Mockery of Christians is Nothing New

One last post from Michael Green's excellent book, Evangelism in the Early Church. From pages 244-245:

"[Insults and mockery] pays the highest compliment to the zeal and dedication of the most ordinary Christians in the subapostolic age [2nd century]. Having found treasure, they meant to share it with others, to the limits of their ability. There is a touching example of this determination in the quarters of the imperial page boys, on the Palatine Hill in Rome. Here there is a third century picture, drawn in a youthful hand, of a boy standing in the attitude of worship, with one hand upraised. The object of his devotion is a figure on a cross, a figure of a man with an ass's head. Underneath is scrawled, 'Alexamenos worships his God.' Clearly one of the pages was a Christian, and unashamed of it. His schoolfellows were spitefully mocking him for his stand. But he was not ashamed, if we may judge from another inscription written in a different hand: 'Alexamenos is faithful!' Perhaps this was his own response to the cruel cartoon. Perhaps it was that of one of his classmates who had come to recognize the truth of what Alexamenos proclaimed."

The next time you face mocking or ridicule simply because you are a Christian, remember that you are not alone. "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.... In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." (John 15:18; 16:31)