Round numbers

Okay... a random thought. In Western culture we love numbers but our love affair ends with numbers that take effort.

For instance, does anyone really writeout 3,600,000,000,000 when we write about the budget plan for America? No way, I could screw up all the zeros! Let's take a stroll into math land and meet some interesting numbers and their imaginary playmates... 2+2i^0 anyone. Then there is the mother of all headache numbers: pi. Otherwise know as 3.14159 26535 89793 23846 26433 83279 50288 41971 69399 37510... (and it keeps on going).

So what do we do when we face such numerical monstrosities? Like Monty Python we make these beastly things cute small and easy to understand (anyone else remember the killer fluffy bunny from the Holy Grail Movie).

We put the numbers into the microwave push a button, wait 30 seconds and out pops our kinder gentler numbers otherwise know as approximations or "round" numbers. Try out these fuzzy friendly and puppy dog like numbers... 3.6 trillion, 4, and 3.14. Not cute enough? how about ~4 trillion, or 5. now were talking!

Okay so your wondering why all the fuss on numbers. The answer is because something gets lost when we make numbers cute and easy. The something is accuracy. And when your talking about population numbers the loss in accuracy means somebody just pushed grandma off the cliff because it was to difficult to remember her. So with this comforting thought in mind let's bring grandma with us and check out some numbers from The Joshua Project:

USA
304,742,000 people and counting.
364 separate people groups or cultures and counting.
60 of those groups are in the "least reached" categories.
162 living languages.

The World
6,640,875,000 people and counting.
16,306 separate people groups or cultures and counting.
6,650 unreached people groups.

So what do these numbers tell me? I see that there are a LOT of people in the States that aren't like me and I never knew they existed here in the States. Imagine the joy of a chance to be a living witness of God's grace and love to a least reached people group without having to give up modern plumbing or your neice's birthday parties. How awesome!