Daily text, for Sunday, April 3. 2016

[Queen Esther]

Go . . . and make disciples of people of all the nations.—Matt. 28:19.

As Jesus’ followers did that work, eventually the “good news of the Kingdom [would] be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations.” (Matt. 24:14) The disciples loved both Jesus and the good news. Yet, they might well have wondered just how they could possibly carry out their commission. After all, they were few in number. Jesus, whom they proclaimed to be the Son of God, had been put to death. His disciples were viewed as “uneducated and ordinary.” (Acts 4:13) And their message ran counter to the teachings of the prestigious religious leaders. Whatever concerns they may have had, the disciples got busy preaching the good news not only in Jerusalem and Samaria but throughout the then-known world. Although the disciples experienced difficulties, within 30 years the good news was being “preached in all creation under heaven” and was “bearing fruit and increasing in all the world.”—Col. 1:6, 23. w15 2/15 3:1, 2, 4