On the first Sunday of December, Mustapha’s church in Ibadan held its annual Evangelism Sunday. The choir sang, the outreach team gave their report, and then the pastor made an appeal. “If you personally led someone to Christ this year,” he said, “please stand up. Let the church see you.”
About forty people stood. The congregation clapped and cheered. Mustapha stayed in his seat near the back, with his hands folded on his Bible, and looked at the floor.
He was a motor mechanic with a small workshop off the Iwo Road. He had grown up in a family compound in Ogbomoso where Christian and Muslim cousins shared the same courtyard and the same pounded yam at festivals, and when he came to Christ at sixteen he kept the name his Muslim grandfather had given him at his naming ceremony. He had a slight stammer that grew worse when he was nervous, and he had never in his life preached to a stranger. Every time the church organised street evangelism, he went, and every time he ended up carrying the public address system and guarding the bus while others did the talking.
Walking home that afternoon, he felt like a second-class Christian. He told me later that he almost decided not to go back for the outreach the following Saturday. “What is the point?” he said. “I am not one of those people.”
What Mustapha did not count, because nobody had ever counted it for him, was this. For nine years he had serviced the church’s outreach bus for nothing. Every Tuesday at five in the morning, before he opened the workshop, he prayed through a list of the outreach team and two missionaries the church supported in the north. And every month, before he paid his own rent, he sent a small amount to one of those missionary couples, without telling anyone.
The pastor had asked one question. It was a good question, as far as it went. But it measured the whole church against one form of gospel work. This teaching is for every believer who has sat down while others stood, and for every church that wants to see the gospel advance through all its members.
Partners from the first day
When Paul wrote to the church in Philippi, he was in prison. The church had been born about ten years earlier, on his second missionary journey. Its first members included Lydia, a businesswoman who opened her home to the apostles, and a Roman jailer whose household believed after an earthquake in the night. Now, from his chains, Paul writes to them with warmth:
I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Even as it is meet for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart; inasmuch as both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel, ye all are partakers of my grace.
“For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now.” The word fellowship is koinōnia. In ordinary Greek it could describe a business partnership, people who share in a common enterprise and its outcome. Paul is saying that the Philippians have been his partners in the gospel. He was the one travelling and preaching. They were sharing in the work.
The partnership began with hospitality. As soon as Lydia and her household were baptised, she said to Paul and his companions, “If ye have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house, and abide there” (Acts 16:15). Luke adds, “And she constrained us.” She would not take no for an answer. The first European church we know of met in the home of a businesswoman who made her house and her resources available to the gospel on the day she believed.
How else had they shared in the work? Later in the letter he tells us. “In the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only” (Philippians 4:15). They had sent gifts “once and again” (Philippians 4:16). And most recently they had sent Epaphroditus with supplies to care for him in prison. They prayed, they gave, they sent people, and they stood with him when he was in chains.
Look at the remarkable phrase at the end of our passage: “ye all are partakers of my grace.” Paul’s grace was the grace of apostleship, the calling to preach Christ to the Gentiles. He says the Philippians share in it. They were partakers “both in my bonds, and in the defence and confirmation of the gospel.” When Paul defended the gospel before the authorities, the Philippians were in that courtroom with him through their prayers and their gifts.
That changes how we think about responsibility. A believer who prays for an evangelist, supports a missionary, or keeps the outreach bus running is sharing in the grace of that work. Paul even says that their gift was “fruit that may abound to your account” (Philippians 4:17). The fruit was being credited to the Philippians as well as to Paul.
The one who speaks depends on many
Every public ministry rests on a crowd of people who are rarely seen.
Look at the end of Paul’s letter to the Romans. After sixteen chapters of the most profound theology ever written, he spends most of a chapter greeting people by name:
Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my wellbeloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.
Priscilla and Aquila were tentmakers who worked alongside Paul in Corinth and Ephesus. They risked their lives for him. They opened their home for the church to meet. And Paul says that “all the churches of the Gentiles” owed them thanks. Their contribution to the advance of the gospel was so great that churches across the empire were in their debt, and yet few people today could tell you anything they said in public.
The chapter goes on with name after name: Mary “who bestowed much labour on us,” Tryphena and Tryphosa “who labour in the Lord,” Rufus’s mother who had been like a mother to Paul, Tertius who wrote the letter down, Gaius who hosted Paul and the whole church. Paul knew that his ministry was carried on the shoulders of others.
Think of any great gospel crusade in Nigeria. The evangelist preaches to the crowd from the platform. But before he arrives, someone has negotiated for the field. Someone has hired the generators and fuelled them. Someone has set up the sound. Hundreds of ushers have been trained. Intercessors have prayed for weeks. Cooks have fed the volunteers. Counsellors are ready with Bibles to sit with people who respond. Drivers take them home. Follow-up workers will call them next week. And a long list of people, most of them unknown, gave the money that paid for all of it.
Paul writes, “the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary” (1 Corinthians 12:21-22). The ones who seem least important are necessary.
Praying the door open
Paul gives a clear picture of how prayer advances the gospel in his letter to the Colossians, also written from prison: “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in bonds: That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak” (Colossians 4:2-4).
Punchline“Continue in prayer.” The word means to persist, to keep at something with determination. Prayer for the gospel’s advance is a steady, long-term work, sustained over years.
“And watch in the same.” Be alert. Pay attention to what God is doing, to the needs around you, and to answers when they come. “With thanksgiving,” because the one who prays for the gospel has every reason to give thanks for what God has already done.
Then notice what Paul asks them to pray for. He was in chains. We might have expected him to ask for his release. Instead he asks for “a door of utterance,” an opportunity to speak, and for clarity: “That I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak.” Paul knew that he could not open doors himself. God opens them. And he knew that even when the door opened, he needed help to speak clearly. The great apostle depended on the prayers of ordinary believers in a small town in Asia Minor.
He made the same request of the Romans:
Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judaea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints; That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed.
“That ye strive together with me in your prayers.” The phrase strive together is a single Greek word that combines with and agonise. Paul pictures prayer as a struggle in which the believers in Rome would wrestle alongside him, though they were hundreds of miles away.
Notice also how specific his requests are. He asks to be delivered from unbelievers in Judaea, because he knew he was walking into danger. He asks that the offering he was carrying from the Gentile churches to the poor believers in Jerusalem would be accepted, because there was real tension between Jewish and Gentile Christians. And he asks to come to Rome with joy. Partners in prayer need to know what to pray for, and gospel workers should tell them honestly. Acts records how those prayers were answered, though not in the way anyone expected. Paul was arrested in Jerusalem and “bound with two chains” (Acts 21:33), yet his life was preserved, and he reached Rome at last, as a prisoner who preached the kingdom of God for two whole years in his own hired house. He tells the Corinthians that they were “helping together by prayer for us” (2 Corinthians 1:11), and he tells the Philippians he expected deliverance “through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:19). Their prayer and the Spirit’s supply are named together.
Jesus Himself made prayer the first response to the need for gospel workers:
Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.
Before He sent out the seventy, Jesus told them to pray. The harvest belongs to the Lord. The workers must be sent by Him. And the first thing a believer can do for the harvest is ask the Lord to send labourers. Anyone can do this. The bedridden grandmother, the busy mechanic, the student in the hostel and the civil servant in traffic can all take up this responsibility, and it is never a small one.
Wise speech in ordinary life
None of this means that most believers never need to speak. Paul’s instruction to the Colossians continues straight from prayer into conduct and conversation: “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man” (Colossians 4:5-6).
This is addressed to the whole church, not only to apostles. Every believer lives among people “that are without,” outside the faith. Every believer has a manner of life that those people observe. And every believer will have conversations where an answer is needed.
“Redeeming the time” means buying up the opportunity. Not every moment is the right moment. But wise believers recognise when a door opens in a conversation, and they step through it gently. Paul prays for a door for himself, and he tells ordinary believers to watch for their own doors.
Notice what this does not require. It does not require everyone to preach from a platform, stand on a bus with a megaphone, or hand out tracts at the motor park. Some are gifted and called for those forms of evangelism, and we should honour them. What it requires of everyone is wise conduct, gracious speech and readiness to answer. Mustapha’s customers at the workshop saw how he dealt with them. When one of them asked him why he had refused to pad a bill for a company car, he told him, with his stammer, that he was a Christian and could not cheat. That was an answer, given “with grace, seasoned with salt.”
Fellowhelpers to the truth
The third letter of John is the shortest book in the New Testament. It is a personal note to a believer named Gaius, and it commends him for something very practical:
Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth.
Gaius had welcomed travelling preachers into his home. They were “strangers” to him, people he had never met. They had come in the name of Christ, and that was enough. He fed them, housed them and helped them on their way. John tells him to keep doing it, and to send them on “after a godly sort,” which means in a manner worthy of God. That would include providing for the next stage of their journey.
Then John gives the reason. “Because that for his name’s sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles.” These missionaries refused to take money from the unbelievers they were preaching to, so that nobody could accuse them of preaching for profit. That meant someone else had to support them. And John concludes: “We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth.”
Fellowhelpers translates a word meaning co-workers, those who work together. The person who opens his home to a gospel worker is a co-worker in the gospel. The one who gives so that a missionary can go is a fellow-labourer. In God’s eyes the host and the preacher are on the same team.
John contrasts Gaius with another man in the same church: “Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not” (3 John 1:9). He refused to welcome the travelling brothers and threw out those who did. The difference between them was not giftedness. It was the heart. One wanted to help the truth advance. The other wanted to be important.
A word of care belongs here. Supporting gospel workers requires discernment. Not everyone who asks for money in the name of ministry is genuine, and believers are right to give through accountable channels, to ask how gifts are used, and to support workers whose lives and doctrine are known. Equally, those who receive support must handle it with complete honesty. Generosity and integrity belong together.
Different gifts, one advance
Scripture is clear that believers have different gifts. “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us” (Romans 12:6). “But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him” (1 Corinthians 12:18). God has made some evangelists, and Ephesians 4:11 lists them among Christ’s gifts to the church. We should thank God for them, release them and support them.
But it is unhealthy to make one form of gospel ministry the measure for everyone. When churches celebrate only those who preach publicly or count conversions, they send a quiet message to everyone else: your contribution does not really matter. Some believers then feel guilty and inadequate. Others try to imitate a gift they do not have and become frustrated. Many simply give up.
David understood this principle long before Paul. After a battle against the Amalekites, some of his men had been too exhausted to fight and had stayed behind to guard the supplies. When the victorious fighters wanted to deny them a share of the spoil, David refused: “as his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part alike” (1 Samuel 30:24). The one who guarded the baggage shared the reward with the one who fought.
Jesus said the same about the smallest gifts: “whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward” (Matthew 10:42). A cup of cold water for a weary gospel worker is remembered in heaven.
Even the most gifted evangelists know this. Near the end of his life, alone in a Roman prison, Paul wrote to Timothy, “Only Luke is with me. Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11). The greatest missionary of the early church asked for a doctor and a young assistant who had once deserted him. He needed people around him to finish his course.
There is also a caution in the other direction. Recognising the value of supporting roles must never become an excuse for keeping silent about Christ. “My gift is giving, not talking” can sometimes be a cover for fear. Every believer is a witness, even if not every believer is an evangelist. The aim is to find your real part, take it up faithfully and remain ready to speak when God opens a door.
When your bonds advance the gospel
Paul makes an astonishing claim early in his letter to the Philippians:
But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places ; And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
From a human point of view, Paul’s imprisonment looked like a disaster for the gospel. The great missionary was chained to a Roman soldier. But Paul says it had “fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.” The word furtherance describes pioneers cutting a way through difficult country so that an army can advance. His chains were cutting a road.
NuggetHow? The whole palace guard learned why he was in chains. Soldiers rotating through their shifts heard about Christ. And other believers, seeing Paul’s courage, “are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”
This matters for believers who feel that their circumstances disqualify them from contributing. The elderly woman who can no longer leave her house, the man with a chronic illness, the young mother with three small children, the worker in a demanding job with no free weekends: all of them can advance the gospel. They pray. They show how a believer suffers. They speak to the nurse, the neighbour or the colleague who passes through their small world. Paul’s chains did not stop the gospel. Nor will yours.
A few verses later Paul tells the Philippians what he most wants to hear about them: “that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel” (Philippians 1:27). The picture is of a team, shoulder to shoulder, each member pulling in the same direction. That is how the gospel advances: through a church that strives together, each with a different task and one shared aim.
The advance of the gospel is carried by the whole church: those who speak and those who pray, those who go and those who give, those who host and those who suffer faithfully. Every believer has a real part to take up.
Taking up your part
What might this look like for you? Here are some ways ordinary believers can take responsibility for the gospel’s advance:
- Pray regularly, by name, for specific gospel workers, missionaries and unbelieving friends.
- Give consistently and thoughtfully to gospel work you know and trust.
- Open your home to visiting ministers, missionaries and new believers.
- Offer your skills: driving, accounting, mechanics, medicine, cooking, media, teaching.
- Live wisely and speak graciously among those outside the faith, and watch for open doors.
And for church leaders, there is a responsibility too. Celebrate every form of partnership, not only the visible ones. Report back to the church about what God is doing through missionaries it supports, so that those who pray and give can rejoice in the fruit. Ask more than one question on Evangelism Sunday.
PunchlineThe following Saturday, Mustapha went to the outreach after all. He carried the public address system as usual and guarded the bus.
Three weeks later, one of the missionary couples the church supported came home to Ibadan to rest and report. On the Sunday, the wife stood up to speak about the small congregation that had formed in the village where they lived. Near the end, she said, “Before I sit down, I want to ask if one brother is here. His name is Mustapha.”
Mustapha told me he went cold. He did not know how she knew his name. He raised his hand slightly.
“For six years,” she said, “your money has reached us every month, usually before our own salary. Some months it was the only reason we could buy fuel for the clinic generator. And every Tuesday morning you send us a text that says, ‘I prayed for you today.’ Nothing else. Just that. Last year, when my husband had typhoid and I thought he would die, I read those texts again and again. There is a church in that village today, and part of it belongs to you.”
The congregation was quiet. Then the pastor came back to the pulpit. He looked at Mustapha for a long moment and said, “I think I asked the wrong question three weeks ago.”
The next year, on Evangelism Sunday, the pastor asked everyone who had prayed for the lost, given to gospel work, hosted a minister, served at an outreach or spoken to someone about Christ to stand. Almost the whole church stood. Mustapha stood with them.
You have a part in the advancement of the gospel. It may not look like anyone else’s. Take it up faithfully, and trust that the Lord of the harvest is counting what others overlook.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- Have you ever felt like a second-class Christian because your contribution to the gospel did not look like someone else’s?
- How do the Philippians’ partnership and Gaius’s hospitality change your understanding of what it means to share in the gospel?
- Who are the gospel workers you pray for regularly by name? If there are none, who could you begin with?
- Is “my gift is supporting” ever a cover for fear of speaking about Christ in your life?
- What is one practical part you could take up in the gospel’s advance this month?
This Week
Choose one missionary, evangelist or gospel worker and commit to pray for them by name every day this week, using Colossians 4:3-4 as your guide: ask God to open a door for the word and to help them speak clearly. Send them a short message to tell them you are praying. Then identify one practical way you could support gospel work with your skills, time, home or money, and take the first step before the week ends.
A Prayer
Lord of the harvest, thank You that the advance of Your gospel is carried by the whole church. Thank You for every evangelist You have given, and for every hidden partner who prays, gives, hosts and serves. Forgive me where I have measured myself or others by one form of ministry. Show me my real part and help me take it up faithfully. Open doors for Your word, and give clear speech to those who preach it. When You open a door for me, give me grace to speak. Send forth labourers into Your harvest. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.