Four thousand years ago, God made a covenant with Abraham, saying, “through your offspring all nations (families) on earth will be blessed” (Genesis 22:18). God was promising that all people groups would be made right with him by faith (Galatians 3:8).
Jesus commanded his followers to disciple all people groups (Matthew 28:19). Thus, movements to Jesus spread into a growing number of non-Jewish people groups through witnesses like Paul, who said, “It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ has not been named, not building on another’s foundation” (Romans 15:20). In each generation, God calls some, like Paul, to such pioneer work.
- In 1792, William Carey worked out that the gospel had spread through cross-cultural witnesses to places containing 25% of the world’s population.
- In 1974, Ralph Winter figured that 40% of the world lived in people groups with their own movements to Jesus.
- In 2024, just 50 years later, the gospel has taken root in people groups containing 75% of the world’s population.
Where would Paul go today?
Read more or download The Great Progress of the Gospel as a PDF (also available in print). It’s packed with charts and data about the 5,000 Frontier People Groups who represent 25% of the world’s population. Much of the material is open source (with attribution) and also available from JoshuapProject.net/GreatProgress.