From Chapter 2—Expanding the Right Kingdom: Church Growth According to the Bible

To prove this, let’s take a big-picture view of the Roman world of the first century, the world in which Jesus labored and the world into which the church was sent with the good message. The question I want you to ask yourself is this: Is the nation in which we labor worse than the world into which the first century Christians were sent? If it isn’t, how can we refuse to carry out the Great Commission in our nation?

First, consider Christ’s own words describing the people of his generation. Jesus openly condemned the people of his time. “A wicked and adulterous generation,” he accused, “asks for a miraculous sign” (Matthew 12:39). The word translated wicked here describes their actions and can also be translated as “derelict” or “vicious.” Adulterous is a common Jewish expression for people who are unfaithful to God. On a later occasion, he calls them an “unbelieving and perverse generation” (Matthew 17:17), meaning “without faith in God” or “heathen,” and “crooked, distorted, and morally corrupt.”

The apostles differed little in their estimation of their contemporaries. Paul picks up on Jesus’ words in Philippians 2:15, calling them a “crooked and depraved generation.” These two adjectives are the same Greek words Jesus used in Matthew 12:39 and 17:17 for wicked and perverse. Not to be outdone, Peter gets in on the public condemnation in his sermon at Pentecost. “Save yourselves,” he pleaded, “from this corrupt generation” (Acts 2:40).