The Global Thread Through Scripture

Aspects of Christ's global cause can be found in every book of the Bible. Read straight through the passages listed here in one sitting. Watch how this grand theme weaves its way from Genesis to Revelation. Watch how the theme comes through, however, in a way that is compatible with each book and with that books' place in the unfolding of Gods' revelation on the cause.

GENESIS - Through you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (12:3)

EXODUS - For all the earth is mine and you shall be to me a Kingdom of Priests. (19:5-6)

LEVITICUS - The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself. (19:34)

NUMBERS - A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel. It shall crush the forehead of Moab and shall break down all the sons of Sheth. Edom shall be dispossessed, Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed while Israel does valiantly. (24:17-18)

DEUTERONOMY - The Lord will establish you as a people holy to himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments.... and all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be afraid of you. (28:9-10)

JOSHUA - For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over.... so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty. (4:23-24)

JUDGES - I will not drive out before them any of the nations that Joshua left when he died that by them I may test Israel, whether they will take care to walk in the way of the Lord (2:21-22)

RUTH - Entreat me not to leave you or to return from following you; for where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge; your people will be my people, and your God my God. (1:16)

I SAMUEL- This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand.... that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. (17:46)

II SAMUEL - For this I will extol thee, 0 Lord, among the nations and sing praises to thy name. Great triumphs He gives to His king. (22:50-51)

I KINGS - Thus King Solomon excelled all the kings of the earth in riches and wisdom. And the whole earth sought the presence of Solomon to hear his wisdom, which God had put into his mind. (10:23-24)

II KINGS - So now, 0 Lord our God, save us, I beseech thee, from his hand, so that all kingdoms of the earth may know that thou, O Lord, art God alone. (19:19)

I CHRONICLES - Sing to the Lord, all the earth! Tell of His salvation - day to day. Declare His glory among the nations. (16:23-24)

II CHRONICLES - Likewise when a foreigner; who is not of thy people Israel, comes from a far country for the sake of thy great name, and thy mighty hand.... hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to thee; in order that all peoples of the earth may know thy name and fear thee. (6:32-33)

EZRA - Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem. (1:2)

NEHEMIAH - Thou art the Lord, Thou alone; Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them.... Thou art the Lord, the God who didst choose Abram and bring him forth (9:6-7)

ESTHER - And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom (of Persia) for such a time as this? (4:14)

JOB - The Lord said to Satan, 'Whence have you come?' Satan answered, 'From going to and fro on the earth.' And the Lord said to Satan, 'Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth?' (1:7-8)

PSALMS - Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! (150:6)

PROVERBS - By me (Wisdom) kings reign, and rulers decree what is just; by me princes rule and nobles govern the earth. (8:15-16)

ECCLESIASTES - I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has made it so, in order that men should fear before him. (3:14)

SONG OF SOLOMON - The maidens saw her and called her happy; the queens and concubines also (note: from Solomon's international alliances), and they praised her.(6:9)

ISAIAH - It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob.... I will give you as a Light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. (49:6)

JEREMIAH - And this city shall be to me a name of joy, a praise and a glory before all the nations of the earth who shall hear of all the good that I do for them and shall fear and tremble. (33:9)

LAMENTATIONS - Who has commanded and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and evil come? Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? (3:37-39)

EZEKIEL - And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations will know that I am the Lord when through you I vindicate my holiness. (36:23)

DANIEL - And he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him. (7:13-14)

HOSEA - Yet the number of the people of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea' which can neither be measured nor numbered; and in the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' it shall be said to them, 'Sons of the living God' (1:10)

JOEL - Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. (3:14)

AMOS - In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins.... that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name. (9:11-12)

OBADIAH - Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom: We have heard tidings from the Lord and a messenger has been sent among the nations: 'Rise up! Let us rise against her for battle!' (vs 1)

JONAH - And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle? (4:11)

MICAH - He shall judge between many peoples, and shall decide for strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares. (4:3)

NAHUM - The mountains shall quake before Him, the hills melt; the earth is laid waste before Him, the world and all that dwell therein. (1:5)

HABAKKUK - For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. (2:14)

ZEPHANIAH - For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all the heat of my anger; for in the fire of my jealous wrath all the earth shall be consumed. (3:8)

HAGGAI - And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this House with splendor. (2:7)

ZECHARIAH - And the Lord will become king over all the earth; on that day the Lord will be one and His name one. (14:9)

MALACHI - For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name shall be great among the nations, and in every place incense shall be offered to my name. (1:11)




MATTHEW - Go, and make disciples of all the nations. (28:1)

MARK - This gospel must be proclaimed to all the nations. (13:10)

LUKE - Repentance and forgiveness of sins must be proclaimed in My name to all nations. (24:47)

JOHN - There are other sheep which are not of this fold. I must go and bring them. Then there will be one Shepherd and one fold. (10:16)

ACTS - You shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. (1:8)

ROMANS - We have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of His name among all the nations. (1:5)

I CORINTHIANS - Then comes the end, when Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. (15:24)

II CORINTHIANS - For God was in Christ reconciling the World back to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. (5:19)

GALATIANS - In Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham has come upon the nations, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (3:14)

EPHESIANS - His Plan for the fullness of times is to sum up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth. (1:10)

PHILIPPIANS - That every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. (2:10)

COLOSSIANS - The Gospel has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing. (1:6)

I THESSALONIANS - Your faith in God has gone forth everywhere. (1:8)

II THESSALONIANS - The Lord will be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance upon those who do not know God and upon those who do not obey the gospel. (1:7-8)

I TIMOTHY - Christ was manifested in the flesh, vindicated in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (3:16)

II TIMOTHY - I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom; preach the Word. (4:1)

TITUS - The grace that brings salvation to all men has appeared. (2:14)

PHILEMON - I, Paul, an ambassador and now a prisoner also for Christ Jesus, appeal to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment. (vs. 9)

HEBREWS - But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. (10:12)

JAMES - Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creation. (1:18)

I PETER - Resist the devil, firm in your faith; know that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. (5:9)

II PETER - But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwell. (3:13)

I JOHN - And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son as the Savior of the world. (4:14)

II JOHN - For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. (vs. 7)

III JOHN - You will do well to send them on their journey as befits God's service. For they have set out for His sake and have accepted nothing from the nations. (vs. 6-7)

JUDE - To the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (vs. 25)

REVELATION - Worthy art thou to take the scroll and to open its seals, for thou hast slain and by thy blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God. And they shall reign on the earth. (5:9-10)

"Must you go to China? How much nicer it would be to stay here and serve the Lord at home!" She made it plain at last that she would not go to China.

J. Hudson Taylor's new ex-girlfriend

You can do something other than working with God in His purpose, but it will always be something lesser, and you couldn't come up with something better.

Steve Hawthorne

I have seen, at different times, the smoke of a thousand villages villages whose people are without Christ, without God, and without hope in the world.

Robert Moffat

The command has been to "go," but we have stayed in body, gifts, prayer and influence. He has asked us to be witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth... but 99% of Christians have kept puttering around in the homeland.

Robert Savage

While vast continents are shrouded in darkness... the burden of proof lies upon you to show that the circumstances in which God has placed you were meant by God to keep you out of the foreign mission field.

Ion Keith-Falconer

I wasn't God's first choice for what I've done for China... I don't know who it was... It must have been a man... a well-educated man. I don't know what happened. Perhaps he died. Perhaps he wasn't willing... and God looked down... and saw Gladys Aylward... And God said "Well, she's willing."

Gladys Aylward

Brother, if you would enter that Province, you must go forward on your knees.

J. Hudson Taylor

The man... looking at him with a smile that only half concealed his contempt, inquired, "Now Mr. Morrison do you really expect that you will make an impression on the idolatry of the Chinese Empire?" "No sir," said Morrison, "but I expect that God will."

Robert Morrison

Here am I. Send me.

Isaiah

And people who do not know the Lord ask why in the world we waste our lives as missionaries. They forget that they too are expending their lives... and when the bubble has burst they will have nothing of eternal significance to show for the years they have wasted.

Nate Saint

Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in hell and neither do most Christians.

Leonard Ravenhill

Had I cared for the comments of people, I should never have been a missionary.

C.T. Studd

Young man, sit down: when God pleases to convert the heathen, He will do it without your aid or mine.

said to a young William Carey

Oh, that I had a thousand lives, and a thousand bodies! All of them should be devoted to no other employment but to preach Christ to these degraded, despised, yet beloved mortals.

Robert Moffat

We must be global Christians with a global vision because our God is a global God.

John Stott

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Jim Elliot

A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.

K.P. Yohannan

I have but one passion it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.

Count Zinzindorf

God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supplies.

J. Hudson Taylor

He must increase, but I must decrease.

John the Baptist

If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for Him.

C.T. Studd

The greatest missionary is the Bible in the mother tongue. It needs no furlough and is never considered a foreigner.

William Cameron Townsend

Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.

Robert E. Speer

The saddest thing one meets is a nominal Christian. I had not seen it in Japan where missions is younger. The church here is a "field full of wheat and tares."

Amy Carmichael

I used to think that prayer should have the first place and teaching the second. I now feel it would be truer to give prayer the first, second and third places and teaching the fourth.

James O. Fraser

It is just as proper, maybe even more so, to say Christ's global cause has a Church as to say Christ's Church has a global cause.

David Bryant

If you are sick, fast and pray; if the language is hard to learn, fast and pray; if the people will not hear you, fast and pray, if you have nothing to eat, fast and pray.

Frederick Franson

What are we here for, to have a good time with Christians or to save sinners?

Malla Moe

I tell you, brethren, if mercies and if judgments do not convert you, God has no other arrows in His quiver.

Robert Murray Mc'Cheyne

It's amazing what can be accomplished if you don't worry about who gets the credit.

Clarence W. Jones

Two distinguishing marks of the early church were: 1) Poverty 2) Power.

T.J. Bach

Do not think me mad. It is not to make money that I believe a Christian should live. The noblest thing a man can do is, just humbly to receive, and then go amongst others and give.

David Livingstone

From my many years' experience I can unhesitatingly say that the cross bears those who bear the cross.

Sadhu Sundar Singh

I pray that no missionary will ever be as lonely as I have been.

Lottie Moon

All my friends are but one, but He is all sufficient.

William Carey

How little chance the Holy Ghost has nowadays. The churches and missionary societies have so bound him in red tape that they practically ask Him to sit in a corner while they do the work themselves.

C.T. Studd

I have always believed that the Good Samaritan went across the road to the wounded man just because he wanted to.

Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

The more obstacles you have, the more opportunities there are for God to do something.

Clarence W. Jones

Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.

William Carey

God's part is to put forth power; our part is to put forth faith.

Andrew A. Bonar

All the resources of the Godhead are at our disposal!

Jonathan Goforth

I feel now, that Arabia could easily be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians.

Samuel Zwemer

The Indian is making an amazing discovery, namely that Christianity and Jesus are not the same that they may have Jesus without the system that has been built up around Him in the West.

E. Stanley Jones

This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Jesus

All roads lead to the judgment seat of Christ.

Keith Green

Obedience to the call of Christ nearly always costs everything to two people- the one who is called, and the one who loves that one.

Oswald Chambers

Christians don't tell lies they just go to church and sing them.

A.W. Tozer

I have said that there is nothing in the world or the Church, except it's disobedience, to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility.

Robert Speer

I will lay my bones by the Ganges that India might know there is one who cares.

Alexander Duff

Today Christians spend more money on dog food than missions.

Leonard Ravenhill

It will not do to say that you have no special call to go to China. With these facts before you and with the command of the Lord Jesus to go and preach the gospel to every creature, you need rather to ascertain whether you have a special call to stay at home.

J. Hudson Taylor

We talk of the second coming, half the world has never heard of the first.

Oswald J. Smith

God cannot lead you on the basis of facts that you do not know.

David Bryant

And thus I aspire to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named so that I would not build on another man's foundation.

Paul

Why do we insist on building the largest and most impressive structures in our city when people on the other side of town are hungry, jobless and worshipping in storefronts?

K.P. Yohannan

If every Christian is already considered a missionary, then all can stay put where they are, and nobody needs to get up and go anywhere to preach the gospel. But if our only concern is to witness where we are, how will people in unevangelized areas ever hear the gospel? The present uneven distribution of Christians and opportunities to hear the gospel of Christ will continue on unchanged.

C. Gordon Olson

I spent twenty years of my life trying to recruit people out of local churches and into missions structures so that they could be involved in fulfilling God's global mission. Now I have another idea. Let's take God's global mission and put it right in the middle of the local church!

George Miley

God provides the men and women needed for each generation.

Mildred Cable

Oh dear, I couldn't say that my church is alive and I wouldn't want to call it dead. I guess it's just walking in its sleep!

Church member

When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here; when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.

said of John Geddie

I am ready to burn out for God. I am ready to endure any hardship, if by any means I might save some. The longing of my heart is to make known my glorious Redeemer to those who have never heard.

William Burns

At the moment I put the bread and wine into those dark hands, once stained with the blood of cannibalism, now stretched out to receive and partake the emblems and seals of the Redeemer's love, I had a foretaste of the joy of glory that well nigh broke my heart to pieces. I shall never taste a deeper bliss, till I gaze on the glorified face of Jesus himself.

John G. Paton

Save others, snatching them out of the fire.

Jude

The evangelization of the world in this generation.

Student Volunteer Movement Motto

Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring.

Jesus

Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn't.

John Piper

His authority on earth allows us to dare to go to all the nations. His authority in heaven gives us our only hope of success. And His presence with us leaves us no other choice.

John Stott

Today five out of six non-Christians in our world have no hope unless missionaries come to them and plant the church among them.

David Bryant

Tell the students to give up their small ambitions and come eastward to preach the gospel of Christ.

Francis Xavier

Christ for the students of the world, and the students of the world for Christ.

Luther Wishard

We who have Christ's eternal life need to throw away our own lives.

George Verwer

Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of Hell.

C.T. Studd

When I get to China, I will have no claim on any one for anything. My claim will be alone in God and I must learn before I leave England to move men through God by prayer alone.

J. Hudson Taylor

God has huge plans for the world today! He is not content to merely establish a handful of struggling churches among each tongue, tribe and nation. Even now He is preparing and empowering His Church to carry the seeds of revival to the uttermost ends of the earth.

David Smithers

The mark of a great church is not its seating capacity, but its sending capacity.

Mike Stachura

Answering a student's question, 'Will the heathen who have not heard the Gospel be saved?' thus, 'It is more a question with me whether we, who have the Gospel and fail to give it to those who have not, can be saved.'

C.H. Spurgeon.

There is something wonderfully misleading, full of hallucination and delusion in this business of missionary calls. With many of us it is not a missionary call at all that we are looking for; it is a shove. There are a great many of us who would never hear a call if it came.

Robert Speer

I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God; first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.

J. Hudson Taylor

I love to live on the brink of eternity.

David Brainerd

The greatest tragedy to befall a person is to have sight but lack vision.

Helen Keller

'Not called!' did you say? 'Not heard the call,' I think you should say. Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin. Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heart of humanity, and listen to its pitiful wail for help. Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father's house and bid their brothers and sisters, and servants and masters not to come there. And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and soul and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world.

William Booth

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn't.

Richard Bach

If God has fit you to be a missionary, I would not have you shrivel down to be a king.

Charles H. Spurgeon

The world is my parish.

John Wesley

Why doesn't your God speak my language?

Guatemalan Indian to Cam Townsend, founder Wycliffe Bible Translators

I am willing to go anywhere, at anytime, to do anything for Jesus.

Luther Wishard

The 3.5 billion unreached people on earth would form a single file line that would stretch around the equator 25 times! Can you picture 25 lines of Christless people, trampling endlessly toward hell? Let that vision stay with you day and night.

Larry Stockstill

God does not have to come and tell me what I must do for Him, He brings me into a relationship with Himself where I hear His call and understand what He wants me to do, and I do it out of sheer love to Him... When people say they have had a call to foreign service, or to any particular sphere of work, they mean that their relationship to God has enabled them to realize what they can do for God.

Oswald Chambers

A little prayer, little power; no prayer, no power.

A Chinese Christian motto

When God's finger points, God's hand will open the door.

Clarence Jones

I will open Africa to the gospel or die trying.

Rowland Bingham

None but women can reach Muslim Women... So we have a solemn duty in this matter that we cannot shift. The blood of souls is on our skirts, and God will demand them at our hands.

Missionary wife from the Middle East

The church that does not evangelize will fossilize.

Oswald J. Smith

As long as there are millions destitute of the word of God and the knowledge of Jesus Christ, it will be impossible for me to devote my time and energy to those who have both.

J.L. Ewen

If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unprayed for.

Charles Spurgeon

We have a God who delights in impossibilities.

Andrew Murray

Why do you need a voice when you have a verse.

Jim Elliot

The history of missions is the history of answered prayer. From Pentecost to the Haystack meeting in New England and from the days when Robert Morrison landed in China to the martyrdom of John and Betty Stam, prayer has been the source of power and the secret of spiritual triumph.

Samuel Zwemer

IT Summer Project