Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learnt and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learnt it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:12-15
Persecution is normative for the Christian life; it is never a strange occurrence. Indeed, Paul says, simply the desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will bring persecution upon a believer. Why? Jesus puts it simply,
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you… But all these things they will do to you on account of My name because they do not know Him who sent Me.”
John 15:18-20a, 21
So then, what are we to do? Paul’s advice to Pastor Timothy is the same for us. “Continue in what you have learnt and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learnt it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.” In the Lutheran Church, we acquaint all our children with the sacred writings—the Scriptures—from an early age. Indeed, the best parents begin to catechise from the womb—some will read the Scriptures aloud, others will purchase an audiobook of the Bible and play it softly against her womb with headphones. Every night with their little ones, they pray and have family devotions, say the Creed, even sing a hymn. All this continues as they come of age to attend Confirmation class. Then once they’re publicly confirmed in the faith, the catechesis continues.
Catechesis does not cease in adulthood, not even at the Rite of Confirmation. If/when you are persecuted, or suffer in any other way, remember from whom and what you have learnt in the Scriptures. That is, return to the Scriptures, even the Small Catechism that was designed to help you recall the Scriptures. This one is always my favourite from the catechism,
I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten from the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the Virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned person, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood and with His innocent suffering and death, that I may be His own and live under Him in His kingdom…
SC, The Second Article, What does this mean?; emphasis mine
The Scriptures will “make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus,” meaning they reveal to you and assure you of the salvation you have through Christ Jesus our Lord, by grace through faith, such as what you just read from Luther’s explanation to the 2nd Article of the Creed. It is all too easy to forget this; therefore, we need constant reminding not just through the liturgy and our pastor’s sermon on Sundays, but also every day through the daily readings of the Scriptures and the catechism.
The Lutheran Column 