How the Babylonian Exile Informs Gen Z’s Evangelism

Mar 25, 2024 by

By Matthew Goldstine, TGC.

Around 2,600 years ago, a domineering Babylonian army carried many defeated Jews into exile. Israel’s sin had piled up over the years, resulting in God removing his protection from them.

But God didn’t leave them in their destruction. Through the pen of Jeremiah, he left them with instructions for their years in Babylon:

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the LORD. (Jer. 29:4–9)

The key to this passage lies in the beginning: build houses and plant gardens. God didn’t encourage mere survival or give them permission to wallow in their suffering; he told them to get busy. “What should you do? You should do what I’ve always commanded you to do. Be fruitful and multiply. Live life. Love me and love others.”

These instructions aren’t so much a time-bound set of rules as they are a blueprint of God’s command to all humans for all time.

What does all this have to do with Gen Z and their evangelism? Everything.

Tweeting to Babylon

Growing up in the social media age, I’ve witnessed the development of internet ministry as a way to reach the lost. TikTokers post attention-grabbing videos to ask if they can pray with you, Twitter users share short Bible verses, and platforms are filled with quick devotionals. (I admit I’ve used my Instagram account to “evangelistically” post short devotionals in the hope people would find them during scrolling sessions.) No doubt God has used these means to bring people to himself, but the approach as a whole is insufficient.

Read here.

 

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