“Remember what I spoke to you: ‘No servant is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey you also.”

John 15:20
Dr. Rowland Taylor was an Anglican pastor in the 1500s when the Protestant church was being persecuted. Despite threats of imprisonment and even death, Dr. Taylor continued to preach the gospel. Soon his enemies were on their way, and his friends begged him to escape for his life. He refused.
Arrested and tried, he was sentenced to death by execution. Dr. Taylor and the guards journeyed to the execution spot at the top of a hill with his English village in sight. One guard asked how he was doing. He replied, “Well, God be praised… Never better, for I now know I am almost home. I have not more than two more miles to go, and I am at my Father’s house!” Once he arrived there, he was chained to a stake and set afire.
Accounts of Dr. Taylor’s death record him walking up to the stake and kissing it, placing his own back there, folding his hands in front of him, and remaining calm and trusting to the end. Amazing!
Christians are those who know the joy of the Lord, and their martyrs know that even death cannot disrupt it.



Scripture Focus

Acts 5:27-42

Insight

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” (Jim Elliot, 1949)

Bible In A Year

  • 2 Samuel 19
  • Psalm 145
  • 2 Thessalonians 1-3

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