The Transformative Power of Christianity
Pastors Leslie & Adeline Chua
“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,
are being transformed into the same image
from one degree of glory to another.
For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
“Do not be conformed to this world,
but be transformed by the renewal of your mind…”
One of the keywords most associated with Christianity is transformation. Transformation simply defined means change.
The Christian faith when properly taught and faithfully practised will invariably result in a change in the lives of individuals and entire communities. This is a remarkable testimony of the transformative power of Christianity. Two thousand years of Christian history attests to this impressive reality.
Worthy of attention is the fact that many people outside the Christian faith agree with this observation. Recently, I came across a historian, Tom Holland, and a sociologist, Rodney Stark, making the case concerning the impact of Christianity on Western Civilisation, which in turn cast a massive influence on the world in the last few centuries.
These men are highly respected in their respective fields, and they are prolific authors. But what impresses me the most is both are not Christians.
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“The success of the West, including the rise of science,
rested entirely on religious foundations,
and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.”
Rodney Stark, Victory of Reason
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Some time ago, in the programme, Unbelievable, I watched with interest Tom Holland engaging in a debate with another historian. He was so ardent in defending the integral role that Christianity had played in spreading the all-important ideas of rational thinking, liberty, justice, education, the dignity of women, healthcare, the sanctity of human lives, etcetera, which contributed to the rise of the West and its dominance in the modern era.
Rodney Stark made this comment in his book, Victory of Reason: “The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.”
What is Stark’s rationale?
He explained that God, a supremely rational Being, created mankind in His image. He then put humans in an ordered and coherent world with the tasks of managing it with their God-given gifts of reason and logic.
The Transformed Lives of the Apostles
All these are surprising considering Christianity’s humble beginning. Hailed from an obscured village in Nazareth, Jesus attracted large crowds but only a handful of loyal followers by the time He died.
Things began to change after His resurrection and subsequent ascension. The Pentecostal experience fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection had a profound impact on His disciples. The power of the Holy Spirit transformed these ordinary men into fearless witnesses of Christ and the gospel.
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When people embraced Christ, lives were remarkably changed.
The transformation was tangible.
The inner witness of the Holy Spirit
and the powerful evidence of transformed lives
were too obvious to ignore and deny.
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Threats, imprisonment, and even death would not stop them from boldly proclaiming the power of the cross to save. And so, from a small sect of Judaism, Christianity burst out of its Jewish confines into the vast Gentile world of the Roman Empire.
Persecution was intense, but Christianity’s relentless expansion could not be contained. When people embraced Christ, lives were remarkably changed. The transformation was tangible. The inner witness of the Holy Spirit and the powerful evidence of transformed lives were too obvious to ignore and deny.
Once cowardly, all the apostles except for John signed their testimonies with their blood.
James, the brother of John, was beheaded in Jerusalem by King Agrippa. James the half-brother of Jesus was clubbed to death, also in Jerusalem.
Peter was crucified upside down in Rome. His brother, Andrew, was crucified in an X-shaped cross.
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These men, most of them ordinary,
bear witness to the transformative power of Christ.
How else can anyone possibly explain their willingness
to cast aside their own interests and lay down their lives
for Christ and the message of the cross?
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Matthew was killed by a sword in Ethiopia. Mark was dragged by horses through a street in Alexandria. Doctor Luke was hung in Greece.
Bartholomew was beaten to death in Turkey. Thomas was stabbed to death in India. Jude was killed by arrows.
Barnabas was stoned to death. Matthias, who replaced Judas as one of the Twelve, was stoned and then beheaded. The apostle Paul was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero.
These men, most of them ordinary, bear witness to the transformative power of Christ. How else can anyone possibly explain their willingness to cast aside their own interests and lay down their lives for Christ and the message of the cross?
Paul famously said, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1;21). This is the mindset of a person who has been radically transformed.
The Transformed Lives of Ordinary Christians
Radical living was not limited to the apostles and key players in the early church. Ordinary believers also demonstrated uncommon courage.
Here is an example.
Plagues and pestilences were common in those days. When it struck, people were hopelessly helpless. They had no luxury of medicines and medical care.
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But the Christians were different.
They selflessly went out of their way
to care for the sick and dying,
ignoring the danger to themselves.
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When a family member was infected, he would be thrown into the streets. It sounds cruel, but it was perhaps the most sensible and merciful thing to do. Otherwise, the entire family would be infected.
The Greco-Roman culture was such that everyone took care only of themselves. The values of compassion and caring were generally absent. in times of crisis, the sick was left on public roads half-dead, and the dead left unburied.
But the Christians were different. They selflessly went out of their way to care for the sick and dying, ignoring the danger to themselves.
Dionysius, a bishop in Alexandria in the third century wrote: “Very many of our brethren, while in their exceeding love and brotherly kindness, did not spare themselves, but kept by each other, and visited the sick without the thought of their own peril, and ministered to them assiduously and treated them for their healing in Christ, died from time to time most joyfully… drawing upon themselves their neighbors’ diseases, and willingly taking over their own persons the burden of the sufferings of those around them.”
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Their selfless acts inspired many pagans
and convinced them of the authenticity of the Christian faith.
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These Christians did not live in fear like the pagans. They were confident of their eternal destiny. Constrained by love and moved by the Spirit of God, these early believers lived out the teachings of Christ.
Their selfless acts inspired many pagans and convinced them of the authenticity of the Christian faith. That is one major contributory factor for the rapid spread of Christianity in the first few centuries.
Testimonies of Transformation in the Present Time
There are many moving stories of how lives had been radically transformed in church history. But what about the present day? Well, there is certainly no shortage of such stories.
Let me share an account of how God miraculously transformed a brother-in-Christ whom I know. It happened a few years ago.
This brother suffered from an extreme inferiority complex. It was so bad that he had a born loser look on his face.
One day, a few brothers prayed for him asking God to set him free from the bondage of inferiority complex. After some time in prayer, suddenly, the power of the Holy Spirit hit him, and he was instantly healed.
I had never seen anything like that before. His countenance changed suddenly. It lit up. It is hard to describe, but for those of us who knew him, we could tell that the change was from the inside out. Something had happened to his spirit-man.
Everyone was instantly struck by the remarkable transformation in his look, and subsequently in his demeanour. The man knew that the Spirit of God had miraculously touched him. He smiled and got up. He was never the same again.
Personal Testimony of Transformation
I have a personal testimony to share. I came to Christ at the age of sixteen. Before knowing Jesus, I had a deep fear of death. It haunted me constantly. I was convinced that I was going to die young.
The root of my fear lay in my family history on the father’s side. My father died when he was only 44 years old. He died suddenly of a heart attack when I was only ten years old. I had an older brother who died on the first day of the Chinese New Year when he was ten years old. My older sister died at the age of three from Rickets. My father’s elder brother died of cancer before he reached 50. His younger sister died of leukaemia in her early twenties. His younger brother lived to his sixties but suffered from severe mental illness. Serious misfortune and untimely death plagued my father’s family.
It did not help that I was sickly in my childhood. When I was three years old, I suffered from a high fever, and I lapsed into a coma for three days. During my growing up years, I suffered from severe giddiness and terrible allergic reactions, which happened frequently out of the blue.
My fear of death was intense. It was difficult living with a foreboding sense of death.
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I experienced the transformative power of Christ first-hand.
The fear of death dissipated.
It never plagues me again.
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Praise the Lord! The fear of death lifted after I embraced Christ Jesus as my Lord and Saviour when I was sixteen years old. I do not know how it happened, but the fear just left me. I had not told anyone about my fear, and so, nobody ever prayed for me concerning this matter.
I experienced the transformative power of Christ first-hand. The fear of death dissipated. It never plagues me again.
This became a significant part of my testimony whenever I shared the good news, which was frequent. In my gospel presentation, I would always find myself saying things like: “If I were to die tonight, I am not afraid because I know where I am going.”
I am certain that all of you reading this reflection have your own stories to tell. You had personally encountered God in some amazing ways, which left lasting changes in your lives.