"So I went to the angel & asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, ‘Take it & eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth, it will be as sweet as honey.’ I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand & ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. Then I was told, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages & kings.’"
- Revelation 10:9-11 -
There is a lesson here for all who minister the gospel: we may not treat the Word of God as a text to be scientifically analyzed and held as an object apart from us. It must become part of our very being, a spiritual food in which we delight, even as there will be personal cost in faithfully sharing the message of grace and judgment with people reluctant to accept it.
John is given a specific commission to ‘prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings’ (v 11). This suggests the scope of the good news; it is not parochial, but embraces the world and all its peoples. This is where the bitterness comes from: the formation of a multicultural church, a new kind of human family, in a world where people are bitterly divided by nationality, class, and language, is a hard and demanding task. The issue for us is not whether there will be a multicultural church, but ‘whether those who have become accustomed to seeing the gospel expressed only or primarily in terms of dominant cultures will be able to participate in the life of the multicultural church that is already a reality’ (Justo Gonzalez, For the Healing of the Nations: The Book of Revelation in an Age of Cultural Conflict, Orbis Books, 1990, p91).
* Personally, I've served multicultural ministry in Madison, WI for about 38 years. Indeed, it was difficult as I faced language barriers, cultural barriers, social barriers and emotional barriers. Yet in this ministry, I've experienced the kingdom of God where we gather together in Christ's love and do His will in one heart. It was a very precious life in Him. I give thanks to God.
Prayer: Dear Lord Father, please establish many multicultural churches in this divided society so that people may see the kingdom of God vividly on earth.