Remember when
Kent Hughes describes the suffering that the Hebrew Christians navigated with such courage:
‘Remember those earlier days after you received the light. At that time you stood firm in a great struggle. You did it even in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were made fun of in front of others (Heb 10:32-33).
'This was a challenge to recall how they had marvellously stood unmoved some fifteen years earlier during the persecution under the Roman Emperor Claudius in A.D. 49. A famous quotation from the historian Suetonius indicates the character of the Claudian persecution: “There were riots in the Jewish quarter at the instigation of Chrestus. As a result, Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome” (Life of the Deified Claudius, 25.4). Historians believe “Chrestus” is a reference to Christ and that the riots and expulsion occurred when Jewish Christians were banished from the synagogue by the Jewish establishment. No one had been killed, but it was nevertheless a wrenching time of humiliation and abuse…..'
Describing the public mockery that the Hebrew believers endured, Hughes continues:
'The idea here is that they were made public theatre, because the word for ‘publicly exposed’ (theatrizo) comes from theatron, ‘theatre’. They were ridiculed and taunted as a theatre of the absurd. Along with that, the ‘persecution’ they endured was of the nature of being squeezed and pressured. Persecution was one thing, but sardonic, smiling, rung-dropping insults made it even more devastating'.
Hughes, R. K. (1993). Hebrews: an anchor for the soul (Vol. 2, p. 53). Crossway Books.