As a Majority World institution, we at CTS are often confronted by the tension between dreaming big and the very real limitations that can make those dreams difficult to accomplish. These limitations may be resources, time, personnel, infrastructure, technology, or any number of other things. Yet we have also realised that, if we are not careful, these realities can lead us into either defeatism or covetousness.

We can easily get caught in a cycle of “what ifs”. What if we had the resources our friends in the Western world have? What if our services were more efficient, and we did not have to wait so long for every little approval? What if we could purchase the best technology for our classrooms? What if we had more people, more space, more money, more time?

The list goes on.

Yet, at some point—and perhaps at many points—we have had to pause and preach to ourselves: the mission of God, and the mission of CTS, is not defined by the limitations of our context but by the possibilities those limitations create for us to experience the very real power of God.

The method we see God using throughout Scripture to carry out His great plan of redemption—the missio Dei—is not always from the centre. It does not always begin with kings and rulers, those of high status, unlimited resources, or political power. Instead, a recurring pattern emerges: God uses small people, small things, and small beginnings to accomplish His great purposes.

Small People

Think about the people of Israel.

God reminds Israel in Deuteronomy 7:7–9 of the reason for their election:

“The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples.”

Israel’s significance did not come from being large, strong, or powerful. In fact, God explicitly reminds them that they were small. Their identity and calling rested not on their own greatness but on the character and faithfulness of the God who had chosen them.

Being a small people is a good thing in God’s economy. Not because God is self-serving or egotistical, but because human glory is inadequate and vain while God’s glory is good and redemptive. Israel’s smallness was not an obstacle to God’s purposes. It became the context in which God’s faithfulness could be seen.

Israel is not the only biblical example. Christ Himself enters the world with a humble human identity. It is not accidental that the saviour of the world was born to a peasant mother and father, in a lowly barn. There is something scandalous to the world about this counterintuitive method of God carrying out His purposes.

Paul is unapologetically direct about this in 1 Corinthians 1:27–29:

“God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before Him.”

We must also remember that there is a smallness that is simply allotted to us by the conditions into which we are born or the circumstances into which life thrusts us. But there is another kind of smallness that we must also intentionally embrace: the humility of making ourselves low when we become great, popular, or influential in the eyes of others.

We are in the business of John the Baptist:

“He must become greater; I must become less.”
—John 3:30

There is a beautiful old poem that captures this:

Where is the lore John Baptist taught,
The soul unswerving and the fearless tongue?
The much-enduring wisdom, sought
By lonely prayer the haunted rocks among?

Who counts it gain
His light should wane,
So the whole world to Jesus throng?

To become smaller is not to think less of ourselves, but to think of ourselves less so that Christ, the desire of all nations, might shine forth.

Small Things