In Mark 6, Jesus speaks about shaking the dust off the Apostles’ feet. In Matthew 7, he speaks about not throwing your pearls before swine. Both comments are about not endlessly and continuously taking the gospel to the same people again and again. There comes a point where it is appropriate to say ‘enough’ and to move on.

The question is, how do you know when enough is enough? If we are to go into all of creation and preach the gospel, how do we know if we have done enough preaching in any given bit of it? how do we know if the place we are in now has reached a pearls before swine, dust-off-your-feet scenario?

I think Jesus says enough in Mark 6 to give us a bit of a clue. He tells his disciples in v10-11, ‘Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, leave that place and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.’ So, Jesus seems to suggest that they are to stay in that particular place unless and until they refuse to welcome or listen to you. That is to say, there is a clear and direct rejection of the message being proclaimed. I think something similar is going on in Matthew 7. If someone, or a wider somewhere, has heard the gospel and come to a settled and active rejection of it then we may be in a pearls before swine situation.

This is significant when it comes to ministry in areas like mine. We are in a primarily Muslim area of Oldham. Fruit – as I pointed out here – is not easy to come by. For some, the ten years I have stayed here reaching many of the same people with little to show for it among Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims is a prime example of warranting dust being shaken and pearls being thrown before swine. I, however, disagree.

First, I disagree because our Muslim neighbours, and others, continue asking us questions about the gospel. They continue to engage with us. They are not trying to run us out of town nor have come to a settled and active position that they want to hear no more about the gospel. We continue to get opportunities, we continue to be asked to share, we continue to give an answer for the hope that is in us.

Second, I disagree because Oldham is a borough of 240,000. It is fair to say our small church has some way to go before we can meaningfully say we have reached our area. Even if we narrow it down to our particular corner of the borough around our church building, we’re still talking tens of thousands of people. I am confident we have not meaningfully engaged them all. Even if we factor in the other churches in the borough and take a generous view of gospel preaching, we are scratching the surface. We have a long way to go before we are in dust-shaking territory I think.

Third, I disagree because there are always new people moving in and new generations of people willing to engage. Even if we could meaningfully say we have fully and effectively reached our area (and we can’t), we can only meaningfully claim to have reached one generation at best. But new generations of people grow up and need to hear the gospel. Likewise, new people move into the town and many people move out. These people also need to be reached. We might well have shaken the dust on a particular person or family, but they may have moved and new people may have come in. We can’t legitimately shake the dust off our feet when the turnover of people in the area has entirely changed and we haven’t reached many of these people.

Fourth, if we look at the example of the Apostles – particularly Paul – it seems that they moved on either when a church had been planted to carry on the long-term work of local evangelism or they were chased out of a region by people so hostile to the gospel they wanted to kill the messengers. There didn’t seem to be lots of dust shaking going on at people who had heard the gospel once or twice. Indeed, in Acts 13 in Pisidian Antioch, Paul was specifically asked by the people he confronted with the gospel to come back and say more about it. They hadn’t converted but they were keen to hear more and willing to invite him back. Such as that door remains open for us locally, and shy of being run out of town, it seems we are not in a dust shaking scenario.