This year at www.mobc.org.au, we have adopted a motto based on the gospel according to Matthew 28:19, “Go and make disciples of all nations.”
Last Sunday, our senior pastor Tim Burns talked about how God love extends to ALL nations and how followers of Jesus are called to go and teach God's grace and salvation to people of every nation.
According to Bible scholars, the original Greek word used for "nations" is "ethnē", a plural form of the "ethnos" from which the English word "ethnic" is derived.
New Testament scholars believe that Jesus was specifically talking about the many ethnic groups of people scattered across the globe. People with a distinct language and culture.
Roughly speaking, there are about 196 different countries in the world. According to the Australian government, in 2013-14, 163 017 people became Australian citizens by conferral from at least 190 different countries.
According to www.ethnologue.com, there are 7106 living languages today which invariably means that there are over 7000 different ethnic groups Jesus was talking about.
According to Joshua Project, "approximately 4.75 billion individuals residing in an estimated 8,463 distinct people groups" live in areas where the church has minimal or no presence.
"5,915 (62.5 %) of these people groups are considered unreached and have a population of 2.91 billion (61.3 %)" according tohttp://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/10_40_window
Only 121 years ago, the people group/ethnic group I come from i.e. Mizo/Lushai, had never heard the name of Christ. They had no written language and had very little contact with the outside world. Two brave young men from London, FW Savidge and JH Lorraine took the words of Jesus in Matthew 28:19 to heart and went to the then Lushai Hills and did exactly what Jesus commanded His followers.
Today, I can boldly proclaim that I come from an evangelised Mizo ethnic nation as a result of the obedience of the two English blokes who obeyed the commandment of Jesus given 2000 years ago. We owe all to the gospel of Jesus.
But Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
2.91 billion people alone donot have the knowledge of the God of the Bible.
Let us pray, sincerely, that we as a body of Christ will stay the course and focus on this Great Commission. Remember, "God...wants ALL people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Tim 2:4)
