table and chair, a storage chest and a traditional Saxon bed that looks small enough to belong to a child. As couples attempted to repair their marriages inside this tiny space, everything had to be shared, from a single pillow and blanket to the lone table setting.

Lutheranism, the religion of the Transylvanian Saxons, governed most aspects of life, and although divorce was allowed under certain circumstances – such as adultery – it was preferred that couples attempt to save their union. So a couple seeking divorce would voluntarily visit the bishop, who would send them to the marital prison to see if their differences could be reconciled before they parted ways.

“The prison was an instrument to keep society in the old Christian order,” explained Zielger, who noted that it also protected women and children, who were dependent on the family unit to survive. If a divorce did occur, the husband had to pay his ex-wife half of his earnings, but if he remarried and divorced again, the second wife was entitled to nothing.

In the 12th Century, Saxon settlers ‒ originally from areas that today are France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany ‒ were invited by Hungary’s King Géza II to settle rural Transylvania and protect it against threats from Tatar and Ottoman invaders, as well as develop the area economically. Transylvanian Saxons were industrious craftspeople; Biertan became an important market town and cultural hub with a 5,000-strong population in 1510.

Walking through the streets of Biertan as the sun begins to disappear behind the rolling hills, a few locals sit outside drinking beers and a farmer moves his hay cart through the village. The imposing church, with its nine surrounding fortification towers, is illuminated by bright lights and its purpose evident: it was a central point for the early Saxon settlers - a place of safety and worship.

The view from the church’s nearly 11m-high fortification walls next to the marital prison extends out across the village and surrounding countryside. Many current residents work their land using old-age farming techniques, and trade their wares to earn a living. Weather-worn shepherds can be spotted in the surrounding green hills herding sheep - a scene that likely hasn’t changed much over the past several centuries.

Life continues to move at a slow, meditative pace; however, these days there is less economic and religious pressure on struggling couples to remain together.

“The reason to remain together was probably not love. The reason was to work and to survive,” Ziegler said. “If a couple was locked inside for six weeks, it was very hard for them to have enough food the following year, so there was pressure to get out and to continue to work together.”

Ziegler believes that, even today, the concept of a marital prison has potential lessons for any modern marriage. And he’s not the only one: he says that he’s received requests from couples looking to use the prison to repair their own struggling marriages.

“In modern families, there is less and less time for each other, we are more selfish than our ancestors,” Ziegler said. “We suffer from loneliness, which is why today we need to talk more, so we can find out what is important to us and what connects us.”

About 10 Indian pastors sat in front of me. I stared at them and they stared at me in a crowded, little room in northeastern India. In a few short days I would grow to love these men as I ministered to them physically (as a physician) and spiritually (through Bible teaching).

Prompted by the leader of our trip, they shared their stories one by one of being persecuted by the Hindu majority.

Suddenly, I realized I didn’t deserve to be in that crowded, little room. I didn’t deserve to rub shoulders with men who had been beaten, imprisoned and tortured for advancing the Kingdom of Christ. I wasn’t reading about Paul and Silas. I wasn’t reading about Peter and Stephen. I wasn’t reading about medieval Christians being stretched on a rack. I was staring at the present-day persecuted church. The faces are real.

Arrested and thrown in prison for three days, Durgesh knew this day would eventually come, taken from his home, leaving his wife and children weeping and afraid. The Indian authorities gave no explanation for his arrest, but as a Christian pastor and evangelist who had started 17 churches, Durgesh understood the reasons.

He became a believer in Christ at age 17 when he saw the “JESUS” film in his small village in India. One exposure to the Gospel message was all it took. In his heart he knew the message about Jesus was true so he prayed to the one true God, rejecting the thousands of false gods worshipped by his family and friends and accepting Jesus as his personal Savior. He later completed a bachelor in theology degree before returning to plant churches in his village and many surrounding towns. He became quite adept at church planting.

However, he happened to live close to a political leader in his village who became disturbed by his success in evangelism and church planting. This political leader complained to the authorities, who promptly arrested Durgesh on trumped-up charges. He spent three days in jail, but thankfully was not harmed. The Christian community ministered to his wife and children, as the church should do.

On my mission trips to India, I have met many courageous pastors and laymen like Durgesh who have been brutalized, imprisoned or subsequently killed by family or authorities because of their Christian faith. It is not considered a crime in India for Hindu families to punish or kill family members who convert to Christianity. Official laws exist against such behavior, but no one enforces them at any level.

I met one pastor whose father strangled him after he converted to Christianity as a teenager. Presumed dead, he was resuscitated later by his mother and hidden by Christian friends. Mentally confused, he could not speak for weeks, but he ultimately recovered fully and became a pastor and church planter. Although he tried, he has never been able to reconcile with his father.

This type of story is not unique to India. The church -- our brothers and sisters in Christ -- experiences various forms of persecution daily all over the world. In America we live in relative peace and prosperity and are virtually unaware of persecution that faces our extended church family around the world.

There is no excuse for being ignorant in this information age. They say that knowledge is power. Knowledge coupled with your prayers is real power. When I go to India and tell persecuted pastors that church people in America pray for them, it excites and encourages them. They light up with joy. Can they count on you?

________

Robert Jackson is a family practice physician in Spartanburg, South Carolina, who maintains awareness of the persecuted church.

Early one morning in newly-communist Cuba in the year 1960, Armando Valladares, who was 23 years old and still asleep in his parents’ house, was wakened by the cold barrel of a machine gun pressing his head into the pillow on his bed. There were three gunmen standing over him. A fourth kept watch on Valladares’ mother and sister in another room in the house. These men were agents of Castro’s new political police. After ordering Valladares to get dressed, they took him away.

Armando Valladares’ crime was this: Castro had been appointing communists to his new government even though he had sworn that his revolution would bring freedom to Cuba. Many people in Cuba who supported the revolution were concerned. Some were saying that Castro was a communist himself. To combat these fears, Castro had his agents print up a slogan. He had them put it on decals, bumper stickers, tin plaques, wall posters, and in the daily press. The slogan was this: “If Fidel is a communist, then put me on the list. He’s got the right idea.”

The communists of the Ministry of Communications came to the Postal Savings Bank and to the desk of Armando Valladares. They handed him a card bearing the slogan and told him to put it on his worktable. Valladares refused. Taken aback, the communists asked him if he had anything against Castro. Valladares answered that if Castro was a communist, he did.

For this crime, Armando Valladares was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Like all of Castro’s political prisoners, he was tortured and humiliated. He was made to eat other men’s excrement and forced to watch his friends die. One of Valladares’ prison friends was a youngster named Roberto Lopez Chavez. He was just a kid, and he went on a hunger strike to protest the abuses. The guards denied him water until he became delirious, twisting on the floor of his cell and begging for a drink. The guards urinated in his mouth and on his face, and he died the following day.

The political prisoners in Castro’s jails were given a choice. You could be rehabilitated and save yourself from these torments if you renounced who you were. All you had to say was “I have been wrong. All my life has been a mistake. God does not exist. I want you to give me this opportunity to join a communist society.” Of Cuba’s 80,000 political prisoners, 70,000 took this path of rehabilitation. Armando Valladares was not one of them.

“For me,” he said, “that would’ve meant spiritual suicide. All the time I was in jail, I never gave up my freedom. My freedom is not the space where you can walk around. There are lots of people in Cuba who have space to walk, and they are not free.”

Describing his incarceration, Valladares said, “For me, it meant 8,000 days of hunger, of systematic beatings, of hard labor, of solitary confinement and solitude, 8,000 days of struggling to prove that I was a human being, 8,000 days of proving that my spirit could triumph over exhaustion and pain, 8,000 days of testing my religious convictions, my faith, of fighting the hate my atheist jailers were trying to instill in me with each bayonet thrust, fighting so that hate would not flourish in my heart, 8,000 days of struggling so that I would not become like them.”

Another prisoner named Fernando Lopez del Toro came to Valladares and said in despair that what hurt him most about the torment, the beatings, the hunger was to think that all their suffering was useless. Fernando Lopez del Toro was not broken by the pain, Valladares recalled, but by the futility of the pain. Fernando eventually took his own life.

“Remember him,” Valladares said. “The only thing that keeps us firm is to know that somewhere else there is another soul that loves us, that respects us, and that is fighting for the return of the dignity that has been taken from us.”

Twenty-two years after his arrest, after an appeal from French President Francois Mitterand, Armando Valladares was able to return home a free man. He did not forget Fernando Lopez del Toro. He went on a world campaign to bring to light the terrible fate of Castro’s political prisoners. He published an account of his experiences, a book to which he gave the title “Against All Hope.” In 1987, President Reagan named him the United States Representative to the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission with the rank of Ambassador.

Ambassador Valladares persuaded the U.N. to conduct an investigation of the terrible conditions in Castro’s jails. He exposed to the whole world the inhumanity he had witnessed. To the U.N. Commission he said: “We must enter the cell of every Fernando Lopez del Toro in the world, embrace him in solidarity, and tell them to their faces, ‘Do not take your life. There are men of good will who are standing by you. Your dignity as a human being will prevail.’”

In 1977, Natan Sharansky was abducted by the KGB outside his apartment and charged with treason. He spent nine years in Lefortovo Prison, where he symbolized President Reagan’s description of the “religious dissident trapped in that cold, cruel existence.” Sharansky later said: “They wanted to use me to destroy Jews who hoped to leave for Israel.”

In prison, Sharansky befriended Volodia Poresh, a Christian. The two secretly started each day reading the Old and New Testaments. They called these Bible sessions “Reaganite readings.” Why? Because Reagan had declared that year the “Year of the Bible,” a designation dismissed by the Kremlin, and by some Western elites, but which inspired Sharansky and Poresh. They gained strength from that Bible, coping with the “evil” (Sharansky’s word) they faced. When Sharansky was freed, he met Reagan in the White House. The president awarded him the Medal of Freedom.

________

Paul Kengor is professor of political science at Grove City College in Grove City, Pennsylvania.

It was near Christmas, 1978. The nation of Iran was in turmoil with religious revolutionaries fighting the Shah’s forces. In the midst of all this, two American employees of the Electronic Data Systems (EDS) were arrested. They were charged with attempted bribery and payment of $12.7 million was demanded for their release.

The company negotiated with the government but got nowhere. So Ross Perot, the chief executive officer of EDS, made a fateful decision. He hired a former special operations officer, Col. Bull Simons, to organize a rescue. With the help of some Vietnam veterans and a few Iranian employees, they came up with a plan.

An Iranian employee code-named “Rashid” began associating with the religious revolutionary groups to gain their trust. Then he bribed a police chief with $100 to leave the police weapons room unlocked. Amazingly, he agreed. Rashid hauled all those weapons to the next revolutionary meeting and handed them out.

Rashid then announced with great excitement, “It is our responsibility to free the thousands of political prisoners!” One hour later, 30,000 revolutionaries stormed the prison and the guards were stripped down to their long underwear. No one had to fire a shot. 12,000 prisoners escaped - including two grateful Americans.

Jesus is even better than Ross Perot. Perot might be able to bust you out of Iran, but Jesus can bust you out of hell. The little baby in a manger has freed tens of millions from sin, fear and despair. Has he broken you out?

________

Adapted from “Ross Perot’s Private Rescue Of EDS Employees In Iran, 1978” at and the Wikipedia.org article “On Wings of Eagles.”

Eighty-five years ago, as part of their campaign to collectivize Soviet agriculture, Stalin and his lackeys declared war on a group of peasants they dubbed “kulaks.”

Officially at least, a “kulak” was a so-called “rich peasant.” So-called, because in a village where most people owned a single cow, the man with two was regarded as “rich.”

In reality, “kulak,” as historian Orlando Figes has documented, was a catch-all phrase applied to every rural resident perceived as obstructing the re-creation of Russian rural society along Bolshevik lines.

The definition of obstruction was as arbitrary and hazy as the definition of “rich.” Often, all it took to be labeled a “kulak” and sent to the Gulag was a denunciation by a jealous neighbor and/or local ne’er-do-well turned party hack.

That’s exactly what happened to Nikolai Golovin and his family in 1930. Nikolai was a respected leader in the village and, by any measure, an upright Soviet citizen. That meant nothing when he was denounced as a “kulak” by Kolia Kuzmin, a ne’er-do-well turned Communist Youth League leader.

Adding insult to the substantial, life-changing injury he was about to suffer — suffering that included the murder of his brother, Ivan — was that Golovin had gone out of his way to help Kuzmin, the son of an alcoholic and abusive father. Kuzmin had often stayed in his home, and Golovin had given him a job out of pity for his situation.

None of that mattered. Like other “enemies of the state,” the Golovins were given hours to gather their belongings and were sent into exile. What the family endured is the subject of Figes’ book, “The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia.” It was suffering on a level that is almost impossible to imagine.

Given his monumental betrayal, you’d kind of hope that Kuzmin would have eventually had to pay for his treachery. Well, he did, but not in the way you might imagine.

After Stalin’s death, when virtually all of the surviving exiled “kulaks” were released, Kuzmin went looking for the Golovins to ask for their forgiveness. This in itself was extraordinary: In the post-Stalin USSR, most persecutors and functionaries clung to the “following orders” defense or pretended that nothing had happened.

Even more extraordinary was the Golovins’ response: They forgave Kuzmin. They did it for the same reason they had helped him out years before, their Christian faith. As Nikolai’s wife, Yevdokiia, told their incredulous daughter, “a truly Christian person should forgive his enemies.”

They not only forgave Kuzmin, they made him an integral part of their lives. He moved in next door. He ran errands for them and they went to church together on Sundays. When Kuzmin died in 1970, he was buried alongside the Golovins, where their bodies await the resurrection of the dead together.

At that time, Jesus’ kingdom will be visible to all. But to those with eyes to see, it was visible in a tiny town in northwest Russia. There, the kind of forgiveness and reconciliation made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection was on display.

Soviet efforts to create a new “Soviet man” brought death and despair — injuries from which the lands under their rule are still recovering. But the Golovins bore witness to the new creation made possible by Jesus’ death and resurrection.

That’s why Kuzmin was repaid for his treachery with forgiveness and grace. And it’s why we should go and do likewise.

________

Copyright (c) 2013 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Pastor Saeed Abedini is a native Iranian. In 2005 he moved to the United States and four years ago he became an American citizen. He never severed ties to his homeland and in 2012 he returned to build an orphanage. The Iranians accused him of setting up Christian house churches and sentenced him to eight years in prison.

He has now spent two years there. Radical Muslims in the prison have threatened to kill him and he has been beaten up several times. How is Pastor Saeed responding?

Last week, a Christian organization released a letter from Pastor Saeed to his daughter for her birthday. After wishing her happy birthday and telling her how much he wants to see her, he wrote the following:

I know that you question why you have prayed so many times for my return and yet I am not home yet... The answer to the why is who. Who is in control? Lord Jesus Christ is in control...

God is in control of the whole world and everything that is happening in it is for His good purpose, for His glory, and will be worked out for our good...

...my dear beloved daughter Rebekka Grace, I pray God will bring me back home soon. But if not, we will still sing together ...’Hallelujah,’ either separated by prison walls or together at home.

So, let Daddy hear you sing a loud ‘Hallelujah’ that I can hear all the way here in the prison!

Kisses and Blessings,

Daddy

John Stonestreet challenges us to ask how our faith would hold up if we were put into prison. How would you handle the separation from your family?

What if you were one of those prisoners of ISIS? Would you be able to see your beheading as part of God’s wonderful plan for you?

________

Adapted from "Pastor Saeed’s Test of Faith, and Ours: For God’s Glory," John Stonestreet, BreakPoint Commentary, September 30, 2014, . Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Ethan Allen Thomas Jr. desperately wanted to be a journalist. It didn't matter to him that as a black 22-year-old from south-central Los Angeles the odds were against him.

A former gang member and ex-con who had surrendered his life to God, Thomas wore a constant smile that exuded both his confidence and never-wavering pride as a copy messenger at the Los Angeles Times. Everything about the newsroom -- ringing telephones, constant deadlines, stale coffee, reporters pecking out stories on computer terminals -- seemed to energize him.

But on Nov. 17 his name was not printed in a byline atop one of the news stories he was learning to write. Instead, it was among the obituaries.

Cold, unfeeling newspaper type summed up the scant basics. Fatally shot by his estranged wife, Thomas' life was over just as it was about to take off. Still, his accomplishments since being released from prison in 1993 stand as a testament to anyone who thinks stories like his never happen. In a feature on Thomas in the Los Angeles Times following his death, reporter Patt Morrison wrote:

"We are a leery and skeptical lot, we journalists. Prove it, we say. Show me.

"Yeah, yeah, sure. Gangbanging kid gets out of prison and goes straight. Gives up the street life. Teaches Sunday school. Coaches children's football. Holds down a job, goes to college. Won't have sex before marriage. Right -- tell us another fairy tale.

"But this kid did show us. This kid rounded every base, cleared every hurdle. Three years out of state prison and he just spent a day last week visiting USC, figuring out how long it would take him to get admitted.

"In 10 years' time, maybe less, you would have known about Ethan Allen Thomas Jr., because he would have been telling you himself, through his writing. But now we have to tell you about him, because he is dead."

Thomas recounted his troubled childhood and youth in a first-person article he penned for the July-August 1994 issue of the Southern Baptist Home Mission Board's MissionsUSA magazine:

"I can remember the first piece of crack I ever touched, because along with it came the first dishonest dollar I ever made.

"I wanted to go to the fair, but had no money. My mother gave me $30 to buy crack for her. When I found the local supplier I copped (purchased), doubled (turned a profit) and went to the fair.

"My mother never sent me on crack-buying missions for her again, but because she was caught up in her own addiction, she had unknowingly launched and financed the beginning of my career in drugs."

Searching for the love and acceptance he didn't get at home, Thomas began "running" with the Crips gang. His life became no different than many of the roles glamorized in such Hollywood films as "Boyz 'n the Hood" and "Pulp Fiction." Drugs, carjackings and guns were part of his everyday existence.

Then, as senior in high school, he was charged with attempted murder and incarcerated in California's Soledad Prison for three years. Thomas, who had won a $150 award in the 11th grade for a composition he wrote, turned to writing to help soothe some of his feelings of helplessness while in prison.

"For the first time writing became a release for me. More than ever, I hungered to be free from what had imprisoned me mentally and physically.

"I cried out to God in search of guidance. Even though I had fallen from the narrow path of a good Christian, on this particular evening in my tiny two-man cell I asked God, 'What is it that you will have me do?'

"Later in my sleep, a single word scrolled across my mind: JOURNALISM."

After being released from prison in 1993, Thomas's life took a turn for the better when he went to visit his parole officer. The parole office had moved, but in its place was a dance studio and someone who would listen. Dance instructor Trena Johnson encouraged Thomas to chase his dream of becoming a journalist.

On a whim, Johnson called the Los Angeles Times and asked an editor to read some of her new friend's writing. The editor agreed to an informal interview over lunch.

Thomas began working as an intern in the features department at the newspaper a short time later. Michael Quintanilla, a Los Angeles Times reporter, was assigned as Thomas' reporter-mentor. Everywhere Quintanilla went, Thomas was to follow. Thomas learned the basics of proper telephone etiquette, worked on conceptualizing stories and even wrote several.

"He was my shadow, and a sponge of a shadow," Quintanilla said. "He soaked up everything and loved it."

Thomas worked hard at being a reporter. Although Thomas often struggled, Quintanilla encouraged him to remember his dream. "I told him, 'If you want the Times bad enough, then you deserve it.'"

The young intern's best work, Quintanilla said, turned out to be about his own neighborhood, and Thomas became important to the staff at the newspaper because his life was what they often wrote about.

Quintanilla felt sorry for Thomas when his 10-week internship ended. Most interns go back to journalism school, but for Thomas that wasn't possible. So, several editors got together and created a part- time position so the fledgling reporter could continue at the newspaper.

Seeing that he would need an education to advance any further at the paper, Thomas began taking classes at Los Angeles's Southwest College, where he edited the school's newspaper. He had plans to enroll in journalism school at the University of Southern California next fall.

According to those who knew Thomas best, his success in school and at the newspaper was a direct result of a dedication and love for the Lord.

Joe Freeman, pastor of Greater Good Shepherd Missionary Baptist Church, said Thomas had attended the church with his grandmother since his early youth. An attentive Sunday school student, Thomas was "seriously interested in what the Bible said," even as a 15-year-old, Freeman said.

Thomas' life changed following a type of "Damascus Road" experience in jail.

As Freeman tells it, Thomas called out of desperation one Saturday shortly after being released from prison. "He said he couldn't stand it. He was going to do something," the pastor recalled. "I said, 'What are you going to do?' Later that day I heard he had broken the law."

Recounted Thomas, "I knew if being 'legit' got too hard I could always revert to my old gang-banging ways. And in one desperate moment I did. For money.

"Arrested for robbery and thrown in the county jail, I began to realize that my life didn't have to be this way. I felt like a loaded gun was pointed at my head. I needed one last chance. I gave myself to God.

"The next morning a miracle happened: I was not recognized in a police line-up and was released from jail. I was ready in my heart and my soul to serve God."

Following his jail-cell conversion, Thomas became an integral part of the ministry at Greater Good Shepherd, located a block from the intersection where riots broke out following the Rodney King verdict in 1992.

Freeman said the church, with Thomas' help, organized a group of "parolees" who met at the church on Saturdays to share their experiences about life on the outside. Thomas became the lead discipler of these young souls.

Thomas also began sharing his testimony with the church youth and taught the older youth each Sunday morning, often exhorting them to learn from his mistakes.

"In all my years as pastor, I have never had a person as committed and devoted to God as Ethan was," Freeman said. "He had a personality that he loved God and was concerned about young lives."

Eugene Bryant, a coordinator for the HMB's black church extension work in south-central Los Angeles, met Thomas for the first time last summer when Thomas was a youth counselor at Camp Emmanuel, a summer program for African American youth Bryant helps direct.

Bryant said he was impressed with Thomas from the start and the two hit it off. In a sense, Thomas became Bryant's apprentice.

"He told his testimony during church service (at camp)," Bryant said. "He was really committed and a really disciplined Bible reader. He shared his faith with everyone."

Bryant said Thomas taught the same discipline to the youth of his church. Acting as a kind of volunteer youth minister at Greater Good Shepherd, Thomas tried to learn everything he could about youth ministry from Bryant, a former youth minister. Bryant said he saw a lot of the same thirst for spiritual knowledge and love of youth in Thomas that he had as a young minister.

"I told him he could call me at any time, and he did," Bryant said. "He'd call at 11 o'clock at night, because he worked at night, and say 'Hey, Rev., I've been reading the Bible and I have a question ... .'"

During the summer camp, Thomas was exposed to Bible drill for the first time. Under Bryant's leadership, Thomas instituted Bible drill at Greater Good Shepherd and was planning to take a team to the youth evangelism conference in 1996.

According to Bryant, Thomas and his wife, Kelly, had become estranged in recent months. Kelly, who had two small children from a previous relationship, was from the same neighborhood. The two had been married since October 1994. Their youth, financial insecurities and possibly Thomas's reluctance to cut back his responsibilities at school, the newspaper and church may have all contributed to the tragic result.

Bryant said he had counseled them in the last several weeks and according to published reports Thomas was moving out of their apartment when he was shot.

Bryant said he believes Kelly feared losing Ethan and this was her "last act of desperation."

In the end, Thomas's story sounds like something from a Shakespearean tragedy: God-fearing ex-gang member rises above impoverished, ghetto roots, only to be gunned down by the same senseless violence he was trying to escape.

When news of Thomas' death reached the bustling newsroom of the Los Angeles Times, reporters normally hardened to news of death and crime had to sit down and shake their heads in disbelief. In the same feature that looked at Thomas's career at the newspaper, reporter Morrison remembered, "Ethan was the kind of kid we all like to have around, because his doing well makes us feel so good. But Ethan was his own achievement, and his greatest struggle. And his best story was the one he never wrote -- about himself."

The final paragraphs of Thomas' own MissionsUSA story serve as a fitting epitaph for one who stood as a beacon in the midst of the desolation and decay of south-central Los Angeles:

"When I look back on my horrific past I am not angry or bereaved. I am thankful to God that my little brothers are not traveling that path. I am thankful that my mother has found the Lord and that he has given her the strength and guidance to raise my two little brothers -- handsome 8- and 10-year-olds.

"I thank God for rescuing me and for restoring my faith.

"Now I can thank Jesus for my past, because I know that God is merciful."

Copyright (c) 1995 Baptist Press

RNbp5C19mrjB5C19b5C20

#3902

*

Oscar Cervantes is a dramatic example of Christ's power to transform lives. As a child, Oscar began to get into trouble. Then as he got older, he was jailed 17 times for brutal crimes. Prison psychiatrists said he was beyond help. But they were wrong!

During a brief interval of freedom, Oscar met an elderly man who told him about Jesus. He placed his trust in the Lord and was changed into a kind, caring man. Shortly afterward he started a prison ministry. Chaplain H. C. Warwick describes it this way: “The third Saturday night of each month is 'Oscar Night' at Soledad. Inmates come to hear Oscar and they sing gospel songs with fervor; they sit intently for over 2 hours; they come freely to the chapel altar.... What professionals had failed to do for Oscar in years of counseling, Christ did in a moment of conversion.”

David Holland says his single mom raised him right. He went to church and knew about God. But when he got older, he “branched out into different areas.” Soon, he was mired in a life of crime and addiction.

Between the ages of 21 and 40, Holland estimates he spent eight-plus years incarcerated for short-term sentences on a range of charges, such as cocaine possession with intent to sell and domestic violence.

Incarceration, Holland now believes, was God working to rescue him from his addictions to alcohol and crack cocaine. His brother remembers him as looking like a dying HIV patient during that time.

“A lot of my friends are dead,” said Holland, of Norwich, Connecticut. “If they aren’t dead, they probably wish they were because they are crippled, paralyzed or addicted to drugs.”

Violence claimed the life of one of his closest friends, gunned down by rivals in broad daylight. The friend’s death gripped Holland with fear, so he went home and destroyed all of his drugs and related paraphernalia, then started praying.

“I just started praying to God, and it was scaring me more because I knew He was hearing me,” Holland said. “I knew He was answering me.”

The answer started with a carpet-cleaning job. One of Holland’s first assignments was to clean the carpet at a Southern Baptist church plant, Cornerstone City Church. While struggling to clean a pesky stain, he was approached by pastor Shaun Pillay.

“You know that stain you keep trying to get, we have them in our heart too,” the church planter said. “Sometimes when we try to get rid of them we can’t. But Jesus can.”

Pillay gave Holland a Bible and pointed him to Psalm 46:10, with its instruction to be still as God does His work in and through a person’s life.

Pillay, an Asian Indian who grew up in Durban, South Africa, had come to Norwich to start an inner-city church. The launch was upcoming on Easter Sunday, April 7, 2009, and he invited Holland. During the service’s invitation, Holland responded.

“It was like God took everything off of me,” Holland said. “My socks, shoes, and shoestrings. It was like I was stripped naked.

“I was reborn that day in that church. We have those stains in our heart that only Jesus can clean.”

Pillay not only gained the church’s first convert, he gained a person of peace who connected Cornerstone to the city.

The Rose of New England

Norwich, in southeastern Connecticut, has a rich history of manufacturing and shipping. The city played a significant role in the American Revolution with its production of ships and munitions. Today, it has about 40,000 residents and is called “The Rose of New England.”

The city’s heritage had little effect on Holland. By the time he was in high school, his reputation as an athlete was beginning to gain him favors -- playing with older students who started giving him drugs.

The last of five children, Holland kept his newfound habits from her. When she finally figured out what he was doing, she was deeply hurt. Holland’s mom was the first of many who would be hurt.

By 21, he met someone who offered him the opportunity to make money selling drugs.

“It seemed good, but it never was good,” Holland said. “It was nothing but total chaos. Not one bit of it was fun.”

Those years are painful to remember, but Holland now understands that his previous drug use was a boot camp for his current ministry as Cornerstone City Church’s community outreach organizer. He’s like a one-man fire department, on call 24 hours a day to respond to emergency calls from addicts, homeless and others.

“We are the number one church called to do anything,” Holland said of Cornerstone’s reputation in the region.

His old haunts are now his mission field.

Shortly after his conversion, Holland started street witnessing. The pastor knew that Holland needed mentoring and discipleship first. For the next few years, they met regularly for that purpose. And they intentionally met in different places around Norwich because wherever they went Holland knew people.

“He has had significant growth in Christ,” said Pillay, who is also a North American Mission Board church planting catalyst. “All the people that he used to sell drugs to he was intentional to go back and reach them.”

Holland’s transformation has been evident beyond Cornerstone. He and Pillay have visited with Connecticut Gov. Daniel Malloy on several occasions, and he has connected with the ministries of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich. And he received a Connecticut NAACP Humanitarian Award for 2015.

GENERAL MANUEL ANTONIO NORIEGA

Baptized into Christ 10/24/92

"I’ve seen seriousness and I’ve seen the lack of it," said one of the guards who monitor the fallen leader daily. "I haven’t seen any dedication or seriousness greater than his."

"God can forgive the worst sinner on earth." How many times have you heard a preacher say something like that? Or, "God loves everyone. He doesn’t want anyone to perish. There is no sinner too sinful for God to forgive, if that person will repent and come to Christ in faith." And do we believe it? Of course we do. We believe that Jesus Christ would have forgiven Judas Iscariot, the one who betrayed Him, if he would have truly repented.

Question: Would Jesus have forgiven Adolf Hitler? Perhaps survivors of the holocaust couldn’t... and we could understand their difficulty in forgiving. But Jesus could have forgiven Hitler... if he would have changed his life instead of ending his life by blowing his brains out in a Berlin bunker.

Let’s bring it on down to today.

Would God be willing to forgive a repentant Jeffrey Dahmer, the mass murderer of Milwaukee?

How about Sadaam Hussein, the bloody butcher of Baghdad?

What about General Manuel Noriega, the former Panamanian drug Lord?

It’s not a moot question anymore. For on October 24, 1992, in a baptistry provided by American Rehabilitation Ministries, General Manuel Noriega was immersed in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the chambers of the Honorable William M. Hoeveler, United States District Judge, Federal Court House, Miami Florida.

Noriega was "Public Enemy No. 1" during the time leading up to the U.S. invasion of Panama in December 1989. How did it come to pass that the former general of Panama was buried in baptism in a Florida prison?

The story begins in a maximum security cell in the federal prison in Miami where General Manuel Noriega was awaiting trial on charges of international drug trafficking.

Early in January 1990 a copy of a Spanish New Testament came into the notorious prisoner’s hands. On January 10, 1990, the editor of the Soul Winner’s New Testament (Evangelismo Personal), Clift Brannon, a former attorney turned preacher, received a letter from Noriega. In the letter, Noriega expressed his appreciation for the copy of the Scriptures. Brannon immediately applied for a visitation permit for the purpose of religious instruction under the rights granted Noriega under the Geneva Accords.

Accordingly, on May 15 and 16, 1990, Brannon and a Spanish interpreter, Rudy Hernandez, were allowed to visit Noriega for a total of 6 hours in the Metropolitan Correctional Center of Dade County, Florida. Following their visit, Noriega wrote Brannon as follows:

On completing the spiritual sessions that you as a messenger of

the Word of God brought to my heart, even to my area of

confinement as Prisoner of War of the United States, I feel the

necessity of adding something more to what I was able to say to

you as we parted. The evening sessions of May 15 and 16 with you

and Rudy Hernandez along with the Christian explanation and

guidance were for me the first day of a dream, a revelation. I

can tell you with great strength and inspiration that receiving

our Lord Jesus Christ as Savior guided by you, was an emotional

event. The hours flew by without my being aware. I could have

desired that they continue forever, but there was no time nor

space. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your human

warmth, for your constant and permanent spiritual strength

brought to bear on my mind and soul.

With great affection,

Manuel A. Noriega

Following another visit in July, 1990, Noriega enrolled in a 16-week Bible correspondence course. At the conclusion of his personal study the former drug lord requested permission of the prison authorities to be baptized in accordance to what he had learned from Matthew 28:19-20.

His request, however, was denied upon the advice of his attorneys.

On September 25, 1992, Brannon wrote to the Honorable William M. Hoeveler, United States District Judge in Miami, pleading the court’s permission to immerse Noriega. "Only in this way can he (Noriega) genuinely show his faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ (Romans 6:3-5)."

The former attorney went on to write:

On October 24th, we ask your authority to have a fiberglass

baptistry taken into the court room and for General Manuel A.

Noriega to be immersed in accord with the Holy Scriptures and in

obedience to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sincerely submitted for Your Honor’s favorable consideration.

Clifton W. Brannon

In the meantime, it was necessary to secure a portable baptistry. To whom would they turn? To the same ministry that has for the past 19 years placed more than 530 baptistries in American prisons nationwide. American Rehabilitation Ministries (ARM) not only responded with a communion table baptistry, but also provided two in-depth Spanish Bible correspondence courses for General Noriega’s study. A variety of Spanish DaySpring greeting cards was sent from A.R.M. along with several New Testament Gospel tracts in Spanish.

On October 24, 1992 (United Nations Day!), A.R.M’s baptistry arrived at the back door of the Federal Court House in Miami. A Deputy Marshall helped Brannon and his associates take the baptistry into the courtroom and fill it with water.

Noriega’s bapitsm almost didn’t happen because of his high security status, opposition from the Catholic chaplain and daunting logistical problems.

The baptism was arranged to take place in the courthouse, in an atrium outside the door of one of the courtrooms, using A.R.M.’s Communion Table Baptistry. "That was a first", Brannon said. "We were told this had never taken place in a federal courthouse before."

When the baptistry was filled, the Deputy Marshall brought General Manuel Antonio Noriega into the courtroom to be baptized. Surrounded by 12 guards, Noriega, wearing civilian clothes, took off his jacket and shoes, and got into the baptistry. Brannon preached on the meaning of baptism as Hernandes interpreted, followed by prayer and Scripture reading. Brannon then baptized Noriega in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Brannon says that when Noriega "came up out of the water" you could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room. "Rudy had an accordion, and we all sang Amazing Grace, which reverberated off the marble floor", Brannon said.

"It’s one of those sacred moments," Brannon said. "I could feel God speaking that He was well pleased."

Noriega was allowed to give a brief testimony and be served the Lord’s Supper before being escorted back to his maximum security cell. Here, in part, is the testimony of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the notorious international drug lord and ruthless dictator of Panama:

"Before, Jesus to me was only an image of that which was learned

from Catholicism, an historic being who worked miracles. All was

transformed when on Tuesday, January the 16th, 1990, Dr. Clift

asked me in a telephone conversation, he in Texas and I in a

preventive prison of the court, "Do you know that Jesus loves

you?"

Today, this is what He means to me:

He is the Son of God, who died on the cross for our sins, who

arose from the grave and is at the right hand of God the Father

and who above all things He is my Savior, and has mercy on me, a

sinner."

General Manuel Antonio Noriega has been found guilty of international drug trafficking and sentenced to 40 years in the federal penitentiary.

General Noriega is only one of more than a quarter-million prisoners who have obeyed their Lord in Christian baptism in A.R.M.-donated prison baptistries.

Since the baptism of General Noriega, prison authorities across America have phoned and written A.R.M. headquarters requesting a baptistry for their prisoners too. One chaplain in Alabama said, "We have 65 men now waiting to be baptized." Another chaplain in Louisiana wrote, "We have been on your waiting list for over 9 months, please, we need a baptistry as soon as possible." The chaplain in Attica, New York, phoned to say, "You gave us a baptistry in 1975, but we have used it so much that it is cracked and broken. Please send us a new one."

Tony Ponceti, who led the former dictator in weekly discipleship studies for more than two years said, "Gaining permission to transport A.R.M.’s baptistry into the courthouse was nothing short of a miracle. After Noriega rose out of the water, he had no words to express the joy he sensed."

*

Unlike Matthew Vines, I was not raised in a Christian home and believed homosexual, romantic relationships were not sinful. I became aware of my attractions toward other men when I was nine but hid them until I came out in my early twenties while in graduate school pursuing a doctorate in dentistry. My mother was devastated but through this incident, she became a Christian. Although her initial response was rejection, after coming to Christ she could do nothing other than love her gay son.

After many years of running from God and rebelling against my parents, I was incarcerated for drug dealing and received the news that I was HIV+. I found a Bible in the trash can and began reading it. I confided with a prison chaplain who told me that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality, and he gave me a book by gay historian, John Boswell.

Like Vines, I too wanted to reconcile faith with sexuality. With that book in one hand and the Bible in the other, I had every reason to accept Boswell’s assertions to find biblical justification for homosexuality. But surprisingly, I felt Boswell’s interpretations did not line up with the plain reading of Scripture. So I turned to the Bible alone and read every verse looking for positive support for romantic, homosexual relationships. I couldn’t find any.

What changed my mind wasn’t the six “clobber passages” which mention homosexuality. It was realizing that I had placed my identity and focus on the wrong things – my sexuality and pursuing a same-sex, romantic relationship. But God calls Christians to put their identity in Jesus Christ alone. God says, “Be holy, for I am holy.” I needed to pursue a life of holiness, not heterosexuality or homosexuality.

After my release from prison, I attended Moody Bible Institute receiving a degree in the Bible with an emphasis in biblical languages and also completed a masters in biblical exegesis from Wheaton College Graduate School for a total of four years of biblical Hebrew and four years of biblical Greek. I am now an adjunct instructor of the Bible at Moody Bible Institute while pursuing a doctorate of ministry at Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota).

Exegesis (literally “to draw out”) is the critical interpretation of a text requiring knowledge of the original language in which a text is written. Many begin with a presumption and superimpose their predetermined conclusion upon a text. This is eisegesis (“to draw in”) which is the opposite of exegesis. Matthew Vines’ entire argument hinges upon his presumption that the Bible doesn’t specifically address loving, same-sex relationships. Although there is no direct mention, the Bible does condemn it in its universal prohibition against all homosexual sex and romantic relationships.

In Romans 1:26-27, Paul draws from well-known Greek philosophers and Hellenistic Jewish authors to universally condemn all homosexual sex and romantic relationships. “Unnatural” or para fusin is used by Plato, Philo and Josephus to refer to homosexual sex per se, not merely lustful, homosexual relationships. In addition, “nature” or fusis is found in Wisdom of Solomon, 3 Maccabees and 4 Maccabees. In each occurrence, fusis refers to nature (in general), a characteristic or origin – never as “customs” as Vines asserts.

Most importantly is Paul’s appropriation of the Levitical condemnation against all homosexual sex and relationships in 1 Corinthians 6:9. Paul created a word “arsenokoitai” directly from Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). The first half of Leviticus 20:13 from the Septuagint reads: “kai hos an koimethe meta arsenos koiten gynaikos.” Any good Hellenistic Jew familiar with the Torah and the Septuagint would make an unmistakable connection between “arsenokoitai” and the universal condemnation of all homosexual sex and romantic relationships found in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13.

Even if Vines’ presumption is true that the Bible doesn’t specifically address loving, same-sex relationships, the absence of evidence is not evidence to the affirmative.

Finally singleness, voluntary or involuntarily, is not a curse. Paul states in 1 Corinthians 7 that singleness is good. This does not contradict Genesis 2:18, “It is good for a man not to be alone.” New Testament scholar Barry Danylak states, “When Genesis 2:18 affirms that it is not good to live alone, marriage is given as a provision. But this does not imply that marriage was designed to be the sole provision for one’s aloneness.” Singles can develop deeper (but non-romantic) relationships which would otherwise be more difficult if married. Jesus, who was single, teaches in Mark 3:31-35 that family in the New Covenant extends beyond our immediate biological family.

Voluntary or involuntary singleness is not the same as being alone, nor is it “incalculable pain and suffering” as Vines states. Paul exhorts believers in 1 Corinthians 7 to find contentment in whatever situation we find ourselves in – whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Contentment should never be predicated upon another person, but solely in Christ Jesus and a life fully surrendered to Him.

________

Christopher Yuan (www.christopheryuan.com) is author of “Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God, A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope.”

This section is part of the larger article "Christians With Same-Sex Attractions Weigh in on Homosexuality-Bible Debate" by Nicola Menzie, Christian Post Reporter, October 1, 2012.

Bessie Shipp was spending Christmas in jail. A slender black woman, Bessie was watching her life slip rapidly away. Though she had not been sentenced to death by the state, she was under a different death sentence: Bessie had AIDS. [This happened in 1985, eleven years before the highly effective HAART treatment was introduced for AIDS.]

I met Bessie that Christmas Day in a North Carolina prison for women. I had come to give a Christmas message to the inmates there.

The atmosphere was glum. The small crowd that gathered to hear me preach was somber and subdued.

After the service, a prison official said, “Do you have time to visit Bessie Shipp?”

“Who’s Bessie Shipp?” I asked. When they told me, I confess, I was taken aback. This was several years ago, and I had never visited an AIDS patient.

And yet, just the night before, I had seen a television story about Mother Teresa and the AIDS patients she was caring for. How could I do anything less?

“I’ll go,” I said.

We walked down a narrow corridor, and a heavy door was opened to reveal a small, dark cell. There, sitting in a hard-backed chair was this tiny woman, wrapped in a bathrobe, shivering in the cold. To my surprise, I saw a Bible on her lap.

After chatting a few minutes, I came right to the point. “Bessie,” I said, “Do you know the Lord?”

“I want to,” she replied softly. “But I don’t always feel like He’s there.” And her voice trailed off.

“Would you like to pray with me to know Christ as your Savior?” I asked.

Bessie looked down, twisted a Kleenex in her thin hands, and finally whispered, “Yes, I would.”

So we prayed together in that cold, concrete cell. And Bessie made a decision that would change the rest of her short life: She gave it to Jesus Christ.

Only days later Bessie was paroled. Friends and prison officials had been trying to get her released for a long time. But the timing was providential. She stayed long enough to meet Christ, and then she went to her home as a new Christian.

A short three weeks after her release, Bessie contracted pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. A Prison Fellowship area director visited her and found her spirit strong to the end.

“These are the happiest days of my life,” she whispered. “Because now I know Jesus loves me, and you all love me, too. I’m in the Lord’s hands.”

Two days later Bessie died. She went to meet the Savior she had accepted only a short time before, on Christmas Day, in a cold prison cell.

When Jesus came to earth, He wasn’t born in a grand palace. He was born in a dirty stable that reeked of animals, with mice scurrying underfoot.

And Jesus still comes to us wherever we are. Not only to warm, well-lit homes, but also to run-down tenement buildings and gray prison cells.

So wherever you are, why don’t you ask Him to come to you? And He will do it. Just like He came to a young woman dying of AIDS in a North Carolina prison one cold Christmas Day.

________

(This commentary originally aired December 25, 1995)

Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

In his book GREAT THEMES OF THE BIBLE, Louis Albert Banks told of the time D. L. Moody visited a prison called “The Tombs” to preach to the inmates. After he had finished speaking, Moody talked with a number of men in their cells. He asked each prisoner this question, “What brought you here?”

Again and again he received replies like this: “I don’t deserve to be here.” “I was framed.” “I was falsely accused.” “I was given an unfair trial.” Not one inmate would admit he was guilty.

Finally, Moody found a man with his face buried in his hands, weeping. “And what’s wrong, my friend?” he inquired. The prisoner responded, “My sins are more than I can bear.”

Relieved to find at least one man who would recognize his guilt and his need of forgiveness, the evangelist exclaimed, “Thank God for that!” Moody then had the joy of pointing him to a saving knowledge of Christ -- a knowledge that released him from his shackles of sin.

When I was at the Eddyville State Penitentiary several weeks ago, I learned about Paul Stevens. Paul Stevens's daughter was stabbed to death by a neighbor in Evansville, Indiana, years ago. Paul Stevens spent nearly a decade tortured by the memory of his daughter's killer.

A year later, the memories proved so hard to bear that Stevens moved his family from Evansville to a new home near Dawson Springs, Kentucky. His daughter's killer was released after seven years behind bars. Stevens's hatred twisted his psyche. “At that time I wanted to see that man dead,” Stevens said.

In 1978, nine years after the murder, Stevens tried something radical. At a religious retreat, he finally grasped that his hate couldn't restore his daughter. He vowed to overcome the tragedy and devote his time to working with violent criminals. Since that time, Stevens has spent two days each week working as a counselor and lay minister at a maximum security prison. He has come to call some of the 29 prisoners on death row his friends.

I met one of those prisoners who said he could never have been led to Christ except by this man who had such compassionate understanding. Stevens said treating violent criminals as human beings has helped him lose his hatred and made him a happier person.

If he could forgive that, you can forgive however you've been hurt.

________

Robert Russell, “Releasing Resentment,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 136.

Source: A Dose of Inspiration, http://www.quietstones.com/mydailydose

*

Bessie Shipp was spending Christmas in jail. A slender black woman, Bessie was watching her life slip rapidly away. Though she had not been sentenced to death by the state, she was under a different death sentence: Bessie had AIDS. [This happened in 1985, eleven years before the highly effective HAART treatment was introduced for AIDS.]

I met Bessie that Christmas Day in a North Carolina prison for women. I had come to give a Christmas message to the inmates there.

The atmosphere was glum. The small crowd that gathered to hear me preach was somber and subdued.

After the service, a prison official said, “Do you have time to visit Bessie Shipp?”

“Who’s Bessie Shipp?” I asked. When they told me, I confess, I was taken aback. This was several years ago, and I had never visited an AIDS patient.

And yet, just the night before, I had seen a television story about Mother Teresa and the AIDS patients she was caring for. How could I do anything less?

“I’ll go,” I said.

We walked down a narrow corridor, and a heavy door was opened to reveal a small, dark cell. There, sitting in a hard-backed chair was this tiny woman, wrapped in a bathrobe, shivering in the cold. To my surprise, I saw a Bible on her lap.

After chatting a few minutes, I came right to the point. “Bessie,” I said, “Do you know the Lord?”

“I want to,” she replied softly. “But I don’t always feel like He’s there.” And her voice trailed off.

“Would you like to pray with me to know Christ as your Savior?” I asked.

Bessie looked down, twisted a Kleenex in her thin hands, and finally whispered, “Yes, I would.”

So we prayed together in that cold, concrete cell. And Bessie made a decision that would change the rest of her short life: She gave it to Jesus Christ.

Only days later Bessie was paroled. Friends and prison officials had been trying to get her released for a long time. But the timing was providential. She stayed long enough to meet Christ, and then she went to her home as a new Christian.

A short three weeks after her release, Bessie contracted pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. A Prison Fellowship area director visited her and found her spirit strong to the end.

“These are the happiest days of my life,” she whispered. “Because now I know Jesus loves me, and you all love me, too. I’m in the Lord’s hands.”

Two days later Bessie died. She went to meet the Savior she had accepted only a short time before, on Christmas Day, in a cold prison cell.

When Jesus came to earth, He wasn’t born in a grand palace. He was born in a dirty stable that reeked of animals, with mice scurrying underfoot.

And Jesus still comes to us wherever we are. Not only to warm, well-lit homes, but also to run-down tenement buildings and gray prison cells.

So wherever you are, why don’t you ask Him to come to you? And He will do it. Just like He came to a young woman dying of AIDS in a North Carolina prison one cold Christmas Day.

________

(This commentary originally aired December 25, 1995)

Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

Shi Weihan dangled from a wall inside a Chinese prison, handcuffed to a hook. His interrogators doused him with frigid water and tormented him with electric shocks.

They pried for information: How many Christian books did he give out? What are the names and phone numbers of the pastors he gave them to?

"During that time, the outside world did not know what was happening to me."

Weihan would not remain anonymous for long. His imprisonment under the Chinese government's religious crackdown -- reported extensively by Baptist Press -- would carry him into national publications and be chronicled in detail by the religious freedom monitor ChinaAid.

But Weihan's journey into the ranks of the persecuted faithful began decades ago with no faith at all.

"Growing up in a communist country, I didn't believe in God in that time," Weihan said over the course of several interviews with Baptist Press in October. "I thought it was like a story, not true."

In 1990, a Chinese man named Joshua -- the matchmaker who brought Weihan and his wife Zhang Jing together -- gave a Bible to each of them.

"He told me, 'This book is very good. You take it home to look at it," Weihan recounted. "Because he was a new believer, he didn't know how to preach Gospel, but he told me, 'It's good. You need a Bible. You need the Gospel.'"

Five years later, at a Christmas party hosted by Joshua, Weihan and his wife placed their faith in Jesus and were baptized the following year.

Over the next decade, Weihan founded a house church called Antioch Victory Church and started the Holy Spirit Trading Co., a Christian publishing house. His company worked to translate Christian books into Chinese and also sold Christian literature with government permission.

But the lack of Christian books and Bibles among many Christians spurred Weihan to give them away to believers across China -- without government authorization.

"In America, you can go to a bookstore and find many Christian books, and you can buy a Bible from Walmart," he said. "But in China, you can't find a Bible in a typical bookstore or market. It's not legal."

Giving away the books was risky; a Chinese Christian was sentenced to two years in prison for merely receiving three unauthorized Christian books.

"But our people need the teaching from God," Weihan said. "They need God's Word."

In the early morning hours of Nov. 28, 2007, about 30 police officers swarmed Weihan's home and hauled him away, also raiding the Holy Spirit Trading Co.

The police tortured Weihan as they demanded to know how many books he gave out, the identities of pastors and where he preached the Gospel.

"In that time, I prayed to God, 'I didn't do anything wrong. I'm trying to preach the Gospel. I don't want to do something wrong to my government,'" Weihan recalled.

Police also arrested his wife in front of their daughters, Grace and Lilly. Zhang was released after questioning, but police also took Weihan's younger brother and his wife into custody. Weihan said the police tortured his brother so severely that they caused kidney damage.

Weihan was charged with illegal printing and distribution of Christian literature, but by this time his case had garnered international attention. News of his arrest landed in USA Today, placing an unwelcome spotlight on China as it tried to convince the world ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing that it protects religious freedom.

Weihan was released on bail in January 2008 after authorities said there wasn't enough evidence to proceed with the charges, but three policemen kept tabs on him 24 hours a day.

"When we went to my father's home to have dinner, people followed us," Weihan said. "When we went to a friend's home, they followed us too. When we went to the market, they followed us -- everywhere."

On March 19, 2008, authorities arrested Weihan once again, charging him with being a "dangerous religious element." Allowed very little communication with his family or attorney, he was forced to sign a confession that he printed and distributed illegal publications. Prison officials initially denied Weihan medication for his diabetes, which Open Doors News (formerly Compass Direct News) said caused severe weight loss that rendered him "unrecognizable."

On June 10, 2009, Weihan was sentenced to three years in prison and fined $22,000 for illegal business practices. He said his attorney was under house arrest and could not attend the court session.

The sentence included time served since his first arrest, meaning he would have to spend the next year and a half in prison.

"I was not surprised that I was arrested and put in jail, because in Bible times, Jesus was tortured," Weihan said through his daughter Lilly's translation.

During his time in prison, he shared cells with as many as 30 other people, some of them murderers.

"The people in there have no hope," he said. "They are just waiting to die."

Weihan gave them the hope of Jesus, preaching the Gospel to his cellmates and baptizing everyone who believed.

"I told them that Jesus can give them new life," he said.

He also preached to the guards, some of whom turned to Jesus in faith. When Weihan asked for a Bible, a guard gave him one that had been confiscated from a prisoner, and Weihan started a Bible study in his cell.

"China isn't like America," he said through Lilly. "You can't do prison ministry. Somebody has to actually become a prisoner to preach to them."

Weihan was not the only one who suffered during his imprisonment. His wife was deprived of her husband and his children of their father. His daughters, Lilly and Grace, were told their father was a criminal, that they would never see him again.

Lilly, now 16, recalls how her family began receiving cards and letters from all over the world encouraging them, reminding them that their father was suffering for being faithful to Jesus Christ. One card, written in Chinese characters, simply said, "Your dad is our hero."

"I really would like to thank [the people who wrote those cards]," Lilly said. "God used them to encourage us and to show us His love."

On Feb. 9, 2011, Weihan was released from prison. Seeing no future for his family in China, where the government continued to spy on him, they were permitted to exit the country and have taken up residence in Dallas, Texas, where Weihan (who now goes by the name "John Stone") and Zhang (who goes by "Sarah") are studying on scholarship at Christ for the Nations Institute.

Weihan asks for prayer that God will use his family to bless others, and that he and his wife will learn English well.

"It is hard to learn another language now, but we still have to do it," he said through Lilly.

Burdened by the countless people in China who have never heard the Gospel, Weihan hopes more Christians will come and preach Christ in his country.

"Please keep praying for my country," he said through Lilly. "Pray for China."