“Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you” (Prov 4:6).

One of the most personally influential books that I have read of late is titled Applying Wisdom to Contemporary World Problems.1 The authors address a variety of human-generated problems, such as eroding democracies, exploding hostilities, and escalating inequalities, but they do not address the pervasive problem of religious persecution. They argue that the answer to the problems that they identify is neither more information nor new innovations but rather phronesis, or practical wisdom. Phronesis is used in tandem with sophia where we read, “God gave Solomon wisdom (phronesis) and very great insight (sophia), and a breadth of understanding as measureless as the sand on the seashore” (1 Kings 4:29). I found myself readily agreeing with the editors’ argument, and yet I was left with a question that stuck in my mind like a burr on my pantleg: Why not apply wisdom to the problem of religious persecution?

This article is a further attempt to do this. My first attempt resulted in a chapter titled, “Wild Wisdom and Misconstrued Mission: Protestantism and Its Persecution in Turkey, 1961-2025.”2 In this article, I focus mainly on phronesis (or, again, practical wisdom) as a means of protection against the multifaceted face of religious persecution. In essence, I suggest that, through the protection of practical wisdom, Christian mission can be preserved and the plausibility of its message enhanced in potential and even actual persecutive contexts.

Common Missionary Stances toward Persecution

During my 34 years of not only laboring but also researching in Türkiye, I have discerned three common missionary stances toward the ever-present threat of persecution that missionaries have encountered. First, some missionaries adopt a persecution-prompting stance. It is as if these missionaries, apparently filled with the spirit of boldness, function in the country with their fists up, so to speak, ready to do battle for the Lord. Of course, these missionaries do not interpret their demeanor as such, but the Muslims among whom they work tend to view them as such. They are essentially seen as, “Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before.”

Anonymously, let me give you two examples of this stance from among my acquaintances. The first had the habit of openly preaching the gospel in Türkiye’s public squares. Consequently, he was in and out of jail several times and deported from Türkiye repeatedly and, finally, permanently. The second had the passion of distributing New Testaments and other Christian literature wherever he went. He, too, was jailed repeatedly, but that just seemed to embolden him all the more. As one of his final free acts in Türkiye, this man altered the nation’s flag, replacing its single white star with a single white cross, and he then posted the altered version of the revered Turkish flag on the internet. Needless to say, it was outside Türkiye that I interviewed these two men for my research.

Second, some missionaries adopt a persecution-proofing stance. It is as if these missionaries go into hiding and hardly ever come out. You may kindly think such a missionary stance to be rare; however, I could give you several anonymous examples of missionaries who tend to be paralyzingly cautious regarding their purpose for living in Türkiye. One acquaintance of mine has lived in the country for 40 years, but, to the best of my knowledge, he has neither been involved in the life of a local church nor has he led a Turkish person to the Lord. He and I had a mutual businessman friend who once said to me, regarding this missionary, “He is on a decades-long vacation, financed by his gullible supporters in America.” Instead of being sensible risk-takers, such missionaries often end up being risk-dodgers.

Third, other missionaries adopt a persecution-protecting stance. These missionaries seem to have the uncanny ability, at times anyway, to know when to seek refuge and when to engage in work. They personify prudence in this regard. Last year, my wife and I were suddenly coded; the Turkish government banned us from reentering Türkiye.3 Because of our having had permanent residency and significant investments in the country, we were thought to be safe. Thus, some missionaries reacted with alarm to the news of our coding, saying or writing to me, “If you and Renata are now being deported, then none of us is safe.”

As a result, one of the thriving ministries for youth that my wife Renata and I had started in 1997, Olive Grove (OG), had been deemed too risky to continue, and the leadership team decided to end the ministry. However, from among the 200+ registered youth for the upcoming OG season, there arose an outcry, which prompted one woman and a few other members of the leadership team to devise an alternative plan. “Let us carry on OG in a slightly different form,” they said, “we won’t even use the OG name.” With our blessing, they came up with the name Fake OG, or FOG for short, and they boldly organized an incredibly successful 2025 FOG ministry, with about 80 participants, who all ended up being protected and pleased.

This particular woman and those working with her proved to be incredible! It is not that they were persecution-prompting in their demeanor, or that they were ignorant of an apparent need to seek refuge and hide behind the rocks of wisdom. Rather, this woman and those working with her perceived the prudence of using those same rocks of wisdom as platforms for ministry.

In summary, then, three common missionary stances toward persecution and the possibility thereof are persecution-prompting, persecution-proofing, and, the recommended stance, persecution-protecting. But how can missionaries develop a persecution-protecting stance?

Drawing upon Ancient Wisdom to Develop a Persecution-Protecting Stance

Missionaries can develop a persecution-protecting stance by procuring and practicing phronesis: practical wisdom. The biblical book of Proverbs is, of course, a treasure chest of ancient wisdom, including wisdom regarding protection. Many such proverbs speak of God’s protection of his people; for instance, “The name of the Lord is a fortified tower; the righteous run to it and are safe” (Prov 18:10). However, the truth of God’s protection of his people is not the main interest of this article.

Herein my interest pertains to the protection that wisdom and prudence afford a person. These words are often used synonymously, although they refer to slightly different concepts. The more familiar Greek word sophia has more of a mystical flavor; it relates to conceptual reasoning with regard to universal truths, as well as to the divine logos. Phronesis, or prudence, refers to practical, sensible, even clever day-to-day living. We find these words paired not only in 1 Kings 4:29, but also in Proverbs 10:23: “A fool finds pleasure in wicked schemes, but a person of understanding (sophia) delights in wisdom (phronesis).” The distinction between these two words is also brought out in the English translation of Proverbs 8:12, where they are personified: “I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence.” Thus, wisdom and prudence are complementary and concerted.

Proverbs offer numerous wise and prudent sayings about the protection they yield. “Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you” (Prov 4:6). “Righteousness guards the person of integrity, but wickedness overthrows the sinner” (Prov 13:6). “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty” (Prov 22:3). The instruction that such proverbs make explicit, a host of other proverbs expand upon. The panoply of proverbs illuminates the invaluable protection that wisdom and prudence provide the practicing recipient.

Other books of wisdom literature add to our understanding of wisdom. Job, for example, struggles to understand the mysterious limits of protective wisdom. His righteous living seems to have done him no good; despite it, his personal suffering is extreme. Since being banished from Türkiye, Renata and I have similarly struggled to understand the mysterious limits of protective wisdom. On the one hand, we meditate upon and gain confidence from promises of Scripture such as, “If … you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent (Ps 91:9-10). On the other hand, our “tent” of 34 years is suddenly torn from us! We co-strugglers with Job can only satisfyingly accept such unqualified promises of God in light of the guiding principle that Scripture interprets Scripture.

The Psalms and Ecclesiastes also enrich our understanding of protective wisdom. Psalm 1 conveys the protective and consecrative wisdom of delighting in and abiding by God’s law. This is echoed in Psalm 111: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding” (v. 10). In Ecclesiastes we read, “Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: wisdom preserves those who have it. … Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city” (Eccl 7:12, 19). Finally, “The wise heart will know the proper time and procedure, for there is a proper time and procedure for every matter” (Eccl 8:5b-6a).

What is the missionary to make of pertinent proverbs and other wisdom literature as it applies to protection, particularly when encountering the growl or teeth of persecution? Specifically, each missionary would have to discern specific applications for him or herself. However, the body of biblical wisdom literature, as a whole, suggests that the risky ventures of Christian missionaries can benefit greatly from its teaching. Hand in hand, wisdom and prudence can both protect and augment the missionaries’ service and message inherently, but especially in potentially persecutive contexts.

Conclusion

In this article, I have furthered my attempt to apply wisdom to the problem of religious persecution. Although I have implicitly generalized my argument, my experience and examples have arisen from within Türkiye. Yet, religious persecution antagonizes Christian mission in numerous countries and regions of the world. Wisdom can help to change that. Love wisdom, and she will watch over you.

Another book that I read recently is Ending Persecution: Charting the Path to Global Religious Freedom.4 However, as worthwhile as the book is, the author does not appear to reflect upon ancient wisdom at all in his charting of the path to global religious freedom. On the contrary, his last chapter, “New Approaches for New Results,” only looks ahead. But must we focus exclusively upon the new? I do not think so. In our pursuit of the new, let us not neglect to probe the wisdom of the past.