DYING
FOR FRIENDS

Topics: Bible Study; Community; Courage; Love; Relationships; Sacrifice

References: John 13:34–35; 15:13

Prisoners of war in Japanese camps during World War II endured horrific conditions. A few Christians formed Bible study groups, which brought about amazing transformations within the camps. POWs who had stolen and cheated from one another became men who cared for and gave their lives for their friends.

Ernest Gordon, in Miracle on the River Kwai, writes:

During one work detail, a shovel was missing, and the Japanese guard shouted, insisting someone had stolen it. Striding up and down before the men, he worked himself up into a paranoid fury. Screaming in broken English, he demanded that the guilty one step forward to take his punishment. When no one moved, the guard’s rage reached new heights of violence. “All die! All die!” he shrieked. To show that he meant what he said, he cocked his rifle, put it to his shoulder, and looked down the gun sights, ready to fire at the first man at the end of the line.

Another man stepped forward, stood at attention, and said calmly, “I did it.”

The guard kicked the helpless prisoner and beat him with his fists. He lifted his rifle high over his head and, with a final howl, brought it down on the soldier’s skull, who sank limply to the ground and did not move. The men of the work detail picked up their comrade’s body, shouldered their tools, and marched back to the camp. When the tools were counted again at the guardhouse, no shovel was missing.

—Ernest Gordon, Miracle on the River Kwai (Collins, 1963)