¹³ Paul, too, was sifted by the Devil and his agents. He faced false apostles, deceitful workers who transformed themselves into apostles of Christ. Paul tells what he endured in the Christian ministry. He writes: “In labors [as a minister] more plentifully, in prisons more plentifully, in blows to an excess, in near-deaths often. By Jews I five times received forty strokes less one, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I experienced shipwreck, a night and a day I have spent in the deep; in journeys often, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from highwaymen, in dangers from my own race, in dangers from the nations, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers among false brothers, in labor and toil, in sleepless nights often, in hunger and thirst, in abstinence from food many times, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things of an external kind, there is what rushes in on me from day to day, the anxiety for all the congregations.” (2 Cor. 11:21-28) The way of Christian integrity was not an easy course for Paul, neither is it today. In fact, Paul warned Christians: “Let him that thinks he is standing beware that he does not fall.” (1 Cor. 10:12) Remember, Judas and Demas and others who once stood rather firmly but fell.​—2 Tim. 4:10.

¹⁴ After Paul’s time, persecution continued against the Christians, even though they were peace-loving people. Dr. John L. von Mosheim, writer of ecclesiastical history, refers to the first-century Christians as “a set of men of the most harmless inoffensive character, who never harboured in their minds a wish or thought inimical to the welfare of the state.” Yet these very Christians suffered indescribably at the hands of the pagan peoples and the Roman state because they insisted on maintaining integrity to God.

16, 17. (a) Why are Jehovah’s witnesses persecuted today? (b) What is their stand toward the political world, and what indignities did they have to suffer because of this?

¹⁶ The early Christians were often persecuted because they refused to perform a simple patriotic rite: sacrificing to the emperor. Those Christians regarded such a rite as idolatry. Jesus also refused to do a single act of worship that was contrary to God’s Word. (Matt. 4:9) Similarly Jehovah’s witnesses give their worship and allegiance only to God. Like the early Christians, they live quiet, moral, indeed, model lives. Also like the early Christians, they refuse to idolize the state. As ministers of God and ambassadors for God’s kingdom, Jehovah’s witnesses do not salute the flag of any nation; yet they show respect for the flag of the country in which they live by obeying all laws that do not conflict with God’s laws. Saluting the flag is considered by the Witnesses to be a religious act in which they cannot conscientiously participate. They view the act to be a violation of the Second Commandment and of Christian Scriptures warning against idolatry. (Ex. 20:4, 5; 1 John 5:21) While their stand against idolatry is little understood, still they consider it important enough to view it to be one of life or death. Their stand is like that of Peter and the other apostles who said: “We must obey God as ruler rather than men.”​—Acts 5:29.

¹⁷ Jesus declared his people were “no part of the world,” just as he was no part of the world. (John 17:16) Like those first Christians, Jehovah’s witnesses are no part of the world; hence, when it comes to this world’s politics and wars, their stand is one of strict neutrality.