Thursday, January 16, 2020

THE NATURAL OUTCOME OF PREACHING CHRIST

“[Paul and Barnabas] preached the gospel in that city and won a large number of disciples. Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith.”  (Acts 14:21-22 NIV)

Paul, the sometime tent maker and sometime fully supported missionary, established local churches wherever he went. Yet it is perhaps misleading to think his church planting as a strategy. Paul didn’t establish these communities merely as a means to an end, as though evangelism was more important than community, or as though he measured the success of the kingdom in terms of numbers rather than the quality of life which people experienced in these churches. Instead, these communities were the natural outcome of preaching Christ. They are also God’s appointed way of experiencing and demonstrating the Gospel’s power to transform people’s lives.

-- Mark Strom in “The Symphony of Scripture: Making Sense of the Bible’s Many Themes”


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