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Worldwide Witnessing versus World ConversionThe Watchtower—1970 | December 15
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Why, do those words of command of Jesus Christ not mean the converting of the whole world of mankind to Christianity before the kingdom of God is set up in the heavens and the thousand years of Christ’s reign begins? That is the way some Bible commentators on those and other words of Jesus Christ have understood them. For instance, Jesus’ parable of the leavened dough: “The kingdom of the heavens is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three large measures of flour, until the whole mass was fermented.” (Matt. 13:33) On this the comment in A Commentary and Critical Notes by Adam Clarke, LL. D., says:
10 “Both these parables are prophetic, and were intended to show, principally, how, from very small beginnings, the Gospel of Christ should pervade all the nations of the world, and fill them with righteousness and true holiness.”—Page 155, column 2.
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Worldwide Witnessing versus World ConversionThe Watchtower—1970 | December 15
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13, 14. Back in 1885 what did Methodist Bishop Foster have to say regarding the facts of the progress of Christianity and the work ahead for world conversion?
13 Less than a hundred years ago, in 1885, when the world’s population was smaller and did not present so big a task, the Methodist Bishop Foster, addressing the M. E. Church Conference, on November 9th that year, said, as reported in the public press:
14 “There is a lack of information on the progress of Christianity. The facts are misstated daily in pulpits all over the country. Ministers hesitate to present the worst side for fear of causing discouragement. They create hopes that are never to be realized. We are not at the dawn of the millennium. Compared with the work to be done, the past is nothing. Our children’s children for ten generations to come must labor harder than we are doing to accomplish the conversion of the world. The world’s population is 1,500,000,000. Of these Christians number less than a third. Half of that third belong to the Roman Catholic Church. The Protestants number 113,000,000. They are divided into 500 sects. And this number of their strength includes also all the thieves, ex-convicts, the debased, besotted, the speckled and streaked in Christendom. . . . before us we have the great problem—the 1,100,000,000 of pagans to convert to Christianity. That is the solid rock that looms up in our path. Look at it; see what work has been done in 1800 years, and how much is yet to be accomplished. . . . It is a big loaf to be leavened and it has been a long time working.”—See The Watch Tower, as of January 1886, pages 3-6, under “Blind Guides.”
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