Martyrs of Malatya: Martyred for the Messiah in Turkey is the sober account of the murder of three Christians for being witnesses to the Gospel in Turkey written by James Wright (a pseudonym).
Wright tells the story of how two Turkish men, Necati and Ugur, became Christians -- separately, by question their beliefs and meeting Christians as young men. He also tells of the German, Tilmann, who would move to Turkey to spread the Gospel.
The three men ended up working in a publishing house and spreading the Gospel through what I would call, "friendship evangelism." They got to know people and raised questions of faith with them and shared the Gospel.
Wright also tells the story of the five Turkish men who, as followers of Islam, had come to believe that Christianity was insidious and a mechanism of political and cultural oppression, and how they came to decide to befriend these men and finally, brutally slaughter them at their work.
Wright explains the outcome of the trial of the five, who did not deny what they had done, and the witness of the deaths of the three Christians -- not callously showing "the blood of the martyrs to be the seed of the church," but lovingly portraying the aftermath of their deaths and the witness to Christ that endures.
The book has an appendix of pictures of the Christians.
This is a work that encourages prayer and thought for those who are suffering for Christ. This is a book that encourages us to understand the Church universal as being all Christian brothers and sisters throughout time and space -- realizing that having our political candidate lose (which is often then greatest suffering of a Christian in the United States) is not such a hardship as many are suffering and now wear the white robes of martyrs, waiting for the return of Christ.
[I received this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This review appears on my blog and on Amazon.com.]
http://smile.amazon.com/Martyrs-Malatya-James-Wright/dp/1783971134/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443471296&sr=1-1&keywords=martyrs+of+malatya
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