Despite calls by Islamic clerics in Afghanistan for the release of two dozen South Korean missionaries, the reconstituted Taliban say they will set a new deadline for their demands to be met or they will kill them. They have already murdered one of the missionaries. All went to Afghanistan to help the wounded, sick and hungry, as their faith commands them.

We hear a lot about martyrs these days, but these Christian missionaries, especially the one who died, are the real martyrs. They claim no territorial rights. They seek to impose nothing on anyone else. They simply want to demonstrate the love of Jesus to others. Islam supposedly reveres Jesus as a prophet, but you wouldn’t know it from the Taliban’s behavior.

They could all die. That’s a price missionaries sometimes pay. But the glory set before them is worth it. In human terms, we should pray they will be freed. But let’s also pray that God will glorify Himself through them, however He chooses to do it. They are not the first true martyrs and they will not be the last.

Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.