“HE SHALL NOT BE HURT BY THE SECOND DEATH”
«He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death”
(Revelation 2:11).
“How should I punish the Christians?» was the question Pliny the Younger, governor of the Roman province of Bithynia, asked Emperor Trajan in one of his letters. According to his letter, while he waited for his superior’s reply, Pliny came up with his own procedure for punishing those who were accused of being Christians.
First he would ask them, «Are you a Christian?“ If their answer was affirmative, he would ask them a second time. If they reiterated their faith in Christ, then they were threatened and whipped. Then they were asked the same question a third time, and if they affirmed they were followers of Christ once more, Pliny would condemn them to death.
Why were Christians persecuted in those days? Take a look at what the then recently-appointed governor said: «The sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.“
Thousands of people died for having promised to be good citizens and not harm their fellow men. It would seem that the inhabitants of Bithynia preferred to have scoundrels and criminals as neighbors rather than kind folks such as the Christian family. I am touched by the fact that the heathen governor said the believers sang “a hymn to Christ.» Every morning they lifted up their voices to exalt God. Fear of death did not prevent them from worshiping the God of life.
Many Christians in Bithynia were massacred for their faith: their lives were blotted out from among the living, but they went to the tomb with this promise: “He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death” (Revelation 2:11). When believers are resurrected, the second death, which is the punishment for sin, will not touch any of those who overcame by faith. That faith is what leads us to worship God even when we suffer from persecution for belonging to the Christian family.
” Pliny the Younger, «Pliny’s letter to Trajan About Christians,» https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/ study/module/pliny.
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Taken from: Devotional Readings for Adults 2023
“I AM WITH YOU”
From: J. VLADIMIR POLANCO
Collaborators: Lorina Maya & Avineyda Hernandez