Numbers

The smallness of the number of those who are known as “Christadelphians” is often a subject of contemptuous allusion. It is perfectly natural it should be so. The importance of a community, in all ordinary human calculations, is measurable by numbers. It has never been so in Divine directions. The multitude has always been in an unacceptable attitude towards God, and He has always spoken disparagingly of the stress that men put upon numbers. There is even a danger connected with numbers. Men incline to glory in numbers, and this is always offensive to God. Gideon had to reduce his 32,000 to 300 before God would deliver Israel by his hand, “Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me” (Jud. 6:2). David sinned grievously in numbering Israel for the glory of the thing (2 Sam. 24:10). When people have asked a census of the Christadelphians, we have always felt the powerful objection arising out of these considerations. “How many are we?” Leave that alone. Our position does not depend upon that, and might even be destroyed by that. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”


1897 Christadelphian: Volume 31. 2001 (electronic ed.) (151). Birmingham: Christadelphian Magazine & Publishing Association.