As I read Matthew 24:1–14 recently, I found myself thinking about the ways Jesus describes conflict and suffering — nations rising against nations, people turning against one another. At first, it feels like a warning about events far in the future. But the more I read, the more it struck me as reflecting patterns we see again and again in human life: how fear, violence, and betrayal take hold when societies are weighed down by domination. It felt less like prophecy and more like a reminder of the cycles we keep repeating.

When reading these verses, my mind went to the French West Indian psychiatrist and political philosopher Frantz Fanon. Fanon, born in Martinique and later involved in the Algerian struggle for liberation, wrote powerfully about the psychological, cultural, and political damage caused by colonialism. In his influential book The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Fanon identifies a tragic pattern at the heart of oppressive systems. As he writes, “The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.” This insight reveals how domination seeps beneath the surface — into the mind, the imagination, and the moral life.

Fanon warns that oppression is not only an external structure — it is a psychological infection. If the oppressed do not heal from the inner wounds inflicted by domination, they often rise to power only to recreate the same structures they once suffered under. In other words:
If liberation does not transform the heart, the liberated may become the new oppressors.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 anticipate this danger. He warns His disciples that in times of crisis many will be deceived, love will grow cold, and people will turn against one another. These are not just “signs of the times”; they are the symptoms of a wounded society internalising the mindset of its oppressors. Jesus tells His disciples, “See to it that you are not alarmed,” not to minimise hardship, but to protect them from the panic, fear, and reactive violence that mimic imperial power.

In the same breath, He calls them to endurance. Endurance in Matthew 24 is the refusal to allow the oppressor’s logic to shape one’s identity. It is the daily commitment to live by the values of the Kingdom of God rather than the practices of the empire. This is where Fanon and Jesus meet. Both recognise that liberation is not merely an outer event but an inner transformation. Without that inner transformation, violence simply changes hands.

“Not So Among You”: Jesus Rejects the Cycle of Domination

Jesus addresses this danger directly elsewhere:

“The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them… Not so among you.”
(Matthew 20:25–26)

When Jesus says, “The rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them,” He is describing a very familiar pattern in the ancient world — and, honestly, in our world too.

“Lording over” simply means using power to control, dominate, or pressure others.

It includes behaviours such as:

• acting superior because of status
• giving orders without listening
• using fear or threat to keep people in line
• assuming power makes you more valuable than others
• controlling people instead of serving them

It’s the mindset of:
“I am above you, so you exist to serve me.”

In the Roman world of Jesus’ time, this was precisely how power functioned. Leaders enforced their will through violence, intimidation, and rigid hierarchy. Respect was demanded, not earned. Authority flowed from strength, not integrity. People obeyed out of fear, not trust.

Jesus looks at that whole system and tells His followers:

Do not copy this.
Do not rule like this.
Do not treat people the way the empire treats people.

He names the oppressive pattern clearly.

“Not so among you.”

This is Jesus’ way of saying:

“Everyone around you uses power to dominate. But you must not do the same.
Your community must be different.”

Christians are not called to pretend oppression does not exist.
And Jesus never tells the oppressed to ignore injustice.

What He does say is that His people cannot adopt the oppressor’s methods to achieve liberation or leadership.
They are not to become what they resist.

Where the empire rules through domination, Jesus calls His followers to lead through service. Where the empire uses fear, Jesus calls for love.
Where the empire demands obedience, Jesus invites participation.
Where the empire crushes the weak, Jesus lifts them up.

This is why His words in Matthew 20 are so revolutionary. He sees the familiar pattern — what Fanon later calls the cycle of oppression, in which the oppressed end up repeating the oppressor’s behaviour.

Jesus is not only describing a different kind of leadership;
He is describing a different kind of humanity.

An Early Christian Example: Resisting the Empire Together

The earliest Christians embodied Jesus’ teaching in a way that directly contradicted Roman imperial patterns. Acts 2:42–47 and Acts 4:32–35 describe a Spirit-filled community where:

• wealth was shared
• no one claimed private ownership
• the vulnerable were cared for without hierarchy
• resources were distributed according to need

In a world where Rome used economic oppression to reinforce social classes and maintain imperial control, the Christian community created an alternative economy based on generosity rather than extraction.

This sharing was resistance. It refused the Roman assumption that power flows from status, wealth, and violence.

Instead:

• leadership became service
• authority became compassion
• possessions became shared resources rather than tools of control

By forming a society that looked nothing like Rome, the early Christians testified to the possibility of living free from the psychological and social imprint of oppression. They practised enduring faithfulness in the midst of crisis without becoming mirrors of the empire that threatened them.

Looking at Today

The patterns Jesus warns about in Matthew 24 also appear in countless ways in modern society, revealing how easily domination, fear, and reactionary behaviour spread when communities are under pressure.

1. Power Used to Dominate

We see this in workplaces where authority is used to intimidate and in public institutions where fear replaces service. Power becomes a tool of control rather than a means of care.

2. Responding to Harm by Replicating Harm

Online culture often rewards outrage, humiliation, and shaming. Activist spaces can sometimes channel legitimate anger into personal attacks. Those bullied in workplaces may become bullies when promoted. Harm circulates because the pattern has not been broken.

3. Dehumanisation in Public Life

Political divisions turn neighbours into enemies. Groups are reduced to stereotypes. Migrants, the poor, or those who differ from us are spoken about as problems to be solved rather than people to be known. The humanity of the other becomes blurred.

4. The Grip of Greed and Fear

Modern economies often operate on a scarcity or “lack” mindset, where resources are treated as limited and must be hoarded. This encourages behaviours that concentrate wealth at the top while leaving many workers in cycles of insecurity. Examples include:

• Wages that fail to keep up with the rising cost of living, forcing families to rely on multiple jobs or debt.
• Wealth concentrated in the hands of a small percentage of individuals or corporations, while the majority struggle to meet basic needs.
• A culture where financial security is viewed as a zero-sum game — if someone else gains, it feels like a loss for oneself — reinforcing fear, competition, and accumulation rather than generosity.

This scarcity-focused logic mirrors the oppressive patterns Jesus opposed: it prioritises self-preservation over community well-being and encourages behaviours that replicate cycles of domination rather than breaking them.

5. Violence as a First Resort

Political movements, social groups, or families sometimes turn to threats, coercion, or aggression as a way of asserting themselves. Violence — emotional or physical — becomes seen as necessary or justified.

6. Passing Trauma Downward

Generational wounds show up in unhealthy parenting, harsh teaching styles, or leadership driven by fear. Those who have been shaped by pain can unintentionally pass that pain forward.

Conclusion

Matthew 24 does not only warn us about external upheavals; it warns us about internal transformations — how fear, deception, and conflict can reshape us in the image of the oppressor. Fanon reminds us that any movement towards freedom must also confront the inner scars left by oppression; otherwise, the structures we dismantle outside simply reappear within us.

And the early church shows us that this is not idealistic imagination — it is possible. By forming communities grounded in mutual care, shared resources, and non-dominating relationships, they broke with the logic of empire and embodied a new way of being human.

In every age — including our own — the challenge remains:

To survive oppression without becoming its image,
and to live out the Kingdom of God with love and enduring faith at the forefront.

I see the wisdom in slow-burn love — but I can’t help being drawn to immediacy, to the hope of connection that doesn’t need strategy to matter… lest I get it wrong. I want to be the discovery that feels inevitable, the recognition that says, “you were always it.” And so are they. Still, there’s a voice in my head that wonders whether it really is enough that two people find each other at the right time and simply begin, and whether love-at-first-sight be treated as naïve or miraculous?

I’m trying to find a middle ground.

Bring Me the Horizon capture something of this in their song Mother Tongue: “And all of those bad choices were left turns on the way.” Too often, we rewrite our past as a map of mistakes. We call them detours instead of directions. We grow suspicious — not just of others, but of ourselves. And then, when someone finally breaks through the walls we’ve built, we hesitate. We freeze at the crossroads, haunted by every sign we ignored, every time we trusted too much in the unknown and it carried us astray. And now, every compromise blurs the line between surrendering to the process and abandoning the vision we once had for our journey.

We begin to believe love can only come through trial and error, that every new beginning is a test we must pass before we’re worthy of the real thing. But what if love doesn’t need to be earned through mistakes? What if its worth lies in the distance we’ve already traveled — every detour, every false start — because they brought us here, to someone who belongs in the life we’ve grown into? What if it’s okay, to just… relax?

Philosophers and storytellers have warned us against “unearned” things. Freud spoke about unearned wisdom, and Paulo Coelho about unearned treasure. The warning is clear: what you gain without struggle may be meaningless. But I sometimes wonder if this is another story we’ve inherited. Honestly, maybe one of my ancestors was a pirate, because despite my best attempts to bury that side of me, there’s a jovial, possibly inebriated voice inside my head that insists treasure can simply be stumbled upon.

And maybe I think so much about unearned treasure in the first place because I’m still trying to make sense of what I entrusted to love and its chemistry, and how it all slipped from my hands. Not just the relationship, but the part of myself that believed it was safe to open fully, to trust that I could have something good and hold onto it. Since then, I’ve noticed how anxious I feel around romantic love itself — as if I’m tiptoeing at the edge of a cliff, both desperate to leap and terrified of falling again. I know I want to open myself to it. I know I want to risk it. But I also know I’m not ready yet. I’m still building my strength, still gathering the proof I need to believe I won’t shatter if I land wrong. And I know that’s okay, because as I pause in this in-between space, I get to become accustomed to the rhythm of my breath when I am steady and safe.

But then Hope sneaks back in, and with it, its compadre, Stupid Excitement. I met someone recently who made me feel like maybe everything I’ve been through had led me to this moment. For a second, it felt like arrival. But then the old doubts flooded back — had I shared too much, too soon? Had I given away more of myself than was safe? Suddenly I was back in the spiral, micromanaging every word, every gesture, terrified I’d ruined something before it could begin.

It’s exhausting, this back-and-forth between yearning and self-protection. And it leaves me wondering: is this what love will always feel like now? Am I doomed to this confusion, forever second-guessing myself?

I don’t fully understand why this new connection came into my life, except that it feels like preparation. Not a test, but a kind of awkward nudge toward the leap I know I’ll take eventually. Because the leap isn’t just about loving again; it’s about showing this new, healing version of myself what it looks like to live with confidence. Meeting them reminded me that hope can return, that I can still feel possibility spark. Even if it didn’t last, maybe that’s enough for now. Maybe the most generous thing I can do is let it be, without labelling it as success or failure, and trust that it still carried me forward.

What I want is simple. I don’t want to hate my ex, or the job that didn’t work out, or the choices that stretched my journey longer than I hoped. I want to trust the process. To send love to the parts of my life I’ve left behind. To believe that even my left turns carried me forward.

And maybe that’s the thing — we treat love like arrival, like the end of the journey. But what if arrival is only a pause? What if, when love shows up, we don’t immediately hand it the map and ask it to decide where we go next? What if instead we stand still for a moment, find strength in love, say our goodbyes to what came before, and continue on our path? If that same cup of love is meant to return, it will. Perhaps even in the quiet moments when we’re most focused on the road ahead. Love doesn’t need us to chase it or cage it. It needs us to stay open to it.

My difficulty, it would seem, is that I label my choices as good or bad, right or wrong. But what if they are simply choices? What if rejection isn’t proof of unworthiness, and desire isn’t something to distrust? What if I could keep feeling deserving of love — even after someone I had a life with moves on with someone else? What if treasure is treasure, and not every discovery demands a lesson? A sunset doesn’t apologise for ending, and no one calls it a failure when the night arrives. It just is.

At the end of the day, that’s enough. To live freely, to search, to trust, to move forward. And when love arrives, I’ll pause. I’ll honour it. But I will no longer confuse it for the destination.