For the first time, pastors in North America wonder how things will develop in view of the arrest and incarceration of Canadian pastors. How should we view it when we are jailed on false charges (or true charges)? How should we conduct ourselves? What should we expect? Join us as we speak with Paul Thompson from Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho, who was arrested and jailed for 17 days under false accusations.

Well, welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of Scripture, And so we'd like to talk about the sufficiency of Scripture, particularly in the environment that we're living in now, where for the first time in North America, pastors have been arrested for their faith, for being obedient to God. And it's been shocking to us. We've never seen anything like it. Even though pastors in America have not been arrested, in one way you could say, what are we afraid of?

Well, the truth is, for the first time in history, this thing has come to our attention. And some of our brothers have been arrested and jailed in Canada, particularly. So what we wanna do is just have a conversation about that issue. And of course, we have Jason Dome here. Jason, thanks for being with us again.

It's great. It's great to see Paul Thompson today. Yeah, Paul Thompson, he's actually a pastor of Eastside Baptist Church in Twin Falls, Idaho. So, hey, good to see you. So, have a potato on Idaho today.

Have a potato. Yeah, I've preached to those blue chairs before in your church. What a joy that was being out there with y'all. Man, we need to get you out here again, Scott. Yeah, let's do it.

Man, I'm telling you. Love what you're doing out there, Paul. So we wanna talk about biblical examples. We wanna talk about some contemporary examples of this. We want to try to draw principles from scripture about what to do when arrested.

Let's just assume you might get arrested someday for your position. I mean, we have brothers around the world who are being threatened by the laws, by their hate speech laws and things like that. New Zealand, particularly, If you've offended someone, you could be thrown in jail for 90 days, according to their new hate speech law. Preaching biblical morality is hate speech in that country now, formally, legally. So these kinds of things we think might end up here.

They're not yet to that degree. But it matters how you conduct yourself when you're arrested. And what happens to you when you get into prison? And what do you do? The Bible is just a rich testimony for us to help us to understand that.

So let's talk about the prisoners in the Bible and try to draw principles. Here's what you find. Men in Scripture are thrown in prison for different reasons. Some are falsely accused. Some are actually truthfully accused of doing things for the glory of God.

And You know, you have the case of John the Baptist, who was imprisoned for confronting Herod and the immoral life that he was living and his family. So he lost his head over that, and it was delivered into a party. So there are different reasons that men get thrown into prison. So any comments about some of the famous prisoners in the Bible, our heroes? I mean, I think it's important to note that they're both Old Testament and New Testament, both the experience, you know, outside pressure against the advancement of the truth where, you know, I'll think of what Paul tells young Timothy instructing the young pastor, you are to be a pillar and a buttress of truth.

And I think the pastor who wants to obey the commands of scripture, that he will be a pillar and a buttress. He'll be the one who brings truth to his community, that that sometimes means the community doesn't want to hear it, and that that same community may look for ways to shut his mouth, either by removing him from the public eye, discrediting him in front of the community, and various and sundry other kinds of hardships that they might lay on him. And just to continue on the point that you started making when you said that this is Old Testament and New, in the Old Testament it was the religious community suppressing the truth. So it just doesn't have to... In the New Testament, it is more of a distinction between the people of God and outside pagans, but it certainly doesn't have to be that.

It can all be under the religious roof. 00.00 Right. Right. It really can be. And you know, you have, you know, cases like Micaiah and Hanani.

They were imprisoned because they were telling the truth. And it's just like what you said, Paul, the civil magistrate didn't want to hear it. So they just put them in jail to try to muzzle them. And of course, That was the case with John the Baptist, was the case of Peter, the case of Paul. Joseph was, you know, imprisoned on a false accusation.

So is Jeremiah. He was trying to leave the city and he was accused. And I expect that it was a ruse. The accusation was a ruse anyway. But he made it very clear.

He said, I did not do this. This is not what I was doing. But he was jailed as well. So you have different kinds of examples in Scripture. Here's what I'm trying to say.

A Christian should not be surprised if that happens. It shouldn't be shocked. We shouldn't freak out. We shouldn't think that, you know, the world is coming to an end. This has always been the case of people who speak the truth.

Right. You know, it's Peter who even instructs the early church, don't be surprised when, don't think it's a strange ordeal when you're in these fiery situations. So the church, who's surprised when that happens, isn't one putting into real practice what the Bible even teaches them to not be surprised about. So I think there's an important point to be made from one of the Bible examples, which is Paul and Silas jailed in Philippi in Acts chapter 16. Let me just read one verse, Acts chapter 16 verse 25, but at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

So they were actually had a forum, sort of literally a captive audience, and the jailer and his family's salvation came to their home. And then sometime later, Paul is writing a letter back to exhort a church in Philippi. So I think the point to be made here is that it represents a significant hardship for the ones who are put in jail, but also a tremendous opportunity for the gospel. So in some ways, we should be sorry that this is happening, and in some ways, we should be exhilarated at the opportunity that presents. I think The enemies of the faith, if they knew the Bible and they knew church history, they would never put a single Christian in jail ever because I really...

That's true. Yeah. Amazing things happen. Fast forward 1600 years after this same pattern has been repeated over and over again, John Bunyan out pops, programs progress. So, you know, jail is not the worst thing in the world for a Christian, and you have all kinds of things being written and done in prison that are just remarkable, even under terrible treatment.

And we could list Richard Wormbrand and all kinds of people in modern times. It's an opportunity. So I think that's why the demeanor of those who are thrown in prison in scripture is a sweet demeanor. You don't find them raging against their captors. You don't find them trying to kill the ones that are arresting them, they don't run, they don't fight.

The Lord Jesus Christ in His arrest didn't fight. Well, one of the disciples wanted to fight, He pulled out his knife and lopped off the ear of the servant of the high priest. Jesus heals his ear and says, my kingdom is not of this world. So you have... The Lord Jesus Christ in his arrest is perhaps the very best example of how to get arrested.

Mm-hmm. Here, here. Here, here. So remarkable things happen in prison. We've seen some examples in Canada, which we would say are blessed examples that are consistent with the Christian heritage of those who are arrested.

Most recently, I think we've seen some getting arrested, yelling at their captors. I don't recommend that as a way to get arrested. I don't know if you have any thoughts about one's demeanor when they are arrested. Yeah, I think when we observe what's been happening specifically to James Coates, Tim Stevens, these are both pastors in what many refer to as the most conservative parts of Canada. So meaning as far as religious persecution goes, would be the last place you would expect it in Canada.

And I think both of them have paved an example pathway for us. You know, you go to your pulpit pastor and you preach on Sunday. And then by Sunday evening, whenever the police come looking for you, you don't resist it, you don't excuse it, you don't play ignorant, You don't play dumb. You go to the jailhouse. And there, I think, you know, if you do a little bit of reading or even just investigating what James Coates and Tim Stevens have done in Canada is almost as soon as they get to the jailhouse, they basically become the pastor, the chaplain of the other inmates.

And there's a lot of singing going on and there's a lot of Bible reading going on. And I'm certain as well, there's lots of thoughts in their minds that are rolling through their minds of, you know, if I hadn't have done that, I wouldn't have had to come to jail. I mean, those things that might wrestle inside the mind internally. But I think they've given a good example of how to graciously endure hardship and suffering. You know, Polycarp is another example.

A book probably should be written about people who went to jail. Polycarp was just appealing for the souls of those who were marching him to the Coliseum. And they loved him so much because of his demeanor and things he was sharing. They just kept begging him in tears to relent. I saw some footage of one of the Canadian pastors.

I forget the name. You can educate me. But it's the one where the Canadian government put a double fencing around his church. That's James Coates, yeah. And in the interview, he was saying, this isn't our church, it's just a building.

The church is the people of the church, we'll find a place to meet. This is an invaluable lesson for that church. That church will never be the same again, that church will never be as building dependent again. There are some great things that will come from it. In the news, just in the last few days, some churches are being burned to the ground, and even some Canadian administrators praising it.

But it just strikes me as funny, oh, you think you're gonna get rid of our church by burning down our building? Are you serious? You have no idea who we are and what we're doing. We're not building dependent. Go ahead, burn the building down.

Well, you know what? We are the ultimate whack-a-mole game. You whack us down here, we're gonna pop up over here. It's just the way it is. So we're not here.

We see this throughout church history. We can even think about some of the great pressure that the churches in England faced, you know, during those Puritan era times. A pastor would be arrested for preaching something that the government didn't give him permission to preach. And so rather than the church moan and groan about, oh no, what do we do? Our pastor's in jail.

They show up at the jail house the next Sunday and the preacher rises up to the window and preaches to everyone who's outside the jail cell. And then other examples of, they move that pastor to an undisclosed location, only to find that that it got leaked somewhere. And so the next Sunday, the whole church plus another whole bunch of other people show up at the undisclosed place. So that's that is the way the glorious way the gospel actually strengthens the courage of God's people. And I think we could see evidence and testimony of what's been going on in Canada because there was about a couple of months where James Coates's church gathered in undisclosed locations and the fellowship grew and grew and grew.

I think just last Sunday they started meeting in their previously fenced off building. Yeah, you just never know how things are gonna turn out. So we shouldn't worry about it too much. So Paul Thompson, you were jailed for 17 days a few years ago. You were accused as a missionary doing work in Haiti, and you were stopped at the border and jailed.

So what was that all about? Yeah, I always tell people, you know, it's really going to be important that you go and research. Just know what you're reading when you do a Google search for Paul Thompson. And then prepared to be shocked and dismayed. And yeah, so it's actually just over 10 years ago, me and five men from my church were traveling to Haiti with some, with a sister church in the Boise area to do some care after that earthquake that happened 10 years ago.

So we had about 33 children that we had been working with, some orphanages in Port-au-Prince, and were taking them across the border to the Dominican Republic, which, by the way, this is what most every orphanage and children's care ministries in the nation were doing. The border was actually open. It was not out of the normal in those days that that's what was happening. We made a decision on our team's effort to make sure we have every dot dotted and every T crossed and documentation, everything in order because you know, we're foreigners in a land and we want to be above board. We don't want any any strange things to be accused of us, only to find out that we would have likely had no issues and no problems had we been willing to pay undocumented fees, in other words, bribes.

We would have had no issue had we not tried to work with the government on these matters. But as a consequence, we found ourselves up against UNICEF, the United Nations, the child arm of the United Nations. And at the border, because we had not paid some undocumented fees in previous offices waiting for documentation to come from one office only to find out it was at another office. And eventually, to make the long story as short as possible, we have some severe accusations levied against us. We are detained at the border.

They claim work. We're one paperwork short of the necessary documents. So we were pleased to delay ourselves until that document can arrive. We can continue doing everything we've been doing by working and complying with everything that the government was asking of us only to find out the next morning that we would have to go back to the city of Port of Prince to get that document. And so we're pleased to do so and did.

And when we got there, we found out that there it was. This was basically a set up to begin the prosecution for severe crimes. Had those had those crimes been legitimate one and had we not been able to prove our innocence because we're in a country where the judicial system is radically different than ours. In Haiti, you're guilty until you prove you're innocent, as opposed to here where you're innocent until proven guilty. So we are charged with kidnapping 33 children.

We're charged with trafficking 33 children. And eventually, there's three days of courts in the first three days where every time we go to court, we get a new charge levied against us. So we're charged with trafficking, kidnapping, and criminal association. And it took us 17 days by the, and I say by the kindness of God, that we were able to prove our innocence because we had documentation of every conversation we had, every office we had been to, and were able to prove that we had not and we're not intending to do any of the things that we were charged for. So quite a bit different than, than stepping out of the pulpit and then stepping into the back of a police car because of what you just preached.

But certainly a season of time in my own personal life and a time of building and strengthening the church body here in Twin Falls, Idaho, the result of thinking long about the benefit of suffering, the joy that the New Testament, the Apostle Paul is just so frequently saying rejoice in the Lord always. And again, I say rejoice. We witnessed the kindness of God. We did not have food. We did not have water.

And in a Haitian jail, you're at the mercy of your family to provide all that. And It would be by the kindness of Haitian people that would bring a sack full of bananas to us one day or a bag full of crackers. So there were so many things. Time won't allow me to tell all of the great details of the sweet kindness that we tasted of God. But what it did do while we're sitting in jail, and I'm having this dialogue with these other men that we're with, is this conversation about, I had to come to reality that I had not done anything as a pastor to prepare my church, one, to suffer or to expect to suffer.

And we hadn't done anything even how to prepare ourselves to suffer in a manner that would give glory to God and that we would not be robbing of the glory because of the unfair circumstance that we had been charged against. So those types of things were really helpful then to come back and begin to really prepare and fit a church to be fitted for God glorifying suffering. Should that day ever arise, we want to be found fit and ready for that good work. So give us, just give us two or three things that can be learned from your experience about getting arrested and being in prison for a period of time. What should we keep in mind?

We really should keep in mind we should just trust the Lord. There are things that will be expected of us and that we should be able to stand our ground and defend our position, but really the necessity to trust the Lord, that he does intend to use the hardship to benefit his church. And it's a peculiar circumstance because listen, as a lifelong American, I know in my experiences, There's nothing inside of our thinking that there's anything good going to come out of a church that's going to suffer in the public eye. But the pattern of Scripture is really quite different than that. And so I think that's certainly one, trust the Lord in what He's doing in the unexplainable circumstance that you're in.

And I think as well, the importance of prayer, one of the things that we learned after we came home was what happened inside my church body during those days is that they began meeting in each other's homes and praying every day, praying multiple times together, fellowshiping in additional times than just the traditional Sunday morning or Wednesday night time. And they were actually checking in on each other. They took care of my wife. They made sure that things were properly cared for. So I would say on the side of how can a pastor prepare a church is instructing and encourage them, hey listen if next Sunday the unexplainable happens and one of us are arrested because of things we've said from the pulpit or because of things we've written in the newspaper or said on a radio program, any of those possible scenarios may exist.

The next Sunday when you show up and one of us aren't here, you should still sing, bless the Lord, pray together and put a man of God in front of you who will open up the Word of God and said, this is what God wants from you. And this is how you should apply this to the suffering that you're currently in. And then I think I have to come full circle back around because this is what the apostle Paul exemplified for us is to have joy in the Lord, which is not easy to do when the circumstances difficult and hard. You know, A Haitian jail, I got to believe there's probably worse jails to go to. I don't want to visit any of them, but if I were to ever be in an even a more difficult place, I would still want to have my life filled with the joy of the Lord.

So those are some of the quick takeaways of things I want to always keep present in my mind. Amen. Well, may the Lord cause His blessing to fall upon any who might be arrested, that being filled with the Holy Spirit, word, season of assault, faith that God is going to use this in ways you can't imagine, and it probably will end, and there's a story to tell. And you want that story to be of the beauty of the kingdom of God that was communicated, the power of the gospel, and exemplary treatment of captors, as we see in Scripture, whether falsely accused or actually truly accused of doing things for the glory of God. Either way, we have commands from God for how to treat one another.

Those should be in play. Yeah. Scott, it even causes me, before we go, it reminds me that somehow in the glory of the Lord, he receives great glory that none of us have ever heard of some of the pastors in North Korea. We'll never know their names, this side of glory. But somehow, God is miraculously, gloriously glorified in the silence of the suffering of those in places like that and all over the world.

We just don't know anything about what's going on in North Korea, but I gotta believe Christians are suffering greatly. Sure, And there are thousands who are in jail languishing. There we have a dear brother in Malawi, and what we're told is the worst prison in Malawi. And there are many, many others for their faith. It's so heartbreaking.

But God is sovereign over who He has arrested for His own glory. So I just, I pray that God would just give us joy in His presence and that men of God who are arrested would just shine with His glory. I hope if that happens to any of us, that's what we would do. You experienced it like Jason and I have not, and we praise the Lord for the many good things that came out of that. I remember reading the news reports day by day about your time and your accusations and all that.

Wow. And the slanders that you received, you were slandered by the Christian community. Oh, severely. Severely. It was just so difficult to see that.

But God used all of that for your church. And so we praise the Lord for you. And we really appreciate you telling us your story. So let's keep in touch and let's pray that God gives us every opportunity possible to testify to His grace, whether it's in prison or out of prison. Amen.

I appreciate the time with you guys. Thank you. It's good to see you. Thanks, Paul. Okay.

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