Carrying Good News

In Acts 1:8, Jesus tells his followers that, empowered by the Holy Spirit, they will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. Acts shows this being fulfilled, although the task remains incomplete even today.

I was recently in Albania – not a place mentioned in Acts, but in Romans 15:19, Paul says that he has proclaimed the good news of Jesus “all the way around to Illyricum” – an area including much of today’s Albania. According to tradition, Paul visited Durrës, which lies on both the coast and the Via Egnatia.

I first saw Albania in the 1980s when I viewed it from a Greek island. Back then its extreme communist regime had isolated it from the rest of the world, and tried to stamp out all news of Jesus. But today there is a thriving Albanian church, seeking to proclaim the good news far and wide.

As evangelicals we are committed to proclaiming to euangelion (the good news). Albania reminds us that it is the Holy Spirit rather than human leaders or ideologies who authorises the spreading of this news, and that although sometimes this news seems to go unheeded, this may be followed by times when it will go from strength to strength.

For many us in Europe today, the good news about Jesus seems to be being pushed to the margins, but as evangelicals we do not mourn the past or predict the future, but keep on faithfully bearing witness to Jesus – the one who we know to be the best possible news for every person.