Weekly insights from Chuck Colson and great saints of the past and present

The Gospel of the Kingdom is for people from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

“Christianity does not seek to impose, it proposes. The Gospel is the great proposal: Come to the wedding feast, one and all – black, white, rich, poor East, West, Muslim, Jew, Christian – all are welcome, and it’s never too late. God turns no man or woman away, not one. Through His Son, Jesus Christ, the Father brings us into His Kingdom. This is the promise He holds out to individuals and nations.”
-Chuck Colson, The Faith

“Jesus called everyone, not only the people of Israel. As the Maker and Lord of all, he spoke to the weary Jews who did not have the strength to bear the yoke of the law. He spoke to idolaters heavy laden and oppressed by the devil and weighed down by the multitude of their sins. To the Jews he said, ‘Obtain the profit of my coming to you. Bow down to the truth. Acknowledge your Advocate and Lord. I set you free from bondage under the law, bondage in which you endured a great deal of toil and hardship, unable to accomplish it easily and accumulating for yourselves a very great burden of sins.’”
- Cyril of Alexandria, Fragment 149

“Therefore let everyone who wants life and desires to see good days put down the yoke of iniquity and malice. The prophet says, ‘Let us burst their bonds and thrust their yoke from us.’ For unless one throws behind the yoke of iniquity, that is, the spark of all vices, one cannot take up the agreeable and light yoke of Christ.”
-Epiphanius the Latin, Interpretation of the Gospels

“And his servants went out into the roads and gathered all whom they found, bad and good, and the marriage feast was filled with guests. The character of those at the banquet reveals clearly that the king’s marriage feast represents the church at this time, in which the bad are present along with the good. The church is a thorough mix of various offspring. It brings them all to the faith but does not lead them all to the liberty of spiritual grace successfully by changes in their lives. As long as we are in this world we have to proceed along the road of the present age thoroughly mixed together.
- Gregory the Great, Forty Gospel Homilies 38.5-7

“…with the calling of the nations there is no longer a separation of a people nor a special honor accorded to Israel. But grace is [given] to the rejected and outcasts, ‘to the wise and to the foolish,’ as Paul says, to the evil and to the good, as the parable teaches…”
-Apollinaris, Fragment 111

“‘The wedding feast is ready, but those invited were not worthy. Go therefore to the main roads and invite to the wedding feast as many as you find.’”
-Matthew 22:8, 9

For more insight to this subject, get the book, Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God, by J. I Packer, from our online store.

Or read the article, “Is Faith Reasonable?” by Stuart McAllister.

Chuck Colson's The Faith is available in our online store.