Seven Billion Copies of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Printed Up And Passed Around The Whole World During Our Lifetime

If you have been fortunate enough to read the gospel of Mark, or any of the four gospels, you probably know by now that Christianity is not a rigid set of rules. Far from it. You may have correctly concluded that Christianity is nothing less than a passionate love affair between Jesus and the human race. Currently most of the passion is on Jesus’ side of the relationship; he has fallen head-over-heels in love with us. Very little of the passion has found it’s way into our collective sub-conscious mind. We, the human race, have been extremely coy and indecisive. But that is bound to change over the course of time.

Again, you have probably figured this out, but I am just becoming aware that the gospel is the door, the single door, the only door, through which Jesus reaches out his hand and introduces himself to anyone who cares to meet him.

It is a known and obvious fact that a courtship requires an initial introduction between the parties involved. Otherwise it just remains a fantasy in the mind of one or the other, and never comes to anything.

If, however, someone opens that gospel door seeking an introduction, he or she will find Jesus alive and well, absolutely trembling with anticipation and excitement, reaching out to take their hand.

That being the case, it is easy to see why Jesus is so eager to have his gospel distributed everywhere around the world. He wants to meet each one of us individually and begin the process of winning our hearts.

Those of us who have met Jesus on the other side of the gospel door, and accepted his proposition, are now absorbed in distributing and presenting the gospel to as many other people as possible. Typically this is done in one of several ways:

The Missionary Model – taking the gospel where it is not known and transmitting it verbally.
The Agricultural Model – treating the gospel as if it were a seed to be planted in someone’s life.
The Incarnational Model – living with other Christians in such a way that the gospel will seem attractive.
The Political Model – distributing the gospel in an organized and methodical way in order to make Jesus more widely known.

I have decided to adopt the political model for the purposes of this blog. As I mentioned in the sidebar at the left, Christians make up only 30% of the world’s population (as of 2017). The remaining 70%, for one reason or another, have no reasonable hope of ever getting their hands on a copy of the gospel for themselves. For various cultural and/or geographic reasons, the gospel is out of reach for a majority of people around the globe, and even for many people right here in our own country. I hope to make a tiny difference by working to correct that situation.

Can we approach our mission with the same zeal as a political campaigner? From a political strategist’s point of view, 30% of the vote might be considered a reasonable starting position. But a campaign manager would need to greatly expand his voter base if he ever hoped to win an election. In the same way, we Christians need to focus our energy on the ultimate goal, which is a world where every single individual has had the opportunity to meet Jesus personally in the pages of the gospel and consider what he has to offer us.