Should They Like Us?

I'm preparing Junior Church lessons today (the first sign that work is very, very quiet is that I have time to do that at work; the second sign, of course, is that I also have time to write this). We're in the book of Acts, and in July will learn about the stoning of Stephen, Philip and the Ethiopian, Saul's conversion, and Saul's escape in the basket. We've already learned about two of the apostles being arrested, and Peter will be arrested again before the summer is over. There seem to be a lot of people in Acts trying to kill the followers of The Way (they won't be called Christians until the middle of August) (as an aside, I know no one is getting persecuted in Philip and the Ethiopian; it just happens to be one of the lessons).

Which led me to thinking....a lot of "how to do church" and "why we're doing church wrong" books and blogs seem to focus on "unbelievers don't like the church so we're doing something wrong and need to change." But I don't see that in Acts. They didn't change or soften their message and they didn't keep quiet and try to be "tolerant" of everyone's beliefs.

They preached the gospel, plain and simple, from the Old Testament through the death and resurrection of Christ. And they were arrested and stoned and beheaded and hounded and cast out....and they kept preaching the gospel, plain and simple.

Now, if we're so caught up in our little "christian" world that we ignore or look down on nonbelievers, or if we forget that they're people and not numbers to convert so we look good, or being jerks in general, then of course they don't like us, and we need to change.

But if we're preaching the truth and loving people and not compromising and they don't like us....well, from reading Acts, that makes a lot of sense, and maybe it means we're doing something right.