Something strange has happened in evangelical circles in recent decades.
It seems that a strategy for gospel ministry has developed that goes something like this: let’s reach the brightest and most influential people in society, because if we reach them we’ll reach the nation. And so our efforts have, predominantly, been focused on university cities and towns (and mainly the little bits of those cities and towns where middle-class students and graduates live). To our shame, the working class and, for want of a better term, the ‘benefit-dependant underclass’, have, by and large, been ignored by our constituency.
God’s different strategy
But it seems that God’s strategy is very different to the way we have played things. The way that Scripture reveals how God has operated in redemption history should give us confidence to take the gospel to the council estates, the high-rise flats and the visibly broken communities — as well as the other places!
Knowing that the gospel is God’s power to save those who are perishing should be reason enough to send us to wherever people live. But God’s word gives us further reasons for confidence to take the gospel to those places which, from a worldly point of view, would be considered the lowliest: the places where many people, given the choice, might not choose to live.
What we would never choose
Through the gospel and for his glory, God chooses the places and people that we would never choose.
In salvation history God chose a nation through which he would draw men, women and children from across the globe to himself through Jesus Christ. But God didn’t choose one of the large, great, powerful nations of the time like Egypt or Assyria. He chose a small, unimpressive, often dysfunctional nation — Israel — raised up, incidentally, from one of the most screwed up families in Scripture!
Over and over again we see God choosing and using individuals that the world would never have chosen… Abel not Cain; Isaac not Ishmael; Jacob not Esau; Rahab (the prostitute); Ruth (the Moabitess); Gideon (least in his family and from the smallest tribe); Nineveh (a place with a human-rights record worse than China and North Korea put together); and David (the shepherd boy with seven brothers, all of whom, in worldly terms, were far more impressive than he).
When Jesus was born, to whom did the angels announce the birth of the Saviour? Not to kings or princes but to smelly shepherds — the equivalent of young men with an ‘ASBO’ who were only good for looking after sheep. Then there are the 12 apostles — the world would never have picked them! How about that woman in Mark 5 — an unclean social outcast due to 12 years’ bleeding? She came trembling to Jesus, aware that, having touched his garment, his power had healed her and turned her life around. In the previous chapter, Mark tells how the disciples were also terrified of Jesus when they saw his awesome power to calm a storm. Both the woman and the disciples were afraid… but Jesus calls the female social outcast ‘daughter’ because of her faith, but criticises his disciples at that stage for their lack of faith. And there are plenty more examples in Scripture of God choosing those that the world would never choose. But why does he do it?
To nullify the things that are
For a very good reason. Remember what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church (a church, incidentally, with probably more ‘issues’ than any other that he wrote to). ‘Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many of you were influential; not many of you were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are…’ (1 Corinthians 1.26-27).
Wonderful! God intentionally chose those whom the world would not choose. He did not target the well-qualified or the respectable, but, instead, chose the low achievers and the people whose lives were a right mess.
The church then (and today) is living proof that salvation is not to do with human wisdom or greatness. We appear a pathetic and feeble bunch compared to the wealth and celebrity of many in the world.
And the reason? So that on the last day, no one may boast before him. On the last day, no one will say: ‘Of course he’s here in heaven… he was so wise, he knew so much… She was such a bright cookie — I knew she’d work it out eventually’. No! On that day, apparently insignificant people who have responded to God’s word of the cross (the foolish message of the cross) will shame the ones that the world in its wisdom would have chosen… the beautiful, the so-called ‘wise’, the rich, the famous, the powerful — and all who with them turn their noses up at the word of the cross.
This is why I am not surprised when people who would not be given a second look or thought by the world come to faith and have understanding of spiritual things that frankly shames the so-called ‘wise’. That way God gets all the glory.
Brilliant evangelist
I have a Christian friend who has been in and out of work — eight jobs in six years and various spells of unemployment — who aspires to work in Tesco. He has applied several times, but they won’t have him! He is inarticulate, has no qualifications, but… he understands the gospel, loves Jesus and is a brilliant evangelist. The world would never choose him — not in a month of Sundays — but God is glorified through him.
‘Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him?’ (James 2.5).
That’s the way God operates… and so it should drive us to the places we have avoided, and cause us to sit a bit more loosely to the humanly ‘strategic’ places. The council estates of Britain are great places to be doing gospel ministry!
Pete Jackson is vicar of St. Andrew’s Church, Kendray, Barnsley, South Yorkshire. This article is edited from a talk given at the Northern Evangelists Conference, October 2010.
