🌎 Will the Gospel Reach ALL Nations??

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“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14

Earthquakes, wars, famines, persecutions, and death. All of these things are said to mark the time leading to Jesus’ return, but what about the one sign almost no one talks about? What did Jesus mean when he said the Gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the WHOLE WORLD before the end would come?

I ask this because many today say this is a sign that Jesus' return is near through their FUTURISTIC interpretation of the events described by Jesus in Matthew 24 (and by futuristic, I mean they think it is a prophecy for our day). They say Jesus was referring to the end of the world. Yes, as I've covered elsewhere, this is at least in part true. Remember, the Jews have a “partial hardening” until the fullness of the Gentiles come in (Romans 11:25).  

More to the point, I believe the Gospel will have tremendous success BEFORE Jesus returns. I think this is undeniably what the Bible teaches. Nonetheless, modern readers should understand this prophetic word in relation to its original audience. Why do we so often forget this? Like other statements, Jesus in his olive discourse, this one should be taken more immediately as a reference to the KNOWN world of Jesus’ day. I think that's how his audience would've taken it.

Why do I think this? Well, how would a first century audience, the audience to whom the Bible was written, have interpreted the concept of the “world”? Were they thinking about the earth as we see it today with all of its remote islands and continence? Probably not in order to prove this, take a look at how the Apostle Paul accentuates Jesus’ real meaning in the Olivet Discourse in his (Paul’s) writings about thirty years later, while saying this about the extent of the Gospel's advance: “Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my Gospel, which has now been made known TO ALL NATIONS.”

This comment wasn't a fluke, however. Later, he also remarked in his letter to the Colossians, “The Gospel, which has come to you as indeed IN THE WHOLE WORLD is bearing fruit and growing.” It seems to me that Paul had a pretty optimistic view of how well the early church was doing. To be honest, I believe this is the whole of the message of the book of Acts in the Bible, and particularly its ending, which many naively see as anti-climactic … you know, because Paul in in prison.

Yet, if you follow the trajectory of Acts, you see that Jesus said in the beginning that his church would bear witness of him to the “ends of the earth,” so that's why Luke ends acts with Paul in prison in Rome. It was his way of putting an exclamation point on the story. God's Spirit has given us the victory in Jesus. He was showing you that the Church of his day was faithful to God's mission by taking the gospel to the capital of the known and inhabited world. This misunderstanding of the end, by the way, also seems to have been the thrust of the Disciples’ original question to Jesus as they walked away from the temple: “When will these things happen and what will be the sign of your coming at the end of the age?” Yet this misunderstanding also illuminates the issues of greatest importance to the Jews of the first century … those of the temple, the sacrificial system, their laws, and way of life.

In other words, the end of the world wasn't the subject of Jesus' sermon that day as much as the end of THEIR world, even if for the disciples, those two were seen as the same thing. “Yes,” the Bible speaks of events that are yet to come. And “yes,” there still may be reflections in Jerusalem's ancient destruction of the things that will take place on the earth at the end of history when Satan is unbound to deceive the nations for a short time.

You see, the same things that were true for them will also be true for us. It has to be that way because we all share in Jesus' narrative of death and resurrection (meaning we, like Jesus, must face sufferings before we are glorified). Not a lot of people are preaching that today, but I assure you, friends, it's true. And there is actually great hope in that, not only for us, but for our communities and our world.

But what do you think?

Is Gospel proclamation a sign of the end-times?

What relevance did this statement by Jesus meant to his original audience?

How can you be more dedicated to Gospel proclamation today?

Watch the video 👉 https://youtu.be/MHKOT_P0jzA