Global — A Bible app is growing in popularity around the world, including in countries where Christians face persecution.

Downloads of the popular YouVersion Bible App hit a record high on Jan. 5, with 798,000 installs in one day. It’s the most single-day downloads the app has experienced since it launched in 2008. This is occurring despite the reality stated in a new report from Open Doors that “more than 380 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith” worldwide.

Bobby Gruenewald, founder of the app, told the Christian Post in an interview that “this year’s increase is even higher than this same time last year, and it’s a trend [they’re] seeing globally.”

The regions with the highest concentration of downloads were in various parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Installations increased by 94% in Egypt, 48% in Pakistan, and 166% overall in the Middle East.

Earlier this month, International Christian Concern released its annual report, the 2024 Global Persecution Index (GPI), detailing Christian persecution worldwide. Egypt and Pakistan were both listed in the report for egregious acts of persecution. In both nations, radical Islamic extremism and blasphemy laws contribute to the gross mistreatment of Christians.

According to the GPI, “Christians continue to experience persecution from radical Muslims” in Egypt. In Pakistan, Christ followers “are increasingly targeted through the weaponizing of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, which angry Muslim mobs enforce.”

The European Centre for Law and Justice in 2024 also reported on the abuses Christians face in Egypt. The report explains that Christ followers are routinely harassed and bullied, often with little help or protection from local authorities, and women are “especially targeted.”

“Christian women are especially targeted and harassed,” the report stated. “In rural regions of Egypt, Christian women have been kidnapped, held for ransom, forced to convert, and marry Muslim men.”

In Pakistan, Christians face daily hardships, discrimination, and even imprisonment simply for following Christ and are often recruited for sewer cleaning and street sweeping jobs. Women face particularly grievous mistreatment. According to the GPI, “civil society groups working in the country” report that, like Egypt, “many women and girls are abducted, married off, and forced to convert to Islam.”

Although many new Christians may be exposed to persecution in various regions around the world if they accept Christ as their Lord and Savior, they’re willing to risk it to know him more personally. The surge in Bible installations is a testament to the longing of human hearts for Jesus.
Sources:persecution

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Between the Old and New Testaments, the discipline of fasting is mentioned nearly 70 times, but data suggests it’s not something many Christians prioritize in their lives.

In 2014, the Barna Group released a study of Lent, the season preceding Easter and a time when people often abstain from something for religious reasons, and the Christian data-collecting agency found only 17% of adults practiced Lenten fasting in the last three years.

A Pew Research Center analysis from last year revealed just 27% of Christians overall participate in religious fasting, with Catholics leading the way at 40% and Protestants coming in far behind at 18%.

That lack of focus on fasting, Pastor Ronnie Floyd explained on a recent episode of CBN’s “Faith vs. Culture,” is due to a dearth of teaching on the subject.

“I really think spiritual leaders have neglected it for a lot of reasons,” he said. “And how do you neglect something, for example, that is mentioned in 57 verses of the Bible? It has 69 references of the word in those 57 verses as ‘fast’ and ‘fasting.’”

Noting each of those passages centers on abstaining specifically from food, Floyd asked, “How in the world could we not talk about that, especially when we know Jesus said, ‘When you give, when you pray, when you fast.’ He did not say, ‘If you give, and if you pray, and if you fast.’”

The Arkansas-based minister and former Southern Baptist Convention executive is the author of the newly released, “The Supernatural Power of Prayer and Fasting: 12 Ways God Will Change Your Life.”

In all his years of studying fasting, Floyd said there remains “a mystery” to fasting.

“It’s about me bringing myself — surrendering myself to God — without any ties whatsoever at all,” he said. “And whatever [God] does in it, then I conform to that will. … People are very transactional with God, and obviously, Scripture talks about, ‘If you’ll do this, God will do this,’ and I believe that. The only thing we can do is we go in with God’s promises about things we’re praying about when we begin to fast.”

“It’s on God to choose to do what He does and wants to do, and then it’s up to us to conform our lives and submit to to the will of God,” he added.
Sources:faithwire

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Pakistan — An International Christian Concern (ICC) analysis of data from the United States Commission on Religious Freedom (USCIRF) found that 20 Christians have remained behind bars in Pakistan for a total of 134 years for the crime of blasphemy.

USCIRF is a U.S. governmental commission that monitors religious freedom rights abroad. Due to the secrecy surrounding many foreign governments, USCIRF maintains that “it is difficult to obtain, confirm, and verify comprehensive information about all victims. It is also impossible to capture all incidents of victimization.”

Between 2002 and 2023, the Christians were detained or imprisoned in separate cases for alleged crimes, including “insulting the Prophet Muhammad,” a crime punishable by death under Pakistani law, “desecrating the Quran,” and “intending to outrage religious feelings.” All 20 remain incarcerated to this day.

Ten of the 20 Christians have received their sentence, with nine being sentenced to death and one individual receiving life imprisonment. The other 10 remain jailed as they wait for verdicts in their cases. Though death sentences don’t result in actual executions in Pakistan, they leave the accused languishing in prison for years or even decades.

One of the Christians, Asif Pervaiz, reportedly sent a text message to his manager at a factory that was deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad. Pervaiz was detained in 2013 and sentenced in 2020. The court order in Pervaiz’s case, reportedly viewed by Reuters, stated that the Christian “shall be hanged by his neck till his death” for “misusing” his phone.

In another case, friends Adil Babar and Simon Nadeem, both teenagers at the time of their arrest in 2023, were detained for allegedly calling a dog “Muhammad Ali.” According to USCIRF, they were charged with “insulting the Prophet Muhammad” and are awaiting sentencing.

Christians often feel the brunt of Pakistan’s stifling laws against religious freedom. According to ICC’s new Global Persecution Index, its latest report on Christian persecution around the globe, Pakistan’s restrictions on religious freedoms are expanding and growing more oppressive.

“Despite years of international advocacy to overturn or soften these [blasphemy] laws, Pakistan has only doubled down on the law, with legislation to increase punishments for blasphemy passing handily in the legislature in 2023,” the report stated.

Pakistan’s blasphemy laws allow authorities and mobs of Muslims to imprison, threaten, and attack Christians for their faith.

According to one ICC staffer, “The persecution of Christians in Pakistan, whether due to blasphemy or forced conversions, is increasingly common, and it often goes unpunished. Persecution will continue to increase until the persecutors are held accountable under the law.”
Sources:persecution

http://theendtimeradio.com