Jesus said that the Kingdom would spread (like yeast in dough) slowly but surely in this age throughout the world, so that by the end of the age it will have spread everywhere. He also said that the gates of Hades would not prevail against his church (Matthew 16:18). What Jesus’ parables declare is that the coming of the Kingdom is not just some remote future event. It is happening now, in this age. Many people think that the church is shrinking. But statistics that seem to indicate a decline in Christianity only show a decline in ‘nominal’ Christianity. The Christian movement is growing faster now than ever. Most of the growth, however, is happening outside countries that have been traditionally ‘Christian’. Mark Knoll writes (in The New Shape of World Christianity, 21): “The Christian church has experienced a larger geographical redistribution in the last fifty years than in any comparable period in its history, with the exception of the very earliest years of church history… More than half of all Christian adherents in the whole history of the church have been alive in the last one hundred years.” The Kingdom of God is moving and finding fertile soil in many parts of the world. Successive revivals in China, Africa, Korea and Latin America have brought a huge surge of Kingdom activity onto the face of this planet. There are many counterfeits and many mistakes being made, but God is at work. It would be a tragedy if this was happening in the world and we were not part of it. So let’s get involved!
Reflect on what your part is in what God is doing.
Read Luke 13:18-21
