[Image from Twitter, courtesy of Christian Post]
Nearly twelve years ago in Pakistan, a Christian husband and wife were beaten by a mob and thrown into the burning furnace of the brick kiln where they worked. Their names were Shama Bibi and Shahzad Masih. Shama was pregnant. Their three young children were left behind.
The couple had been accused of desecrating the Quran — an accusation that was enough to summon a crowd. In the years that followed, there were arrests, convictions, appeals, and acquittals. This month, Pakistan’s Supreme Court acquitted the last three men who remained convicted in their deaths and dismissed the government’s appeal on behalf of 102 others. Nearly twelve years on, no one stands convicted for the killing of Shama and Shahzad.
Justice isn’t coming. At least not from that court, not from an appeal, not from a strongly worded statement by somebody’s foreign ministry. God will settle it, and He’ll settle it perfectly. We just won’t be in the room when He does.
We talk often about what we can do for persecuted believers. We pray. We give. We advocate. We should. But perhaps we also need them to minister to us. What if they understand something about Him that I don’t?
They know something about prayer when prayer is all that is left. They know what Scripture is worth when owning a Bible carries a cost. They know what forgiveness means when justice never arrives. Above all, they have settled the question of whether Jesus is worth it — and answered yes with everything they had.
That is why Back to Jerusalem is gathering in Oxford, England, September 26–27, 2026, for the Voices of the Persecuted Church Conference.
Believers from China, North Korea, Pakistan, and the Middle East will be there to talk about what following Jesus has cost them. That’s the whole agenda.
Shama and Shahzad cannot come to Oxford and tell us what happened to them, but Shagufta Kausar can. Falsely accused of blasphemy in Pakistan, sentenced to death, she spent seven years on death row. So is Brother Yun, who escaped a maximum-security prison in China. So is Pastor Isaac Liu, born while his father sat in prison for preaching the gospel.
Come to Oxford. Come not to learn about the persecuted church, but to learn from them. Because when brothers and sisters who have suffered for His name finally speak, the rest of us should probably stop talking.
