The Gospel of the kingdom

Verse 14. - This gospel of the kingdom. The good news of
the coming of Messiah's kingdom - what we call in short,
"the gospel" - "that God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself" ( 2 Corinthians 5:19 ). He calls it
"this" ( Matthew 26:13 ), because it is that which he
preached, which it was the object of his incarnation to
set forth. In all the world (e)n o%lh"" th = "" oi)koume/
nh"", in all the inhabited earth ). Before the taking of
Jerusalem, the gospel had been carried into all parts of
the then known world. We have very uncertain
information about the labours of most of the apostles,
but if we may judge of their extent from what we know of
St. Paul's, we should say that very few quarters of the
Roman world were left unvisited. "Their sound went out
into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the
inhabited world" ( Romans 10:18 ). St. Paul testifies that
the gospel was preached to every kingdom under heaven
( Colossians 1:6, 23). He himself carried it to Arabia,
Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, Illyricum, Rome, Spain (see
Romans 15:19, 24, 28; Galatians 1:17 ; Philippians 1:13 ,
etc.). A witness unto all [the ] nations . That both Jews
and Gentiles might have the opportunity of receiving or
rejecting Christ. The witness should be for or against
them according to the use made of this opportunity. If
the gospel thus delivered contained this utterance of our
Lord's, the fulfilment of the predictions would lead to
belief in him, and could fail to win acceptance only by
reason of invincible prejudice or wilful perversity. Shortly,
the truth is that the gospel will be everywhere offered,
but not everywhere received. And then, when all these
signs, especially the one last named, shall have appeared,
shall the end come, primarily of Jerusalem, secondarily of
this world or this age. Nothing is said of the effect of
missionary efforts in early days or in time to come. We
know that there was no national conversion in the
primitive era, however common individual conversion may
have been. So in the present age we are not to expect
more than that Christian missions shall reach the
uttermost parts of the earth, and that all nations shall
have the offer of salvation, before the final appearance of
Christ. The success of these efforts at universal
evangelization is a mournful problem. "When the Son of
man cometh, shall he find the faith upon the
earth?" ( Luke 18:8 ).