Did Jesus Crowdsource His Mission? (Matthew 28:19)

For most of my career, my name appeared at the bottom of every pathology report I signed. Anyone reading the report might have assumed that the diagnosis was entirely my work. It wasn’t. Before I ever looked through the microscope, someone received the specimen and confirmed the patient’s identity. Someone prepared the tissue, embedded it in paraffin, cut sections thinner than a human hair, placed them on glass slides, stained them, labeled them, and made sure everything matched. If a case was especially difficult, I might ask another pathologist to look at it or order additional studies before concluding.

I was responsible for the final diagnosis, but I could not have produced the report alone. Many people, most of whom the patient would never know, had contributed to it.

Today, we might loosely call that crowdsourcing. We crowdsource all kinds of things. We read restaurant reviews before deciding where to eat. We ask other travelers where to stay. Online encyclopedias are built from the contributions of countless people. Difficult problems are sometimes solved by bringing together individuals with different experiences and areas of expertise.

That got me thinking about Jesus. Did He crowdsource His mission? The comparison is not exact. I needed other people because there were things I could not do alone. Jesus had no such limitation. He did not need more information, another opinion, or someone to supply what He lacked. He healed with a word, calmed a storm, and knew what was in the human heart.

Still, He repeatedly chose to involve people in His work. When more than five thousand people needed food, Jesus could have provided it without anyone’s help. Instead, a boy offered five barley loaves and two fish. Jesus gave thanks and multiplied the food, but then He gave it to His disciples to distribute.

The miracle came from Jesus. Yet the lunch came from a boy, and the bread reached the crowd through the hands of the disciples. Jesus allowed them to take part in something they could never have accomplished on their own.

He followed that pattern throughout His ministry. He called fishermen, a tax collector, and other ordinary men to follow Him. He sent the Twelve out to preach and heal. Later, He sent seventy-two others into the towns He intended to visit. Women supported His ministry. People whose lives had been changed told others what God had done for them. Then, after His resurrection, Jesus entrusted His followers with something far more important than distributing bread. He told them to carry the gospel into the world.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.
Matthew 28:19 (ESV)

In that sense, the spread of the gospel may be one of history’s greatest examples of shared work. Across continents and centuries, the message has been carried by millions of ordinary people—pastors and parents, missionaries and teachers, writers and musicians, physicians and laborers. Many of their names were never recorded. They simply told someone else what they had received.

But Jesus did not ask the crowd to decide what the message should be. The crowd did not make Him the Son of God, and public opinion did not raise Him from the dead. His followers were not permitted to revise His words whenever the culture changed. The truth came from Christ. Their responsibility was to carry it faithfully.

This may be where the modern idea of crowdsourcing falls short. Jesus was not looking for better ideas or trying to fill gaps in His knowledge. He involved people because He was making disciples, not merely completing a project. The disciples saw the bread multiply in His hands. Then they carried it to hungry people. Later, they would learn to depend upon Him as they carried the gospel far beyond the places they knew.

Christ still works through people. That can be difficult to understand because what we have often seems so small. We may think we lack the knowledge, ability, influence, or courage to be useful to God. Surely someone else is better qualified. The boy’s lunch really was too small to feed the crowd. Jesus never pretended otherwise. But He did not ask the boy to perform the miracle. The boy simply made available what he had.

That is a far more manageable picture of faithfulness. Christ does not ask us to create our own truth or manufacture spiritual power. He asks us to place what we have in His hands and be faithful with whatever part of the work He gives us. Perhaps Jesus was not a crowdsourcer in the way we use the word today. He did not need the crowd. Nevertheless, He chose to include ordinary people in work that only He could make possible.

The message still belongs to Him. So does the power to change a life. But for reasons of grace, He continues to place the bread in ordinary hands—including ours.

Love and trust in the Lord; seek His will in your life.

#faith #trustinggod #christianity #jesuschrist #bible #seekinggodswill #truth #sanctification #godisincontrol #godhearsourprayers #salvation #providenceofGod #crowdsourcing #Matthew28:19

YouTube@theBereansblog