VIRAL

I have a virus, a bad head cold to be more specific. And while I am thankful that it isn’t something more serious, it has got me thinking about how a virus works and what it means for something to be contagious?

It wasn’t that long ago that if someone spoke of a virus they had one thing in mind – the biological type. But with the dawn of the computer age, and more specifically the internet, we now talk about computer viruses. And now it seems we have a whole new usage for the term ‘viral’. The term has been adopted out of the world of biology and given a new assignment. It is now used to refer to pretty much anything that has the ability to replicate or multiply itself through simple exposure. It has become a common way to describe how information, thoughts or trends move throughout our society.

I saw an add the other day for some instructional information on how to produce ‘viral videos’. It is common to hear people speak about something that suddenly ‘went viral’ meaning that it went from being something known only within a small locale or by a limited number of people to suddenly spreading rapidly throughout the world. No surprise that the commercial players are in love with the whole idea.

Between sneezes, I have been thinking about how the gospel is meant to be viral. It is not as much taught as caught. It isn’t just some teaching. It’s way more than that. It is something that happens to us. It is the ‘living’ word that gets inside of us and takes over our systems. And, it is meant to be contagious. Like Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give”.

When allowed to move freely, the gospel can have such an exponential effect that it can become almost irresistible, sweeping through whole families and people groups. The problem though, often, is that the things of this world have a way of inoculating us. The Parable of the Sower comes to mind. Jesus said that in some cases, the ‘cares of this world’ and the ‘deceitfulness of riches’ can choke out the life of the seed before it has a chance to really take hold and produce. (see Matt 13)

So what we really need is just even a very small number of people but each with a serious full blown case of the gospel. That kind of infection would cause a serious outbreak of the gospel to spread and before long we would find ourselves in a global pandemic; every tribe, tongue and nation!!!