evangelizing the many… discipling the few

For many are called, but few are chosen.

Matthew 22:14

The gospel is meant to go wide… our command is to take it to the entire world… to every ethnic group. The call that Jesus still makes is global in its efforts. The church should never forget this. We want every person to understand that Jesus died for our sins and was raised to give us new life. This is why Christians much plant churches globally.

We have no idea which people will respond to the gospel, which ones have not yet heard it, and which people God is preparing by His Spirit to believe. And so we assume every person needs to learn about this good news. We want to talk about Jesus as we can, where we can, with whomever we can. This is why evangelism, missions, and disciple-making among the nations must always exist until Jesus returns. He is still issuing the call in gospel proclamation to the many.

Though the effort is global, the effectiveness of it is very personal. Jesus Himself emphasized that even as the gospel goes wide, true saving faith and discipleship that goes deep is a much smaller response. The gospel is preached to many. Only a few really join the chosen. Only those who repent of sin, believe that Jesus is their only Savior, and commit to following Him truly join the ranks of His chosen ones. We can make disciples only of those who have chosen Jesus because He has chosen them. That is the reality of what we do.

We must embrace this balancing tension. We heartily proclaim Jesus everywhere. We seek to grow disciples among the few who will believe. We cannot identify those chosen ahead of time. We can only rejoice with them and welcome them once they believe, are baptized, and join the ranks of the faithful. So we keep reaching out to the many, and teaching the few until Jesus returns.