by Brian Walters, Director of Adult Ministries @ MBC Loudoun

“And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:7).

At first glance I thought describing the word of God as growing was a strange expression to be used here.  Surely, Luke did not mean the Bible was going to grow bigger and bigger. So when I looked at the Greek for ‘word’ in this context, which is ‘logos ‘I discovered that Luke used the masculine grammatical gender of’ logos here, that can be defined as the content of what is preached about Christ or about the Good News.  This specific rendering of the word ‘logos’ could also be found in Acts 19:20 and Colossians 1:5.  In other words, Luke was saying the Good News of God was being told to non-believers more and more every day.

This makes sense because as God’s Word is proclaimed on fertile soil (Mark 4:20) more and more people will come to faith in Jesus Christ. The result of more people coming to faith is more disciples, and in this particular case, more Jewish priests were coming to faith in Jesus Christ. Did you catch that? Re-read the last sentence if you missed it.  Hello, Jewish priests are converting to Christ.  The Jewish priests were the ones who wanted Christ crucified (Matt. 23:6; 14-14; 57-67). If this is not an evangelistic impact in a community I don’t know what is!

So you are thinking, I get what you’re throwing down Brian.  I understand we need to tell others about the Good News and that the Holy Spirit can make a believer out of anyone, but how can I live this out in my life?  Great question and my answer to you this week is … DC Schools Project on August 20.  You can volunteer at the DC Schools Project by clicking on this link HERE.  This is a great way to serve with your whole family and helps your children, even at a very young age, to begin to understand what it means to serve others.  When you are there take every opportunity to tell students, principles, teachers or others in the community who may be involved about why you are there. Let’s be a FORCE in the community and not an idle player.