As I was clearing out some files in preparation for our move to Africa, I came across this 1,300 word essay that I wrote for a missions class waaaaay back in my freshman year of college. I thought some of you might enjoy the read. At times the writing sounds like a freshman, but I think there are still some worthwhile thoughts in it.
The Biblical Imperative for Missions
Webster
defines imperative as an obligatory
act or duty; something not to be avoided or evaded. By extension, biblical imperatives are not to
be evaded. Christians cannot escape
their duty to spread the gospel. Jesus
says in Matthew 28:19-20, “Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the
Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the
world.”
Christ’s will is for the
church to tell the world of His life and teachings. The command “Go” is an imperative that
applies to all ages. This command
demands either obedience or disobedience.
There is no other option.
Consequently, this passage has become the dominant motive for missions
in modern times (Culver xi).
David
Livingstone said, “God only had one Son – and He was a missionary” (Dickson, Call
27). Jesus is a missionary. His mission is “to seek and save the lost”
(Luke 19:10). His final command
expresses His desire for the church to continue His work. The Bible teachers in Colossians 1:18 that
the Church is the body of Christ. As the
body of Christ, the Church has a responsibility to do His work (Dickson, Restoring
1). Acts 17:30 states that, “the times of ignorance God winked at; but
now commandeth all men everywhere to repent.” Ignorance of the Word is no longer an
excuse. All will be accountable, and it
is our duty to share the Gospel with those that do not have it. If we do not, then we will be accountable as
well. James 4:17 says, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good,
and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
Despite
all of that, the main motivation for missions should be within the
missionary. Christians should have a
great desire to evangelize lost people.
We are to be compassionate people.
The idea of Christians being loving and compassionate is very important
to God. The phrases “love thy neighbor”
and “love one another” combine to appear twenty-one times in the Bible. Obviously, something with that degree of
emphasis is of great importance. Being
of a compassionate heart, Christians should want to help fulfill the needs of
others.
What
greater need does anyone have than that of God’s redeeming grace? There is an unbelievable need for the Gospel
in the world. There are three million
villages in the world that do not have a single person that knows about Jesus. There are two thousand tribes that do not
have even one word of Scripture in their language. There are one thousand languages that the
Bible has yet to be translated into.
Including all “Christian” religions, 96% of church funds are being used
to bring biblical teachings to 9% of the world’s population. That leaves only 4% of the funds for the
remaining 91% of the world’s population (Dickson, Call 33). Clearly the need cannot be ignored.
The
need for missions is easy to see, but the great need can be a
discouragement. The odds may seem
insurmountable. World population is
reaching unbelievable heights. For
instance, if we could have converted sinners at the rate of one soul per minute
from the day that Jesus was resurrected until 1979, then only one billion
people would have been converted. On the
day of Pentecost, three thousand were added to the Church. If we could reproduce that phenomenon every
day, then it would still take 5,479 years to convert the predicted six billion
people that will be on Earth in the year 2,000 (Willis 86). Facing these odds, it may seem impossible to
carry out the command in Mark 16:15 to “Go
ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The missionary cannot let the apparent
impossibility of the task at hand discourage him. “Anyone can see the number of apples on a
tree; only a few can see the number of trees in an apple” (Willis ). In other words, if the seed is sewn, then it
will reproduce itself in multiples.
Perhaps
this story can best explain the way to beat the odds.
Waves from the Malaka Strait splashed below
me on the rocky shore of Penang, a small island off the west coast of the Malay
Peninsula. A fisherman guided his boat
into the bay and began his day’s work.
As is my custom, I asked God what he wanted to teach me from that
situation.
He seemed to say, ‘What if you were given
the task of catching every fish in the seven seas? How would you do it?’ I was overwhelmed at the thought. Impossible! ‘But that is the job I have given
you.’ He responded.
‘There is no
way.’ I said.
‘What if,’ He broke into my
thoughts, ‘ every time the fisherman caught a fish and touched it, it changed
into a man? The fisher could then
explain to the fish-turned-man what had happened to him. He could tell him about the plight of his
kinfish trapped in their watery prison and how they, too, can be freed by the
touch of a human hand. He could teach
the man to catch fish and to repeat the process. Soon their numbers would multiply.’
‘If we were doing it like most
Christian training,’ I rejoined, ‘we would send the man who had been a fish to
an institute of fisheries in the mountains. There he could learn about currents, sea life,
oceanography, and so on. After three or
four years he could return to help the first fisherman. Of course, he might not know how to throw a
net or bait a hook.’
‘A much more practical way,’ the
Lord whispered, ‘would be to show him immediately how to fish, thus letting him
experience the joy of releasing another man from the fish condition. Then he could pass on what he had learned to
the other new man. Someday he might need
advanced study to help him teach others, but the immediate need would be to
give him on-the-job training. If you
would use this method, as I did, you could tell all the men in the world about
me’ (Willis 85).
If we teach other to turn around and teach more people about
the Gospel, then the Word of God will be spread much more quickly and
efficiently.
Christians
cannot afford to be complacent about evangelism. Gurganus call evangelism the lifeblood of the
Church. Without evangelism the church is
dying. We must have a passion for
spreading the word. In the past,
comparisons have been drawn to between the growth of the Church and the spread
of Communism. People wondered why
Communism grew faster than the Church.
One Communist publication suggested:
“The
gospel is a much more powerful weapon for the renovation of society than our
Marxist view of the world. Yet it is we
who shall conquer you in the end. We are
only a handful, but you Christians are millions… We Communists do not play with
word. Of our salaries and wages we keep
only what is absolutely necessary and the rest we give up for propaganda
purposes. To this same propaganda we
also devote our leisure time and part of our vacation. You, however, give only a little time and scarcely
any money for the spreading of Christ’s gospel.
How can anyone believe in the all-surpassing value of this gospel, if
you do not practice it? If you do not
spread it? If you sacrifice neither your
time nor your money for that purpose?” (De Jong 9).
It is sobering to read words like those. The vast majority of us ought to feel shame
after reading those words. It is not
enough for us to stay in our fortress of the Church and try to fend off
evil. We must take the offensive. We must go out into the darkness of the world
and retrieve souls for Christ.
