We normally think of it as a long way away, right? The mission field is over there, somewhere, in deepest darkest Africa, or in China, or in Dubai, something like that. That's all well and good, of course, but it sort of prompts another sort of question, which is that if the mission field is over there somewhere, then what's the deal with those countries that we think of as being the mission field sending missionaries over here?
Yes and no.
I mean, yes, because of course the Gospel did spread rapidly at that point and went global very very rapidly, of course, but here's a key feature that you may very well have forgotten, which was that although the message of the disciples moved out with shocking speed from Jerusalem, and to all Judea, and to the ends of the earth, it wasn't as though the disciples were multilingual, and the twelve of them moved all through the entire earth spreading the Gospel. Rather, the New Testament was written in Greek, first and foremost. It was written in Greek so that it could move as rapidly as possible through the ancient known world, so that people all over the empire, from one end to the other, would be able to read the mighty works of God, and then be able to translate that into their own languages, to communicate the works of God to those who are close to them, near and dear to them. Most people then, if they weren't monolingual in the lingua franca, were bilingual with the lingua franca and a mother tongue. The lingua franca at the time being Greek. The lingua franca today is English. English is the language of the internet, the language of global commerce, the language of facebook and netflix, the language of amazon and myspace, if you know English, the internet opens up to you. If you don't know English, it's a good idea to learn. That's all.
So the idea that you should learn mandarin or Cantonese, that you should learn how to speak Hindi or Arabic before you could do any kind of evangelism, that idea blows right out when you consider that the disciples were unicultural, they were people all from a very similar, if not identical background, and even after Pentecost, they didn't go from place to place speaking in multiple languages. They went to their own, and continued to spread out all over the place, but they were primarily engaged in speaking, at least at the beginning to their own. And that's where you come in.
The story of Pentecost isn't a story about how the disciples kept on speaking multiple languages and then left their nation behind, rather it is a glimpse of the global reach that the Gospel was to enjoy. The global reach that the Gospel would have, where it would travel to every corner of the globe, to be seen by all sorts of people all over the place and to be heard by all the people of the earth. Good news, to be sure, and good news for all the people to hear. But you may look at the situation that you're in, and say 'but here we are, in a country where the Christian faith is on the decline, so perhaps we should just focus on sending missionaries elsewhere.' You could be excused for thinking that, given that China is on schedule for being the most Christian country in the world probably in your own lifetime. Their congregations are on the rise, and ours are on the decline . Surely, it's time to send missionaries over there, so that we can grow the church in its new home. Well, if you think like that, then I want to bring up the Old Testament reading for you. Ezekiel in the valley of the dry bones. Ezekiel, who went to the valley of dry bones, where the Lord spoke to him, and told him to prophesy to the bones, which Ezekiel dutifully did, even though Ezekiel knows what bones are all about. He is well aware that bones that are very dry don't live. But he played along, prophesied to the bones, and they came together with a great rattling sound, bone to bone. And then, as they had flesh and sinews on them, but no breath in them, God told Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath, which he did, and the breath came into them, and they stood, a great army. That was the nation of Israel, and it's the church of Christ, too. I know what you're going to say about evangelism, which is that we had a good run here in the west, but we had our moment and it's all done now. The christian centre has moved to the global south, to China, to India, to Nigeria, and we are in decline. But your job as Pentecost people is to continue to prophesy to the bones that you see. To see a world where the hope is cut off, where the bones are very dry, and to prophesy to those bones and to speak the word of God to them. The word of God that is the only thing that can move from death to life, from decline to acceleration, from waning to forward motion. The word of God that is lively and active, that can accomplish great and powerful things, that word of God, prophesy even to the bones that you see, for the word of God does not return to him void, you know. When you hear of the story of Pentecost, how the disciples were able to be heard in all sorts of languages in all sorts of spaces, where the disciples were able to be heard and understood in all sorts of tongues thanks to the Holy Spirit's indwelling, count yourself lucky that one of the languages in which the Gospel was heard was English. And English, which didn't even exist at the time, is now a language in which the Gospel is freely and fully heard, and you as a person who speaks English, who knows the power of the Gospel, who knows that the world desperately needs to hear a message of life instead of death, of purpose instead of meaninglesness, of passion instead of boredom, of vigor instead of vanishing, you have a responsibility to continue that Pentecost work today. Do I sincerely believe that you are going to go out and evangelize China? No, I sure don't but don't worry, the Chinese have got that in check. But perhaps, if you expect this nation to continue to be one in which the Gospel is heard as well as preached, there's only one language you need to know, and that's the one you already speak. If you want things to stay the same where you are, you can't leave them alone .
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