“The weakness of the Church lies not in the lack of Christian arguments but in the lack of Christian lives.” (William Barclay)

The story of Scripture is the story of God’s power at work through God’s people. Seldom have we been a majority in any nation or culture. Whether it was kings or prophets, fishermen or tax collectors, former Pharisees or imprisoned apostles, God’s Spirit has used his people as salt and light in ways that changed the course of history.

Jesus taught his disciples this parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13:31–32).

The mustard seed is the “smallest of all seeds” used in Jesus’ day (about the size of a period at the end of a sentence today). Would anyone believe that a tree some ten feet tall could grow from it? But the farmer has faith. He plants it, waters it, and waits for it. It takes time, several years, in fact.

Eventually, that tiny seed becomes a tree so large that birds come from all over to settle on its branches. They eat some of the seeds it produces. And that tree multiplies itself until it makes more and more trees—all from one seed so small you must strain even to see it in your hand.

That, says Jesus, is how God builds his kingdom on earth. Here we have the mustard-seed movement: God uses anything we entrust to him to do more than we ever imagined he would. If only we believe he can.

The mustard-seed movement in Scripture

Let’s examine the mustard-seed movement in Scripture:

• Noah worked for one hundred years by himself to build an Ark to save the human race when it had never rained before.
• Moses stood before Pharaoh with nothing more than a rod in his hand and God’s call in his heart.
• David fought the mighty Goliath with a slingshot.
• Prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel spoke divine revelation with effect all out of proportion to their social status.

One of the most remarkable Old Testament examples of the mustard-seed movement is the story of Gideon at the Spring of Harod. I have led more than thirty study tour groups to this spot, one of my favorite sites in all of Israel.

The Midianites were the enemy of the Jewish people and an indestructible army: “They would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in” (Judges 6:5). Yet God called Gideon to march against them, his thirty-two thousand foot soldiers against their vast army (Judges 7:3).

Then God said, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’ Now therefore proclaim in the ears of the people, saying, ‘Whoever is fearful and trembling, let him return home and hurry away from Mount Gilead.’ Then 22,000 of the people returned, and 10,000 remained” (vv. 2–3).

Then he told Gideon:

“The people are still too many. Take them down to the water, and I will test them for you there, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall go with you,’ shall go with you, and anyone of whom I say to you, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ shall not go.” So he brought the people down to the water. And the Lᴏʀᴅ said to Gideon, “Every one who laps the water with his tongue, as a dog laps, you shall set by himself. Likewise, every one who kneels down to drink.” And the number of those who lapped, putting their hands to their mouths, was 300 men, but all the rest of the people knelt down to drink water” (vv. 4–6).

Now “the Lᴏʀᴅ said to Gideon, “With the 300 men who lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hand, and let all the others go every man to his home.’ So the people took provisions in their hands, and their trumpets. And he sent all the rest of Israel every man to his tent, but retained the 300 men. And the camp of Midian was below him in the valley” (vv. 7–8).

With these three hundred, each bearing a trumpet and a torch, they went to battle. And this was the result:

Gideon and the hundred men who were with him came to the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, when they had just set the watch. And they blew the trumpets and smashed the jars that were in their hands. Then the three companies blew the trumpets and broke the jars. They held in their left hands the torches, and in their right hands the trumpets to blow. And they cried out, “A sword for the Lᴏʀᴅ and for Gideon!” Every man stood in his place around the camp, and all the army ran. They cried out and fled. When they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lᴏʀᴅ set every man’s sword against his comrade and against all the army. And the army fled as far as Beth-shittah toward Zererah, as far as the border of Abel-meholah, by Tabbath (vv. 19–22).

The New Testament demonstrates the same pattern. Jesus told us that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matthew 5:13–16). It doesn’t take much salt to change the flavor of food or much light to shine in the dark. You can think of examples immediately:

• Peter, the fisherman who failed his Lord before preaching the Pentecost sermon
• Paul, the Pharisee who persecuted Christians before taking the gospel across the Empire
• John, exiled on Patmos where he received the Revelation for the world

The first-century church had no strategy for political power or cultural engagement. They simply went where they went as the people of God, and, by Acts 17:6, they had “turned the world upside down.”

And the same model has worked throughout Christian history:

• Martin Luther was an unknown German monk when he nailed his 95 Theses on the community bulletin board and sparked the Protestant Reformation.
• William Wilberforce read a relatively unknown book by Thomas Clarkson about the horrors of the slave trade and then worked to abolish it.
• And each of the Great Awakenings of the last three hundred years, even when led by well-known preachers, was fueled by the prayers and support of countless anonymous Christians who chose to embrace God’s call for their lives.

In short, God has always chosen to rely on the faithfulness of his people to advance his kingdom and help people to know him. And now it’s our turn.

So what would that look like in our culture today?

 

Denison Forum