“And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (John 3:8)
One of the hallmarks of God’s kingdom is the vast amount of fruit produced within it. Since fruit is always a product of faith, the more faithful a church is, the more fruitful it will be. This principle is clearly laid out in Jesus’ words to His closest disciples: “This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.” (John 15:8) In the early Church, God was glorified as our first-century brothers and sisters produced an abundance of fruit, baptizing their way to the ends of the earth (Acts 28:22, Colossians 1:6).
In their very first church service, God put His stamp of approval on His faithful disciples by blessing them with three thousand baptisms (Acts 2:41). Wow! But those three thousand baptisms didn’t just represent three thousand new believers—they were also three thousand new baptizers! Since they were undoubtedly taught to obey everything the disciples were taught, including the command to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20), they too produced much fruit. In fact, the Bible records that “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Mathematically, the 3,000 new disciples were added to the original 120 disciples (Acts 1:15), and collectively, they baptized at least 12% of their number—365! Although twelve percent may not seem high, we can deduce that the disciples were likely baptizing far more than just one person per day, as Luke records that the number of men (not including women) grew to about five thousand just a couple of chapters later (Acts 4:4). Incredible! God was moving powerfully!
Later on, it wasn’t just the church in Jerusalem that was producing large numbers of baptisms. As Paul traveled through the Macedonian churches, the Bible records that they were “strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers” (Acts 16:5). And that is what happens when a church is strengthened in its faith—it grows in numbers! Fruitfulness and faithfulness are always connected. Achieving milestones in fruit indicates achieving milestones in faith. Faith is always accompanied by deeds (James 2:18). Not only is faith accompanied by deeds, but there are different measures of faith. Mediocre faith will always be accompanied by mediocre deeds, while great faith will always be accompanied by great deeds.
Excitingly, this past Sunday, the Lord blessed our faith with five incredible baptisms: Jenelle, Stella, Great, Maryam, and Alvin! Not only was this the third time this year that we’ve witnessed five souls granted salvation through the waters of baptism on a single Sunday, but after baptizing all five of them, the Toronto Church has officially reached a new milestone! We’ve now had 52 baptisms, which means we’ve already achieved weekly baptisms for the year—and it’s still only September! God is awesome!
No doubt, God has been working through the faith of the disciples in Toronto, as we are just a few members shy of reaching our overall growth goal of going from 95 to 130 members by the end of the year! Of course, as with all these goals and milestones, our concern is not merely human achievement. We understand that each of these numbers represents a soul—not just the soul of the individual who was baptized and added to our number, but all the future souls they will eventually help baptize and add to our number! Numbers simply quantify the miracles of God. How else would anyone be able to distinguish the difference between bearing fruit and bearing much fruit? Numbers are all over the Bible. In some ways, I think they are there to give us something to compare ourselves to. As Paul said to the church in Corinth, “When they measure themselves by themselves and compare them- selves with themselves, they are not wise” (2 Corinthians 10:12). Without a biblical example of what bearing much fruit looks like, we might mischaracterize mediocrity as greatness. It is precisely because we have the numbers in the Bible that we can understand what exceptional faith looks like.
Now, where do we stand in comparison to the first-century Church? We’re not quite at daily baptisms yet, but we’re also not at 3,120 members. So perhaps we’re closer than we think, though we still have room for growth! Some might say that the world today is different from the world of Jesus’ generation, and we cannot possibly have the same expectations for fruitfulness as our early brothers and sisters did. To that, I would argue that the world has not changed. It is the same as it has always been— lost and sinful. If anything, our modern technology should make it easier for us to reach the ends of the earth. So perhaps it’s not the world that has changed, but the faith of disciples that has changed. Where there is faithfulness, there will always fruitfulness!
I am so proud of the Toronto Church, as I can honestly say we are a very faithful church! But despite the incredible growth we’ve already seen this year, I believe our faith can be taken even higher. Now that we’ve achieved the milestone of weekly baptisms, let’s set our sights on a new goal: daily baptisms! To God be ALL the glory!
Evan Bartholomew