And I tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. Matthew 16:18
There is a story told of twin girls. They were identical in every way, except that one was an incurable pessimist, always dreading the worst, the other an incurable optimist, always believing the best. Their parents, fed up with their extremes, decided to balance out their respective tendencies one Christmas.
On Christmas Eve, they tiptoed into Little Miss Gloomy’s room and filled it with the most marvellous presents. Then they went and filled Little Miss Sunny’s room with horse manure. When morning came, the parents leapt out of bed to see how the experiment had worked – only to find the little pessimist, sitting on the floor, surrounded by wrapping paper and in floods of tears: ‘So many presents and not enough time to play with them all!’ At which point, whoops of delight erupted next door, where they found their little optimist, covered in muck and wreathed in smiles: ‘There’s so much manure, there has to be a pony in here somewhere!’
When it comes to the cause of Christ and his fame among the nations, I wonder if we are pessimistic or optimistic Christians? Listening to the media, with its constant narrative of the decline of faith, the hypocrisy of so-called Christian leaders and the triumph of secular humanism, it’s hard not to be pessimistic. Equally, there are those in the church who seem to promise a life of unending triumph and gospel advances: ‘you can change the world!’ Maybe like me, you can swing between being a glass half-full Christian on good days, to a glass half-empty Christian on the not-so-good ones.
But I want to suggest both are wrong. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus is very realistic about what the Church is up against – the gates of Hades. Like a lion chained but on a long leash, the Bible says that the devil has (limited) power, and he’s often sought to use that against the church, unleashing opposition and persecution that at times seems to threaten the church’s very existence.
But Jesus also gives the most marvellous promise: ‘I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.’ So, despite everything the world and the devil throw at us, the church will grow, but it’s not you or I that will make it grow. Christ will.
And if we are in any doubt, this verse embodies the truth it proclaims. At the point in history that Jesus promised to build his unstoppable church, it was made up of just one person, Peter, and his witness consisted of just one line (‘You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God’ Matthew 16:16) to one small group (the other disciples).
Yet according to Jesus, God has revealed his truth to Peter and brought him into Christ’s kingdom. And that same God will use his witness and the witness of the other disciples to bring many others into the kingdom. And 2,000 years later, we, along with our brothers and sisters across the world, are the proof that Jesus’ promise was true, as his unstoppable church continues to grow.
Rupert Shelley, Director of Mission Partnerships