We’re going to take a look at our work life, because a lot of our stress that we bring home originates in the workplace. If we ever got our work lives in balance, some issues at home would resolve themselves. I’m going to show you how we should think about work from God’s perspective both in your city and around the world.
One thing I’ve always found intriguing is that as you study church history, as far back as the book of Acts, merchants and soldiers carried the gospel around the world faster and more effectively than the apostles could. Stephen Neill said in his History of Christian Missions:
‘But in point of fact few, if any, of the great Churches were really founded by apostles. Nothing is more notable than the anonymity of these early missionaries… Luke does not turn aside to mention the name of a single one of those pioneers who laid the foundation. Peter and Paul may have organized the Church in Rome. They certainly did not found it…’ In fact, not one of the major Christian centers: Antioch, Alexander, or Rome, was founded by an apostle.
And today, the mission field seems to be customized by God so that kingdom-focused businessmen and women will have to be the one that take the gospel into the most lost parts of the world. Mats Tunehag in his article entitled Business as Mission gives some statistics on the subject:
Most un-reached peoples, he says, are found in the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist world. They live in what is called the “10/40-Window.” These are areas and people groups where the name of Jesus is not known. These are also countries – where you’ll find a large percentage of the world’s poor, 50 percent or so of the population is young (under 15–20 years of age), and you have unemployment ranges between 30 and 79%. Some estimates indicate that up to 2 billion young people will be looking for jobs over the next 20 years. For example, Iran has at least 10 million unemployed and in the next 15 years more than 20 million will be coming in searching for jobs.
These are just a few ways that God is working through the marketplace around the world. Can’t wait to be together this weekend!
For more:
Stephen Neill, A History of Christian Missions, p. 22.
Mats Tunehag, Business as Mission, p. 14.
