First, for those of you who haven’t visited the web site since before January, I have redesigned the layout of the site. 

Second, I have posted the first draft of a spanish translation of the spiritual warfare matrix: Guerra Espiritual .

Please let me know if you find any errors in the translation from American English.

The Bible has a lot to say about soldiers and war. One of the most recognized verses is the Apostle Paul’s analogy of the Christian as a soldier: 

 You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.  2 Timothy 2:3 -4

Stephen Macasil of biblicalthought.com has done an excellent job of laying the foundation of a formal study of Christian soldiering. His stated goal is “to establish the subject of Stratiotology as a bona-fide area of systematic theology.”

For further reading see:

• biblicalthought.com » Stratiotology - Introduction
• Part 2 - Implications of the Doctrine
• Part 3 - What it is not
• Part 4 - Stratiotology and Malakosis 

Stephen will also be publishing a book in 2008. You can see a promotional video at: Stratiotology: Christian Soldier

The plight of persecuted Christian’s worldwide, who still too often suffer martyrdom, seldom makes the headlines of the major news organizations. But the July 23, 2007 issue of Newsweek highlights the escalating flight of Christians from the Middle East as radical Islamists increasingly are issuing life-or-death ultimatums:

‘He refused to leave Baghdad, even after the day last year when masked Sunni gunmen forced him and eight co-workers to line up against a wall and said, “Say your prayers.” An Assyrian Christian, Rayid Albert closed his eyes and prayed to Jesus as the killers opened fire. He alone survived, shot seven times. But a month ago a note was left at his front door, warning, “You have three choices: change your religion, leave or pay the jeziya“—a tax on Christians levied by ancient Islamic rulers. It was signed “The Islamic Emirate of Iraq,” a Qaeda pseudonym.’

The ultimatums aren’t new even if they are news worthy today. The jihadists were practicing the same doctrines for hundreds of years prior to the Crusades. Our Jewish friend Debbie Schlussel, albeit with a very sharp tongue,  calls Islam the “Religion of Eradicating Christianity” while she is valiantly trying to educate the western world as to the dangers of the modern, militant variant of Islamic jihad. Thanks Debbie.

For more news about Christians who are suffering persecution and martyrdom see Christian Persecution Information.