The Worldwide Spread of the Good News of Jesus Christ
JRMI Article Series
by Jerry Robinson
Posted: 7/2/07
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"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come" (Matt. 24:14 NKJV)
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As we continue our article series, A Time Like No Other, we will examine the first of ten Biblical predictions about the last days: The Worldwide Spread of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The Recent Explosive Growth of Christianity
Since the death, burial, and resurrection of its founder, Jesus Christ, the life-changing message of the Christian faith has spread like wildfire throughout the known world. From its initial establishment as a religious community in Jerusalem, early Christian adherents faithfully carried the message of the Risen Christ throughout Israel and abroad. Through the collective efforts of these early followers, and despite extreme persecution, the Christian message spread east to Asia and had infiltrated the Roman Empire within decades of its inception.
By 313 A.D., the Roman Emperor, Constantine, issued the Edict of Milan which ended institutionalized persecution of Christians in the Empire. This newfound freedom to worship publicly had many interesting repercussions on the early church. Among these was a proliferation of the Christian message throughout the empire.
Interestingly, despite the intense evangelism conducted by the early church, it wasn’t until the year 1430 A.D. that Bible believing Christians made up 1% of the world population. In other words, estimates indicate that it took nearly 1400 years for Bible believing Christians to make up 1% of the world population! Note: The phrase "Bible-believing" Christians strictly refers to those Christians who are considered Evangelical in their approach to the Bible.
It wasn’t until the year 1790 A.D. (360 years later) that Bible believing Christians made up 2% of the world population.
By the 20th century, this growth among evangelicals began to increase rapidly as seen by the estimated numbers below:
By AD 1940, (3%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 32 after 150 years)
By AD 1960, (4%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 24 after 20 years)
By AD 1970, (5%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 19 after 10 years)
By AD 1980, (6%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 16 after 10 years)
By AD 1983, (7%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 13 after 3 years)
By AD 1986, (8%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 11 after 3 years)
By AD 1989, (9%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 10 after 3 years)
By AD 1993, (10%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 9 after 4 years)
By AD 1997, (11%) were Bible believing Christians. (One to 8 after 4 years)
For more similar statistics, click here.
Recently, it has been estimated that 645 million or (11%) of the world population are Evangelicals (or Bible believing) Christians. Note: It is important to distinguish this smaller number of Evangelicals from the larger (and more publicized) number of 2 billion professing adherents of Christianity across the globe. Why? Because of the world’s 2 billion professing Christians, 1 billion are Roman Catholic.
Below is a color coded map of the world based upon the percentage of Christians living in each country.
Christianity Percentage By Country
Ten Largest Churches in the World... Not in America
However, while Christian growth in Western countries has cooled recently, growth in the number of Evangelical Christians in the Southern Hemisphere and the Far East is occurring at a staggering pace. Consider the following list of cities with the world’s largest churches.
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DID YOU KNOW? Cities with the World’s Largest Churches
1) Seoul, South Korea (Yoido Full Gospel Church)
2) Abidjan, Ivory Coast (Works and Mission Baptists Church)
3) Santiago, Chile (Yotabeche Methodist P. Church)
4) Bogotá, Colombia (Mision Carismatica Internacional)
5) Lagos, Nigeria (Deeper Life Bible Church)
6) San Salvador, El Salvador (Elim Church)
7) Seoul, South Korea (Nambu Full Gospel)
8) Kyunggi-do, South Korea (AOG Grace and Truth)
9) Seoul, South Korea (Kum Ran Methodist)
10) Santa Fe, Argentina (Vision de Futuro)
*This list does not include house church networks
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If you expected to see an American city on that list, I recommend that you read a groundbreaking book called, The Next Christendom, by Phillip Jenkins. Dr. Jenkins has provided a wake-up call to Western churches through his documentation of the global growth of the Christian church. He has compiled some incredible data in this book that will shock you and will help you to appreciate what the Lord is doing in these last days.
Fulfilling the Great Commission a Little More Each Day
Before God judges the earth, He will ensure that everyone has had a chance to hear the Christian message of hope and reconciliation afforded through the death and resurrection of Christ. Due to my own reading of the Bible, I believe that the majority of this global evangelism will take place during the 7 year tribulation through the incredible ministry of the 144,000 Jewish evangelists. (Rev. 7, 14) However, today we are witnessing unfathomable amounts of global ministry. The gospel message is going forth systematically and methodically through several mediums. Christian missionaries surround the globe and are penetrating new and previously unreached areas with the Christian faith. Additionally, the gospel is being preached hourly on global television networks, over the radio, and on the internet in our day.
Jesus said that this gospel would be preached in "all of the earth." We are seeing legitmate signs of this prophecy for the first time in our day of technological advance. All of this global ministry activity means that we are living in a time like no other.
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Next Article in our "A Time Like No Other" Series:
Prediction #2: The Proliferation of Wickedness and the Spread of Evil
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...................................................benny
