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Evangelism
Brian Mashburn
November 15, 2020
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Evangelism
This week would be a great week to start (or re-start) with us as we make our way through the Bible in our 2020 Southwest Bible Project! Why? Well, if you look at the schedule, you will see that tomorrow we will begin a brand new book of the Bible, and that is always a great place to re-engage with scripture.
Today we finish the book of Acts. One of the ways that I like to look at this historical book is as a record of early Christian growth and expansion. From the beginning chapters to the end, and all the way through, you will notice that the author, Luke, intentionally makes statements about the church's numerical growth and its expansion all over the (known) world. Some examples...
Acts 2:41 - "About 3,000 were added to their number."
Act 2:47 - "The Lord added to their number daily."
Acts 5:14 - "More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number."
Acts 6:1 - "In those days the number of disciples was increasing."
Acts 11:24 - "And a great number of people were brought to the Lord."
Acts 16:5 - "The churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers."
Acts 19:20 - "The Word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power."
This week, I would like us to explore this question: How did this happen?
Of course, the Holy Spirit was on the move, and we know God ultimately gets all the credit and glory. But if you pay attention, you will notice that for whatever reason, God the Holy Spirit insisted on using people to do that work.
So the questions alters slightly, and becomes, what did the people do to join the Holy Spirit in this expansive Kingdom growth?
Today we explore that answer. We explore what the Bible calls evangelism.