# A Quiet and Peaceable Life? MUSINGS OF A MISSIONARY Language: en Author: by Barry Grant Hicksville, Ohio Original issue: The Heartbeat of the Remnant, Winter 2023 Source pages: 4–5 Read article: Original PDF: Winter\-2023\-Remnant\_for\-web\(2\)\.pdf [The Heartbeat of the Remnant, Winter 2023]() ![An aerial view of a town beneath an orange sunset]() When I was converted, I had never heard the term Anabaptist\. I had never heard much about witnessing to others\. I remember thinking about all my friends who didn’t know anything about what had just happened to me\. My girlfriend of seven years didn’t understand\. One thing kept going through my mind: “I need to tell them\!” Something good had happened to me, and everyone needed to know that the same could happen to them\! I remember a time when my brother and I were thinking of a place where we could tell many people about Jesus\. We decided to go to a major league baseball game\. I was nervous, I was scared, and I will never forget what happened\. I had never spoken in front of a large crowd before, but when I opened my mouth, God filled it\. I did not only go and talk to people I did not know\. When I saw an old friend, I would tell them what happened to me\. They would usually say they had heard it before and try to convince me to settle down and relax\. I will be the first to admit that I made some mistakes in those first few years\. I noticed, to my astonishment, that while many people didn’t like me, it was the people who said they were Christians who appeared to dislike me the most\. One day I was visiting with an older man who said he had been a Christian most of his life\. During the discussion, he pointed up to a lightbulb and said, “‘Do you see that lightbulb? It’s not speaking\.” I was shocked\. He was telling me that, yes, while Jesus says we are the light of the world, lights are supposed to shine quietly\. They don’t speak\. I was astonished\. Was this true? I went home to do a Bible study\. It wasn’t long before I found verses like Matthew 4:23, “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people\.” Then in Matthew 9, when Jesus “saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd\. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest” \(Matthew 9:36\-38\)\. It seems to me that wherever Jesus went, He was talking to people about the kingdom\. I have seen people witnessing about God, but sometimes in an offensive way\. But does that mean we shouldn’t witness? If you read the book of Acts, that’s nearly all you see—the Gospel going out\! In one account the authorities captured the disciples and said they could go free if they would only be quiet\. However, the disciples said they could not\. “For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” \(Acts 4:20\)\. Later they were silenced—by death\. Sometime later I heard about these people called Anabaptists\. As I studied them, I began to see how they too, would not be silent\. I ordered a copy of *The Martyr’s Mirror* and was astounded when I read about these people who lived like the disciples\. They fulfilled the things Jesus said, “And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved” \(Matt\. 10:22\)\. And in Romans 8:36, “As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter\.” Dear brothers and sisters, I believe the fire is going out\. I hear many of our Anabaptist people talking about living a quiet and peaceable life\. Jesus tells us in the parable of the sower, “He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful” \(Matt\. 13:22\)\. Could that be where many of us are at? We live in the free land of America where money seems easy to obtain\. Is it possible we have become deceived by our own wealth and the cares of this world? Have we become like the world to avoid being persecuted by it? Many years ago, a group of Anabaptists fled persecution and moved to a country where there was less oppression\. They opened a furniture shop to support themselves, but they couldn’t sell any furniture because they were the dreaded Anabaptists\. Soon, the situation became desperate because they didn’t have money to buy food\. One day a wealthy man walked into the shop\. All the workers stopped what they were doing\. They thought to themselves, “Maybe this man will buy something, and we can eat\!” An old brother approached the possible client and asked him if he knew Jesus\. After a short chat, the man stormed out of the store in a fit of anger\. The hungry workers asked the old man why he had scared away their only chance at a sale\. He explained that for this man to know Jesus was far more important than for them to earn some money\. In the mindset of the early Anabaptists, the Gospel of Jesus was number one\. As in Acts, they could not but speak of the things they had seen and heard\. And they, too, were “killed all the day long”\. So, what do we do with the verse about a quiet and peaceable life? The verse is found in 1 Timothy 2:1\-2: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty\.” What did the apostle Paul mean when he wrote this? Did he mean that we should be quiet about the gospel and never challenge a sinner? It is hard to believe that Paul is telling us to do something he never did, something that Christ Himself never did\. In fact, no one in the scriptures who followed God was quiet about their faith\. In numerous accounts of early Christians who had been arrested for their faith, the authorities would plead with them to just be quiet\! But they refused, just as the disciples did\. They also chose death, rather than a quiet and peaceable life\. One young Anabaptist who was arrested left behind his dear wife expecting their first child\. The authorities waited for the child to be born then brought the infant to the new father in prison\. They told him he was now a father and could go home and be with his wife and son\. He could even continue to believe the same way, but he had to keep quiet and not speak out against sin in the state church\. The young father refused\. For him, being quiet was not an option\. They burned him at the stake\. So, what does 1 Timothy 2:1\-2 mean? It seems that the Christians in the Bible and early church were all about spreading the gospel, all about the church of Christ\. They went about preaching the gospel, holding meetings in the mountains, woods, or anywhere people would come\. That was their life\. In the verse in 1 Timothy 2, Paul is saying we should pray that the authorities will let us live in peace so we can spread the gospel\. Christians should be out spreading the word and pressing into the kingdom\. Our prayer is that the authorities will let us live in peace, while we serve the Prince of peace\. Today it’s easy to be a Christian when you settle down and live a quiet and peaceable life, never challenging a sinner or correcting a brother\. But who said it would be easy? When we were living in Haiti, we taught our church about the cost of following Jesus\. It was amazing to hear the Haitians’ testimonies of applying Jesus’ teaching to their lives\. One time, two members told us they were about to lose their jobs because of following the gospel\. To hear them make a stand for following truth made me happy\. Another sister in the church told me that the school her children attended wore uniforms and the girls were required to wear pants\. When she sent her daughter to school in a modest dress, she came home with a note from the principal saying she was not to return to school wearing that thing\. 1 Peter 4:14 says, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you: on their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified\.” True joy comes from suffering\. Suffering comes from obeying Jesus\. Are we too busy with trivial matters while the world goes to hell? Let us follow Jesus like the early Christians, where men could not deny that the power of God was working in them\. We have something everyone needs\. What are we waiting for? Let’s reunite, gather back together, deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Him\! ## Magazine citation - [An aerial view of a town beneath an orange sunset](): Jonathan Martin