About numbers

A theme of the Bible is don't count on numbers for success. God doesn't need numbers like worldly forces need numbers. And don't insult God by assuming (or fearfully thinking) you better have numbers to have success. David learned this.

Numbers though play a part in the influence of any school or teaching as well. A school doesn't need overwhelming numbers to be influential. A small number of adherents to any given school - good or evil - can have influence well beyond their number (the Frankfurt School, for instance). This is true for any school including the school of Christ. The Puritans, for instance, were always small little islands in a sea of worldly, unregenerate, hostile humanity. Yet their influence was very big and even defined an historical era. Calvin's Geneva, so influential in world history, changing the course of nations, was small and not only surrounded by Roman Catholic armies but also had people inside Geneva itself hostile to it.

So God doesn't need numbers to have influence through his elect. Yet He does need boldness on the part of his elect. What God needs is He needs his elect to fear Him alone and not the world. People who adhere to biblical doctrine, hard doctrine, Reformed, Calvinist doctrine, may yet be so scared of the world to such a degree that it makes them impotent in influencing anything.