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The Bible's First Church Planter?

Posted: May 31, 2010 by Jonty Rhodes

Who is the Bible’s First Church Planter? I guess most people, if asked, would go for Paul. His three missionary journeys, moving from city to city around the Mediterranean have become the pattern for many church plant networks today: reach the cities and there will be a trickle down effect into the towns and villages surrounding. In fact our very word ‘pagan’ is derived from the Latin ‘paganus’ literally means a ‘countryside dweller’, as the countryside was converted more slowly than the cities.

But there’s a good case to be made for a much earlier planter: Abraham, or Abram as he was still known at the time. In chaper 12 of Genesis God calls Abram to ‘Go from your country and kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you’ (Gen 12:1) promising to make him a great nation, so great that ‘in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed’ (v3).

So off Abram, Sarai, Lot and all their households go, arriving eventually at Shechem in Canaan (v6). What does he do there?

(Abram) ‘built there an altar to the LORD who had appeared to him’ (v7).

The next verse we see him moving to Bethel, and there again building an altar. After a diversion through Egypt, he’s back again, this time at Hebron, and again building an altar to the LORD (13:18).

Abram is moving round Canaan, his promised land, ‘planting’ worship centres. He is already becoming a blessing to the nations, as worship of the true God is established. Jesus was building his church long before Paul was on scene.