By Dr. William Evans Associate Dean of the Bible Institute of Los Angeles
this age is clear, again, from the structure o f the book o f Acts, a careful considera tion of which reveals the fact that the book does not deal so much with those good men, Peter, James and John, who stayed at home, as with Paul and Barna bas, who went out into the broad world, and who are in fact the heroes of the book. It is one o f the purposes o f the Acts to show how the church gradually detached itself from Jerusalem and attached itself to the world. This age is a magnificent parenthesis" o f history, lying as it does between Pente cost and the Second Advent o f our Lord, between the casting off and the receiving again o f Israel. This is the age o f world evangelism. The business o f the day in which we live is to take the gospel to the whole world. - We may not bring all the world to Christ, but we must take Christ to all the world. The whole world may not desire Christ and His gospel, but Christ and the gospel desire the whole world. Indeed the gospel was made for the world and the world for the gospel. The limit o f the gospel is “all nations” and “ every creature.” This is the beneficence o f Christianity: it is not
HIS is the age of the Holy Spirit, the - continuation of the apostolic age. Because it is the age' o f the Spirit it is also the age of Missions,
for missionary activity is the Spirit’s plan for this dispensation. This is clearly evi dent from a study of Acts 15 :13-18: “And after they had held their peace, James answered, saying, Men and breth ren, hearken unto me: Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit . the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets; as it is written, A fter this I will return, and will build again the taber nacle of David which is fallen down; and I will Jmild- again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up: That the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all theAJen- tiles, upon whom my. name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things. Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.”. It is the purpose o f Him who made the ages that the age in which we live should be characterized by world-wide evangeliza tion. That Missions are the Spirit’s plan for
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker