Go! Make disciples of all nations!

By Zeth    14th May 2002    0 responses

If you walked into the temple in ancient Jerusalem, you would walk though a series of spaces separated by walls. The first area was called the ‘Court of the Gentiles’ and this was the place where non-Jews could come and worship God. The next area was called the ‘Court of Women’ and this is where women worshipped. Then came the ‘Court of Israel’ where Jewish men could worship. Next was the ‘Court of the Priests’ where only priests could worship. Finally there was the most inner court which was called the ‘Holy of Holies where only the Highest Priest could enter once a year.

The prophet Isaiah prophesied (see Isaiah chapter 56) that non-Jews would follow God. God would have a ‘house of prayer for all nations’.

Hundreds of years later in Jesus’ time this prophecy was still unfulfilled and the Court of the Gentiles was not filled with non-Jews worshipping but by Jews selling all kinds of goods, making money from the tourist industry in the nation’s religious capital.

“On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: “`My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it `a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11: 15-17).

The Jews had lost the vision, they were no longer making room for non-Jews and foreigners to come and worship God. Jesus removed all the barriers between groups, Jews and non-Jews, women and men, priests and laymen. All people are equally fallen and equally in need of God’s love. Nobody can qualify for anything on the basis of himself or herself but only on the basis of God’s mercy and grace.

Today in the 21st Century, what are our priorities as God’s people? Often issues that only interest English Christians easily fill up time in our thinking that we do not leave time for evangelism. We too can slowly let go of the vision to make disciples of all nations.

The challenge for us is to make room for non-Christians in our services, in our diaries and in our homes. With so much migration today in our increasingly global society, we must think about what Christianity is and what our English cultural additions are. Can what we are doing be understood by those who are not from an English background? It is we who must fulfil Isaiah’s prophecy to be a house of prayer for all nations.

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