My family was on the cusp of a significant transition when Covid-19 hit Italy. We had been living in Sicily serving refugees for three years and were preparing to move to Barcelona for a new season of ministry. We felt firsthand how quickly things got out of control since we were quarantined on 9 March as Italy was the first country in Europe to learn lessons about coronavirus the hard way. If someone had told me in January that coronavirus, with a 2.5 rate of contagion, would shut down the entire world, I would have laughed.
But now, the world watches anxiously to see whether we are able to successfully restart our economies without bringing on a second wave that wreaks more havoc than the first. What has become abundantly clear over the past several months is that the current coronavirus pandemic is dangerous, not because of the mortality rate, but rather the contagiousness of the disease. The two go hand-in-hand, of course, in the sense that the further the coronavirus spreads, the more vulnerable people will fall victim to its curse. This contagiousness, though, sounds similar to examples of discipleship that we see modelled in the New Testament.
The ‘contagiousness’ or reproducibility of biblical discipleship was clearly modelled by Jesus. His primary objective during the years of His ministry was not to see how many sermons He could preach, people He could heal, dead He could raise. Those things were all important. However, His ministry served as a model that Jesus intended to be reproduced. In Luke chapter nine, Jesus sends out 12 disciples to do the very things that he had been doing. Then, in Luke chapter ten, He sends out a group of 72. Jesus’ desire wasn’t to be the only one doing the ministry, but to invest in a few (12) so that the impact of his ministry would multiply.
After Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, things didn’t slow down – instead, they picked up. Jesus’ words to his disciples in Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8 (commonly referred to as the Great Commission) were a call to make disciples all over the world. Jesus’ desire was for the good news of salvation to be contagious and consequently to reach the ends of the earth. The book of Acts shows us how contagious that gospel message and model of discipleship were!
On the day of Pentecost, through Peter’s bold message, 3,000 people repented and were baptised (Acts 2:41). From that point on, things continued to grow and spread. Acts 2:47 tells us that people were coming to faith every day. So, just a brief review – Jesus discipled 12 men whom he eventually sent out. Later that number increased to 72. Eventually the message impacted 3,000 people (from many different linguistic groups I might add) and continued to grow daily. You would be right to think: ‘Gosh – that spread quickly!’ Correct. Kind of like coronavirus. It took off. It spread. It multiplied. So much so that Paul writes in Romans 15:23 that there was no place left for him to work because the gospel had spread throughout the whole region (Rom.15:19).
You might be thinking: ‘Why does it seem like Christianity is having the opposite effect? I keep hearing that churches are closing – why is that?’ Could it be that the church, (especially in the Global North) has lost its vision for discipleship? Though the biblical model of discipleship in Scripture seemed vibrant and contagious, it seems that discipleship in many churches around the world is now stuck in stagnancy. It feels as though, in terms of discipleship, most believers are living in quarantine rather than doing the joyous work of propagating the gospel!
People are now recognising, perhaps more than ever in recent history, the symptoms of our broken world. This is exactly the window of opportunity that is needed to speak about the beautiful, transformative, redemptive good news of the gospel. The world needs this message, and this is why: the gospel spreads hope, where coronavirus spreads fear. The gospel brings life, where coronavirus threatens death. Coronavirus isolates people, and the gospel unites. Coronavirus creates anxiety, the gospel’s transformative work gives a peace beyond understanding. Paul said it well: ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes.’ (Rom. 1:16) The further the gospel spreads, the more people will be impacted by its truth and transformative power.
Ask yourself: ‘How contagious is my faith? Who in my life desperately needs the message of hope in Christ right now?’ Instead of quarantining the gospel, let us live with the conviction that if anything is worth spreading around the world it is the good news of salvation through Jesus!
