God is the God of big moments. When he created the universe, he started with a single command: “Let there be light,” and the cosmos exploded into being in a single moment. When God’s people faced certain death on the shore of the Red Sea, God parted the waters in a single moment so they could safely pass through. When Israel faced defeat at the hands of a superior army, David conquered a giant in a single moment.
God’s big moments are not arbitrary but carefully planned and accomplished “at just the right time.” When the world needed a Savior, God sent his Son “at just the right time” (Gal. 4:4). It was a moment like no other.
Over the course of the 2,000 years since Jesus lived and died on this earth, there are three distinct moments that stick out to me where God has used technology and connectivity to spread the Good News. These moments are separated by hundreds of years, but each share a similar component of God’s using ordinary people to get his work done.
The first big moment occurred when Jesus lived, died, rose again, and ascended to heaven, leading to the birth of the church: the Roman roads. Roads seem pedestrian to us, but the Romans roads were a technological marvel, designed and built by the Roman Empire for the movement of armies, trade goods, and communication. God used the technology and connectivity of the Roman roads to transmit the story of Jesus to the known world.
The Romans built a quarter million miles of roads—50,000 miles of which were paved—and it’s estimated that the Apostle Paul traveled over 10,000 miles on these roads during his missionary journeys, establishing churches and connecting them to the gospel and to each other.
The second big moment in the last 2,000 years was the printing press, developed by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. Before the printing press, one person could produce 40 pages per day. Printing presses throughout Western Europe had produced 20 million volumes by 1500, including Bibles. In fact, the first book printed on the Gutenberg Press was a Bible.
This technological breakthrough spawned many world-changing advancements in architecture, literature, and science. The Reformation and the Renaissance were made possible because of the availability and proliferation of books and literacy. And the Good News message of Jesus went throughout the world thanks to the efforts of Bible translators.
Now we come to the third big moment, where technology and digital advancements are on full display for all of us to see, experience, and use.
When Paul was carrying the Good News message of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire on foot, there were less than 200 million people in the world. When the printing press spread across Europe, the global population was 500 million. Today there are 8.2 billion people in the world, and it’s estimated there are 6 billion smartphones in use, each one capable of containing a Bible in thousands of languages or the visual story of Jesus in hundreds of languages.
As the global ambassador for Come and See, a nonprofit whose mission is to reach a billion people with the authentic Jesus, these kinds of statistics excite and challenge me. That’s because Come and See is accomplishing its mission by making it possible for “The Chosen“—the first multi-season television series about Jesus and his chosen followers—to be produced, translated, and available to the entire world for free through the technology and connectivity already in place.
I’ve witnessed first-hand the response of viewers in Egypt, Brazil, Korea, and the Asia Pacific world. When people watch an episode of “The Chosen” in their own language, it speaks to their heart. Lives are impacted and changed because they are experiencing the greatest story ever about the most significant Person in history in a way they’ve never seen and heard before.
It’s our responsibility to steward the creativity and digital advancements to move forward the Kingdom, taking full advantage of every opportunity available to share the Good News with the world.
