NOTES for Act 21:12-13
The Christian history knows many examples of martyrdoms. It can seem at first sight that Christians are not original in this regard: the martyrdom for an idea or for convictions is known to many. And there is all the same an essential difference between the martyrdom of the Christian and of any other one. It is necessary to be a hero to suffer or, even give his life for an idea or for convictions. Poverty is necessary in order to suffer and even give his life for Christ. The same biblical or evangelic poverty, about which had already spoken Isaiah of Jerusalem, but which also mentions Jesus in the sermon on the Mountain, proclaiming the bliss of the poor. It is not of course about the material poverty, although in itself, it can’t be of course an obstacle neither to the martyrdom, nor to confession. It is about the spiritual state, which is indicated in the biblical books by this word.
Of this state that puts hope only on God and on none more or on nothing more. And the understanding of this simple fact that in the fallen world there is not and can’t be a reliable support for man, even if something seems to be such. Actually, only such a relation to the world makes man a real poor: because having nothing and wishing fervently to obtain what you do not have, you will not become a poor man in the biblical sense. And Christianity can be considered as a perfect expression and realization of this biblical poverty: because Christianity is the life in the Kingdom and according to the laws of the Kingdom, and not according to the laws of the fallen world.
But it is possible to live according to the laws of the Kingdom in the fallen world only by refusing completely inside any attempts to retain at least a part of what this fallen world calls life. Indeed, the Kingdom occupies entirely the living space of man, without rest. And the martyrdom turns out for the inhabitant of the Kingdom not the loss of life for an idea, as for the inhabitant of the fallen world, but the preservation of that fullness of the life of the Kingdom, for which it is not regrettable parting with what this world calls life.
It is difficult and painful to part from his. It is not regrettable parting with what is strange. The more man considers this fallen world as his, the more it is difficult to part from it. The poor has nothing to lose: because he gave everything to God, he has nothing in the genuine sense of the word his. And the inhabitant of the Kingdom by his life is not at all connected to the fallen world, although he dwells there, testifying of the Kingdom. And he has nothing which would hold him in this world.