The mysterious new tribe

Now on to the so-called undiscovered Amazon tribe. I don't believe that when Jesus said that the gospel would be preached throughout the world that he meant necessarily to each individual tribe. "All the world" means simply widely known, as Christianity is widely known throughout all the world and not limited to Jerusalem, or Rome for example and the areas Jesus actually walked, or Peter, or the rest of the apostles.

It is like taking all the people within a city block and because you find one who has never heard of God, taking it to mean that Christ will therefore not return until that one person has heard of the gospel. The whole rest of the block knows - therefore the knowledge can safely be caused common knowledge.

So the discovery of a new tribe makes no difference to when Christ comes at all. Christ is known in the countries that border the Amazon, and by tribes that border the so-called undiscovered tribe. But I do not take the Bible to mean that each individual person needs to have heard about Jesus before He will come.

However, in the second place, I don't believe either that this is a "new" tribe that has never had contact with the outside world. They may not currently have contact with the outside world due to bad experiences in the past, but I'd bet my house that they've had contact with others at some point. Even tribes don't live in a vacuum.

I've heard this on many news stations reporting on this so-called new tribe. Here's a link that about covers it: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/30/2260586.htm

Layla