By Pieter Vermeulen, ICC Board Member, as part of a series, “Persecuted but not Forsaken.” The story of persecution in the Bible begins not in a battlefield or a courtroom, but in a place of worship. Only one chapter after humanity’s fall into sin, Genesis 4 introduces the first act of persecution in human history. Two brothers come before God with offerings. One is accepted; the other is rejected. What begins as worship ends in violence. The story of Cain and Abel is therefore more than a family tragedy.