I write a quarterly column for Preach magazine, in which I explore a significant word or phrase in the Bible, or a theme or section of Scripture, and the ideas that it expresses. At the end of this piece I list the previous articles I have written for them. Here I explore what Scripture says about the mighty God of the universe working through the smallest of things.
How would you expect the Almighty God, creator of the world, infinite in power and unrivalled in majesty, to change the world? With a dramatic flourish? With signs of power and wonder? Well, these have their place, but one of the remarkable things we see in Scripture is that God’s primary way of bringing change to the world—breaking the power of sin, bringing forgiveness to the sinner, and healing to the sinned-against—is through small things.
The more we think about this, the more surprising it is. In fact, it is such an all-pervasive feature of the biblical narrative that we have become so used to it, and so need to look again to see how important this is.
In the creation narratives in Genesis 1 and 2 there is a fascinating contrast between the grand and the detailed. In the first chapter, the universe is brought into being with great sweeps of narrative, the author painting dramatic brushstrokes on a broad canvas. Consider the billions of galaxies that we know of—all summarised in the sublime simplicity of ‘He also made the stars’ (Gen 1.16). Yet in the second chapter, we zoom into the almost microscopic detail as we focus on the story of two specific individuals, Adam and Eve, their needs, their hopes, and their delight in one another. It is this detail which draws us in and makes the narrative so engaging.
Beginning again
This pattern repeats through the story of scripture: when all hope seems lost, by God’s grace there is a new beginning, and it always starts with the small—with just one or two individuals.
When all humanity seems evil and beyond redemption, God begins a new thing with one faithful man, Noah, and his family in Genesis 9. The picture is of the recreation of humanity through this one family.
When God decides to form a nation who will change the world, he begins with one man—Abraham, and his family, in Genesis 12. When, later, this nation has lost its way, he raises up the prophetic tradition, but does so through the quiet longings of one woman, Hannah, who becomes the mother of Samuel (1 Samuel 1). Time and again, it is individual prophets who speak the truth to the power of a corrupt kingship.
When the people return from exile, they face a huge task, have few resources, and feel surrounded by enemies. But Zechariah reminds them: do not despise the day of small things (Zech 4.10). What looks small and insignificant in human terms will become significant by God’s grace—‘not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit’ (Zech 4.6)
Crowds and individuals
This dynamic between the grand narrative and small beginnings continues in the gospel. Though Matthew and Mark locate the coming of Jesus in the big picture of the biblical narrative, and John goes further and starts with creation, Luke focuses on the longings and surprises of two people, Zechariah and Mary.
The theme continues in the narrative of Jesus’ ministry. He sits on a hill to preach to the crowds, yet when travelling on the way he stops and stoops to bring his healing touch to a single individual (Mark 5). Though the many make demands, he takes time to attend to the one.
He teaches that the kingdom of God, though it will grow into a tree where all the birds (suggesting the nations of the world) will find their home, yet it begins with the smallest of seeds (Matt 13). And he illustrates this in feeding 5,000 people with just a few small loaves and pieces of fish.
Smallness and fragility mark the whole of Jesus’ ministry. It is truly remarkable that he ministered in a backwater province in a vast empire, and travelled no more than a couple of days’ walk from his home, and yet his teaching transformed that empire. But he did this without writing anything down, leaving nothing more behind him than a small and fickle band of followers whom he trusted to testify faithfully to what they had seen and heard.
When he was raised from the dead, he did not show himself to those in power to convince them, but continued to teach this small band of followers. And as this renewal movement grew, confident that he had been raised from the dead, very often the message spread simply by the accidental enthusiasm of those whose names we do not know (Acts 11.20).
The principle of the small
Why is this so? It seems to be part of the way God has made the world. The smallest things in the world can do great harm in the form of viruses and bacteria that spread disease. As someone once said ‘If you think you are too small to make a difference, you have never been in a room with a mosquito!’
Yet the small is also the source of life, of hope, and of transformation. I grow lettuce in my garden to make salads for my lunch—and it constantly amazes me that such tiny seeds will grow into something that will sustain my body.
“The glory of Christianity is its claim that small things really matter and that the small company, the very few, the one man, the one woman, the one child are of infinite worth to God. Consider our Lord himself. Amidst a vast world with its vast empires and vast events and tragedies our Lord devoted himself to individual men and women, often giving hours and time to the very few or to the one man or woman.” Michael Ramsay, The Christian Priest Today p 42.
This makes all the difference. Although we describe the world in terms of its grand narratives, that is not the way we live. We live in the everyday detail of our lives, and it is in the small, the everyday, that God begins his work.
God wants to change the world—but he wants to do it through me and through you. He does it through that small act of kindness, through that small daily act of devotion of reading the scriptures and prayer (you can read the whole Bible in a year in just 15 small minutes a day!), and through that small sharing of testimony with others of what God has done. Evil boasts in its greatness, but the mighty God of love is willing to work with the small.
God believes in the small, because he believes in you and me, and wants to use us to bring his life to others.
My previous articles have been on the themes of:
- the phrase ‘Word of God’
- the theme of ‘Mission’
- the meaning of ‘Apocalypse‘
- the ministry of ‘Healing’,
- the question of ‘Welcome’,
- the biblical understanding of ‘Justice’,
- the biblical view of creation
- what the Bible means by the term ‘church’.
- what the Bible says about grief and grieving.
- what is so good about the Old Testament?
- Why should we welcome the stranger?
- How can we rejoice in an imperfect world?
- What does scripture say about disability?
- What are the scriptural roots of our understanding of preaching?
- How do we make sense of the psalms of conflict?
- What does Scripture say about poverty and our response to it?
- What is the meaning of Sabbath?
- What is it like to encounter the person of Jesus?
- What does Joel tell us about the promises of God?
- What is the connection between prayer and fasting?
- What does the rise of artificial intelligence tell us about being human?
Buy me a Coffee
Without wanting to detract from the insights of the above testimony, I would only add that the supreme manifestation of The lord’s association with small things subsisted in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
“God wants to change the world—but he wants to do it through me and through you.”
Stuart Olyott had a thoughtful article in ET on this, ‘The Power of One’.
https://www.evangelical-times.org/the-power-of-one/
Yes – this is true. These small things demonstrate that we have an amazing God.
But watching the Brian Cox series Solar System it demonstrates the mind-boggling immensity of the universe. And it seems a disjointed cosmos — with volcanic planets, black holes, and colliding galaxes.
But we rarely engage with this in our understanding of the gospel. Anthony Smith who commented on yesterday’s blog, on his website, considers the ‘apocalyptic’ Paul in the J. Louis Martyn commentary on Galatians. Chris Miller in his study comments:
“All people are under the sway of demonic forces of the cosmos (Gal 4:3, 9) and hence under sin (Gal 3:22). The crucial issue [in Galatians] is: ‘What time is it? … it is the time after the apocalypse of the faith of Christ’ [‘apocalypse’ = a change of an epoch].”
Perhaps the eschaton will not be simply a sinless recapitulation of our world.
It is lovely to think that God works through the small – but the Bible also claims that He works through the big, eg Roman censuses, Babylonian invasions, and of course the Exodus. As Ian knows, I am puzzling and reading about God in (big picture) history, and the difficulty in finding Him (post-Resurrection.) Can anyone on this blog recommend any reading on the subject, not just vague theodicy, but actual grapplings with literal history, national or international?
Please test this out. It may or may not help, as I don’t know where thoughts and struggles, although it deems that our host has offered some guidance.
Not only that, I’ m only aware of the book’s existence. I’ve not read it.
Our host and others may chip in.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Moral-Monster-Making-Testament/dp/0801072751?origin=serp_auto#immersive-view_1730919415005
An internet search will bring up Copan’s discussions and talks some old, some more recent.
Again, I’ve not viewed nor listened to any.
They are likely to centre on the doctrine of God, who or which God, nature and attributes.
Thank you.
You’ll find plenty in my book on Revelation (When the Towers Fall, Wipf & Stock) – the rise of civilisation in Mesopotamia, the Exodus, Assyria’s expulsion of Israel from the land, Nebuchadrezzar’s conquest of Judah, the historicity of Belshazzar (Dan 5) and of ‘Darius, son of Xerxes’ (Dan 9:1), Medo-Persia’s conquest of Babylon, Antiochus IV (2nd c. BC), the expulsion of the Jews from the promised land in AD 70, a sketched history of the western Church re Rev 2-3 and 12, the rise of Islam in the 7th century as background to Rev 13, the events of 1870-1945 as reflected in Rev 6 and the two Arab-Israeli wars as reflected in Rev 12 – all with archaeological illustrations, such as photos of the altar at Dan (I Ki 12:29), the last Tower of Babel, a relief portraying Jehu (II Ki 10:32) bowing before Shalmaneser III, a relief of Ashurbanipal (re Isa 30:32 and Rev 19) and an impression of a seal attributed to the prophet Isaiah.
Thank you.
Thanks Ian. That was the ‘topic’ in our chapel this morning. God’s ‘little people’. With quotations from Eugene Peterson _A Long Obedience in the Same Direction_.
Quote from p.176
‘Margaret Mead, who made learned and passionate protests against the ways modern culture flattens out and demoralizes people, wrote, “No recorded cultural system has ever had enough different expectations to match all the children who were born within it.”…
‘A community of faith flourishes when we view each other with this expectancy, wondering what God will do today in this one, in that one.’
An encouraging work Ian.
These words of Zachariah [despise not the day of small things ] were a great encouragement to the Jews, the Church and the Two Witnesses
4:1 But it came to pass, that when Sanballat heard that we builded the wall, he was wroth, and took great indignation, and mocked the Jews.
4:2 And he spake before his brethren and the army of Samaria, and said, What do these feeble Jews? will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of the rubbish which are burned?
4:3 Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up on it, he shall even break down their stone wall.
For the Church – Yes we are poor materials, burned and blackened sinners, scattered, we are the rubble and offscourings of the world .
Meaning “Yahweh remembers,” Zechariah’s name was appropriate to the purpose of his prophecies.2 His book brims over with the hope that God would remember His promises to His people, even after all the time they spent outside the land.
“For who has despised the day of small things?” No one who understands God and what He is working out looks down on the times when only insignificant things seem to be accomplished. Those who understand what God is doing know that the day of small things must take place before the big things can happen.
So, all these small things that happened with this tiny numbe
[remnant]of people who came back from Babylon, and all the work that they did over a hundred years or so, prepared the way for the very “big thing” of the first advent of Jesus Christ (meaning His entire life, His ministry, His death, and His resurrection). Without the small things, that big thing would never have happened.
Zechariah concluded his book by looking into the distant future, first at the rejection of the Messiah by Israel (9:1–11:17), and then at His eventual reign when Israel will finally be delivered (12:1–14:21).
It is most in harmony with the scope of these visions, (one of the great objects of [the vision] was to encourage the two heads, or leaders, of the restored remnant of the nation in their task of rebuilding the Temple) to regard the olive trees as representing Joshua the high priest, and Zerubbabel the prince.61
We are big dreamers hemmed in, behind and before, by a small job, small church, small town, small life.
Big God, Small Day
When the returned exiles of Israel began rebuilding the temple under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the young rejoiced; the old wept (Ezra 3:10–13). Compared to Solomon’s temple, which the gray-haired among the people still remembered, the new sanctuary seemed a mere stump. Their dreams of the kingdom, restored to its former glory, suddenly died in a day of small things.
To which Zechariah responded,
Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of “Grace, grace to it!” . . . Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice. (Zechariah 4:7, 10)
“For all of his bigness, our God has a remarkable love for the small.”
While the elders of Israel wept over this day of small things, the God of Israel did not. Despite his big plans for his people, he is not afraid of the small. Nor is the small any sure sign of his displeasure, as we so often are tempted to think: If God were really in this, things would be bigger by now! No: God had rescued them, God was with them, and God’s plans would prosper — even through a day of small things.
To be sure, God’s mission in the world does not culminate in a day of small things, and we would be wrong to rest content in such a day. But we also would be wrong to despise it. Instead, consider a lesson from Zechariah and Scripture’s other prophets: if we are genuinely faithful in the day of small things, our small obedience will become big — but not usually right away, and not often in the ways we expect.
The big God is apparently patient enough to endure centuries of small days. His kingdom, which will one day cover the earth, does not begin big. It grows from one old man and his barren wife (Isaiah 51:2). It grows from “the fewest of all peoples” (Deuteronomy 7:7).Precept austin – Zechariah.
7:6 For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.
7:7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people:
7:8 But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
7:9 Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keep covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations;
7:10 And repays them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.
God seems to start things small
It all starts with a trickle of water from the temple Ezek. 47:1-12 and deepens to water to swim in, to issue into the healing of the sea waters.
Jesus “fear not little flock for it is the Fathers good pleasure to give you the kingdom”.
He who is faithful in the least will rule over much [Jesus]
It grows from a mustard seed and a bit of leaven (Matthew 13:31–33). It grows from an embryo in the womb of a virgin (Isaiah 9:6–7). It grows from twelve uneducated men (Acts 1:8).
What is small among men is big in the sight of God (Luke 16:15).
To which Zechariah responds again: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts” (Zechariah 4:6). An arm of flesh can never produce the day of big things, at least if we allow God to define big for us. Big things come only from the Spirit as he works through his small but faithful people.
This is primarily an encouragement to the *Two Witnesses [both here and REV. 11 . Their work will appear as nothing to begin with. Nevertheless, they will not despise it because they know that small things must happen before bigger things can take place, the things that will really put them on the map during the final 3½ years. But the small things that happen before that time—in measuring the altar, the Temple, and the worshippers (Revelation 11:1)—will set the stage for their major work which was to preach the final call to repentance.
(precept austin -Zechariah)
The factorial fraternity I fear will not benefit from this timely word.
He (H) has not been long attending, but sitting next to him through the service, he kept talking during the sermon, asking questions of it without any self awareness.
At first, I found it a little irritating, distracting, but have come to appreciate his questions. They are good ones and show he is listening and engaging with it.
Recently, the sermon was on sowing and the white harvest. The minister was giving an example of persevering in prayer for people from the Middle East he barely knew, but years later came to baptise.
After the scripture reading, H said it was all about sewing the word and related how recently he had been to a funeral at another church in the locality, a got talking to a younger man who was blasé about dying. H not long afterwards heard of that man’s sudden, unexpected death. But he had said the sinner’s prayer with the minister, before dying.
It gladdened the heart of us both, though he was grieved that the hardest people to reach were family, such as his adult son.
Such a small, (unlooked-for) encounter by either of them yet with unknown, at the time, eternal consequences.
Something out of nothing. Ex nihilo.
From dust to dominion.
Life from death.
From the finite to the infinite
From the material to the relational.
From the grime to glory.
From curses to blessing.
From sin to righteousness.
From condemned to justified.
From sin to righteousness.
From debt to credit.
From enemy to forgiven friend.
From orphans to inheritors.
Israel, Church: Jew Gentile; supercessionism, church: discontinuity, continuity
This has prominently exercised many commentators on this blog, even when it is not the main topic. Colin Mc, Colin H, above; Anton, Lorenzo and others down the years.
Aplogies to Ian Paul for pressing on his forbearance on this point.
From yesterday, here is a wonderful short overview spoken and written of Romans 9-11, part of a 5 day ‘helicopter’ flight over Romans, concluding today.
“The Unfailing Promises of God”.
“The Unfailing Promises of God” from Ligonier Ministries https://www.ligonier.org/podcasts/things-unseen-with-sinclair-ferguson/the-unfailing-promises-of-god
BTW does not church = called out ones = Jews + Gentiles.