Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the Uttermost Part, in That Order

I knew a man who had a map of the world on the wall of his workshop, and he told me it made him pray less.

That is not what he expected when he put it up. He had bought it in earnest. He had some idea about praying for the nations, and he thought if the whole thing was in front of him he would do it.

What actually happened is that he would stand in front of it with a cup of coffee and be overwhelmed inside about ninety seconds. There is a lot of world on a map. He would start somewhere and then think about somewhere else and then think about how little he knew about either, and then he would go and do something with his hands instead.

He said the map lasted about two years and then he took it down, and he was embarrassed about taking it down, so he never told anybody why.

Here is what I told him at the fence, and it took me a while to work out that it was not a consolation. It is the actual instruction.

He gave it in an order

The last thing Jesus says before He goes is not a general instruction about the world. It is a specific one with a sequence in it.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8, King James Version)

Four rings. And they are not four separate assignments handed to four different committees. They are one assignment expanding outward from where the people hearing it were standing.

Jerusalem was the city they were in. Judea was the region around it. Samaria was next door and awkward, full of people they had opinions about. The uttermost part was everywhere else.

Notice that He starts at their feet. He does not begin with the largest and most impressive circle and work in. He begins with the ground they are on.

You have already been standing inside ring one this whole time, and standing there is participation rather than preparation for it, and Acts 1 names it first in the sentence, and the Spirit is the one who makes an ordinary address into an assignment.

You have been given a starting point rather than a whole earth, and the starting point is where you are standing, and Acts 1 puts Jerusalem first in the sentence rather than last, and the Holy Spirit is the one who supplies the power in that verse rather than a person's capacity for the scale.

And look at what the verse promises before it names any of the rings. Power, and then the Spirit coming. The equipment comes before the geography, which is the opposite of how most of us try to do it.

Why guilt makes a person pray less

I want to say something about the map on the workshop wall, because I have watched it happen to a lot of people and almost nobody names it.

Guilt is a poor motor. It looks like a motor and it is not one. It produces about four days of activity and then produces avoidance, because a person cannot stand in front of a thing that reliably makes them feel bad.

So a praying person who has been told, correctly, that the world is enormous and the need is enormous, and who has not been told where to start, will end up praying for less than they did before they knew.

That is not softness and it is not a lack of love. It is what happens to anybody standing in front of something with no first step in it.

The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. (Luke 10:2)

Even here, where the scale is named, He gives one prayer and one subject. Not a survey of every field. Ask Him to send people.

You have one sentence to say rather than a world to hold, and the request He named is about laborers rather than about your adequacy (Luke 10:2). The same Spirit is the one who does the sending, which was never a thing a person at a fence could do anyway.

The awkward ring is in there on purpose

There is one detail in that verse I would rather skip and cannot.

The third ring is Samaria. Everybody hearing that sentence had feelings about Samaria, and they were not warm ones, and He put it in the list without comment, sitting there between the familiar region and the wide world.

Which means the sequence is not simply outward by distance. It goes: the place a person stands, the country around it, the people they find difficult, and then everywhere.

I have used that as a shape for years and I will tell you honestly that the third ring is the one I skip. It is easier to pray for a continent I will never see than for a household four miles away that I have an opinion about.

You are not disqualified from praying for people you have opinions about, and He put them in the list on purpose (Acts 1:8), and Scripture places that ring inside the assignment rather than as an advanced option, and the Spirit is the one who softens what a person cannot soften by deciding to.

And there is a word about small beginnings in Zechariah that belongs here.

For who hath despised the day of small things? (Zechariah 4:10)

That question is aimed at people looking at a foundation and comparing it to a building they remembered. Small is not the same as insignificant, and a first ring is not a failure to reach the fourth.