Jesus was quoted to have said in Acts 1:8 that his followers would be witnesses for him throughout the earth.
A witness is someone willing to swear an oath to the veracity of what they have seen
What that witness is swearing to may appear to be contentious in this particular context of witnessing.
Is it a prior event, or a future event, that Jesus was referring to concerning the act of being a valid witness
Is a witness so named after testifying or before? Are you qualified to be a witness even if you haven't spoken of what you have seen?
In other words, is "seeing" the required act that "witnessing" describes, or is it "testifying" about it?
In any case, it is one thing to witness farflung events, and quite another to witness them painfully in one's circumstance
Witnessing is passive. A call to see and take note. But when a witness is under attack, it can be hard to stay neutral and maintain the role of witnessing that Christ commanded.
Hence the topic of this post. Witnessing when one is the victim of the enemy.
The beauty of this is something else Christ said. "I am the good shepherd and my sheep hear my voice"
Christ (the shepherd) has the uncanny ability to communicate with his sheep in a way that inspires full obedience
And so the act of witnessing actually holds true (ironically) regardless of the circumstance. Whether witnesses are the victim or not.
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