Miracle in the Market Place

In the hotel chain mentioned previously, each one of the 1,600 rooms was used an average of five tunes a day by prostitutes working in cahoots with the hotel's 2,000 employees. Humanly speaking, this was an irreversible situation. However, when the owner (a new Christian) realized that he had spiritual jurisdiction over the hotel, he hired 40 ministers to do prayer evangelism on site, and after two years most of his employees had become Christians and joined the spiritual turnaround that transformed the hotel chain into a spiritual powerhouse.

Chuck Ripka, senior vice president at the Riverview Community Bank, also learned to take advantage of opportunities to see business as church. "The attitude of management is that if a customer is struggling with his payments we will not send the collectors, but instead will inquire how we can pray for them," he says. ”This may sound like church, but keep in mind that this is a bank where God is at work!"

The notion that Jesus came to save more than just souls is not an exlra - biblical concept. John 3:16 does not state that God loved only the people in the world, but the world Itself, precisely what was lost in the Garden. To interpret it otherwise leaves us with faith for personal salvation but without hope for our cities and nations, even though the Great Commission is about effectively discipling all nations, and the book of Revelation provides evidence that nations-saved nations-will bring glory to God (Rev.21:24-27).

The idea that nations themselves can be redeemed runs like a thread throughout the Bible. The revivals described always influenced the marketplace. Of 69 divine interventions in the book of Acts, 68 happened in the marketplace.

Furthermore the centrality of the marketplace in the transformation of cities and nations is evident in Paul's missionary endeavors.

For more than 10 years (see Acts 13' 17). Paul ministered once a week to God - fearing people in religious settings. He was so effective at this that he became the model for church planters. However, according to Acts 19, it wasn't until "all who lived in Asia" heard the gospel-which included those in the marketplace-that Paul saw the region transformed.