How can a pastor continue leading a church that keeps getting attacked? How can he protect other people after he’s been assaulted multiple times?

Last night my small group from church met together, as we do weekly. We spend time together, catch up on each other’s lives, study the Bible and pray.

The Church in Niger is growing and getting stronger. Earlier this year, enemies of the gospel responded: churches were burned and Christians’ homes were attacked.

Recently on VOMRadio a listener in Indiana asked a question about why persecuted Christians don’t fight back or at least defend themselves from their persecutors. Below is a transcript of our conversation with Cole Richards, the leader of VOM’s international work, you can also listen to the conversation (and to all episodes of VOMRadio) online (this conversation begins about the 20:30 mark of the broadcast).

Periodically as I read the Bible there are verses that pop out at me appearing as though I have never read them before. Reading through Acts 26, I was stopped-short by an amazing statement that never registered in my mind before. Paul said in verses 9-11: “I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.”

We have been following the case of two pastors in Sudan who are currently on trial and could, if convicted, face the death penalty. Earlier this week VOM's Todd Nettleton did an interview with Mission Network News about the case.

I stepped into the simple office from the dark hallway. As my eyes adjusted, I saw a man sitting against the far wall, quietly. I didn’t know it yet, but I was about to meet Mohammed Hegazy, one of the most infamous converts to Christianity in Egypt.

An ISIS fighter wants to talk with you. He says he wants to know more about Jesus. What will you do?