Theology of Missions

Liberty University

The Biblical Theology of Missions

A research paper submitted to Dr. Neal Creecy

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the course GLST 500

Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary

By

Chris Hayes

Lynchburg, Virginia

April 7, 2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION.…………………………………………………………………................. 3
MISSIONS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT……………………………………...…………..… 3
MISSIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT…….…………………..….………......………...... 4
MISSIONS AND THE NATURE OF GOD………………………………..……………….. 6
MISSION THEOLOGY’S RELATION TO OTHER ASPECTS OF THEOLOGY……….. 6 SOTERIOLOGY…………………………………………………………………….. 6 ECCLESIOLOGY…………………………………………………………………… 7
KEY MOTIFS OF MISSION THEOLOGY.……………………...………………………… 8 JESUS……………………………………………………………………………….. 8 THE KINGDOM OF GOD…...……….……………………………………………. 8
CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………. 9
BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………….. 11

INTRODUCTION Throughout Scripture, there is abundant evidence of missions and the Lord carrying out His work and purpose for humanity, from Genesis to Revelation. God is always seeking out opportunities to advance His Kingdom and to make His name more famous throughout all nations and among all people. While He isn’t in any way reliant on man to achieve His goals and purposes, He longs to see His children be obedient to His calling on all who have believed. With that said, missions is not the primary purpose for Christians. Worship is. The Westminster Shorter Catechism gives us the primary purpose for humanity by saying, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”[1] Because there is a large number of humans who have yet to hear and believe the gospel, then the need for missions remains. Missions is not optional for believers according to the Scripture, but it is a mandate to the church to spread the good news of the gospel of Christ to all nations, cultures, and peoples. John Piper provides a simple, yet poignant quote on this topic: “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”[2] Missions is a Biblically based function of the church and God’s work on earth cannot be done and Jesus cannot return until all have heard the gospel. Therefore, it is important to not only understand what missions is, but also gain a better understanding of the Biblical theology behind it. This study seeks to accomplish that by exploring Old and New Testament texts on missions, how missions relates to the nature of God, how missions relates to other aspects of theology and finally some key themes of mission theology.
MISSIONS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT The story of Abraham stands out in the Old Testament as one of the primary examples of the mission of God and the missions of His people. “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father 's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.””[3] Abraham had been called to leave his homeland and to go to a place that God would not disclose to him at the time, however, at the promise of a later revelation, Abraham gathered his family and all of his possessions and obediently followed. God informed him that this call compels him to leave his kindred and his land, but Abraham immediately obeyed the Lord and left, never to return again. Abraham’s faith led him to leave his country to go to another country that was spatially different, spiritually different, and sociologically different. While the Lord promises to bless Abraham, it’s even more important to note that God planned to bless everyone through Abraham.[4] Another obvious example of missions in the Old Testament, and one of the most well known is the story of Jonah. Without any doubt, Jonah is called to take
a message from Yahweh to Israel’s most bitter and cruelest of enemies—the Assyrians in the capital of Nineveh. While this story is quite different from Abraham, due to the fact that Jonah was disobedient and fled as far away as he could go from where the Lord called him, it is still an example of the Lord’s faithfulness. Once Jonah repented and followed God’s calling and direction, he was able to see that the Lord overcame his shortcomings, gave him strength and equipped him to carry His message to sinful people in Nineveh.
MISSIONS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT The greatest of all Scriptures on missions comes from Jesus Himself in Matthew 28, also known as the Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”[5] This is a clear and distinct command that Jesus gives to all believers. An important element of this passage to point out is that Jesus doesn’t simply tell the church to go and convert people to Christianity. He stresses the importance of discipleship and teaching, something that is lost in today’s cultural view of missions. Moreau says it this way, “Christians are not simply to teach, but to teach to obey.”[6] A second example comes in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”[7] This text is one of those New Testament mandates in today 's church that help people think about evangelism and mission. According to David Kuck, when someone in the church wants to talk about mission, it 's a good bet that the book of the Acts of the Apostles will soon come into the discussion. This seems natural, since Acts is all about the mission expansion of the early church.[8] Acts 1:8 is not just a mandate to evangelize the world but carries with it impetus (power or the dynamic ability to carry out the mandate though the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit). This mandate, expressed with a future-tense verb, should be taken as both a command and a prophetic promise.
MISSIONS AND THE NATURE OF GOD Throughout the Old and New Testament Scriptures, including the examples given above, God’s mission is deeply related to His own nature. In fact, the two terms are so deeply related to each other that missions can be defined as being part of the
“nature of God.” The Latin term missio Dei is often translated as the “sending of God” or the “mission of God” and is derived from the very nature of God himself, “encompassing everything God does in relation to the kingdom and everything the church is sent to do on earth.”[9] When examining the Bible in context, one can see that “God is the initiator of His mission”, sent to redeem his people through Christ, and then through the Church.[10] While missions is not the only aspect of the nature of God, the nature of God can’t be separated from missions. It is in God’s very nature, and is played out from the calling of Abraham, to the exile and exodus of the Israelites, to the coming of the Messiah, to the creation of the New Testament Church in the book of Acts, and on into modern day evangelical churches. Ultimately, missions exists to satisfy the greatest of God’s attributes: His holiness. Because He is holy, He hates sin. Therefore He has called the church to be His mouthpiece by taking the gospel of the redemptive work of Christ to all who don’t believe both to glorify the Father and to expand His Kingdom.
MISSION THEOLOGY’S RELATION TO OTHER ASPECTS OF THEOLOGY
SOTERIOLOGY
Soteriology is the great doctrine of salvation. Missions is about a message, the message of salvation. Understanding the relationship between God and the salvation of His creation is fundamentally the challenge most missionaries will face. Years of cultural influence, denominational authority, and confusing verbiage in the exact message of the Gospel needs a theology that breaks down to the simplest form, the salvation of mankind. Moreover, the nations have a great need for Jesus. Piper says, “The gospel is not the revelation that the nations already belong to God. The gospel is the instrument for bringing the nations into this equal status of salvation. The mystery of Christ is happening through the preaching of the gospel.”[11] In other words, there is no missions without the doctrine of salvation. Doing missions without the Gospel message being told is not missions at all. It is simply a vacation, or at worst, doing good deeds. That is simply not enough.
ECCLESIOLOGY
A second aspect of theology that missions must be synonymous with, is that of ecclesiology, or the doctrine of the church. Missions was not intended to be done alone, nor is it a calling on certain zealous individual Christians. Missions is a mandate on the entire church. Look no further than the work of Jesus. He didn’t do ministry alone, He always had his team of disciples with Him. Paul, likewise had a team of men including Silas and Timothy amongst others, that worked together in order to preach the Gospel to the nations. Just as the church functions as one body, with many different functions, the same applies to missions. Those who are unable to “go”, still have a purpose. There is a need for “senders” as well. There is a need for believers to pray. There is a need for believers to invest financially. God gives everyone specific gifts, each designed to be used to glorify the Father and in the advancement of His Kingdom. Missions is meant to be a team effort, not a solo act.
KEY MOTIFS OF MISSION THEOLOGY
JESUS
While there are many themes of mission theology, none are more important than the person and work of Jesus Christ. Missions is all about proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus so that sinners would repent and turn to Christ to be saved. “The Christian faith is not centered on a book or a set of ideals. It is centered on a person—a person unique in the history of the world, a person who is so important that most of the world splits its reckoning of time around his coming.”[12] In other words, every single aspect of Christianity, including missions, is completely centered on Jesus and everything else is secondary to His glory and supremacy over all things.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD Missions and the Kingdom of God cannot be separated either. While the glory of Christ is most important, the advancement of the Kingdom of God is a close second, but is ultimately the byproduct of missions. As people are saved by the power of the Gospel and the redemptive work of Jesus on the cross, those believers are now eternally cemented into the Kingdom of God. However, one could argue that the glory of Christ and the Kingdom of God are equal goals of missions and inseparable. Indeed this is also true. God is glorified and satisfied when the Son is glorified and when a sinner repents and turns to Him and is saved. Moreau sums up this motif quite well: “The kingdom of God as a motif runs through every layer of the foundational mission focus. It represents an attitude toward life that puts God first in all that Christians do, enabling personal and corporate growth.”[13]
CONCLUSION
Missions is not an outdated or unnecessary function of a handful of super Christians who go and live in a bamboo hut in the mysterious jungles of a third world country. It is a mandate on the church of Christ and there is a specific relation to all believers, no matter what title or role they play within the church. For the missionary, missions is running through their veins and is their sole purpose in life, to take the Gospel of Christ to those who do not believe. The missionary spends their life constantly training, reading and studying the Scripture, and devoting their time, energy, and money into relationships designed to lead people to Christ to be saved. For a church leader, the association is different, but not less important. The church leader is not exempt from doing missions, but their function is more about the equipping and teaching of those who have been called to go to the nations. The church leader must understand the necessity and urgency of missions, both on a global and local scale. The church leader is responsible for interceding in prayer on behalf of the missionary, leading the congregation to be involved, both in sending and going, and to be obedient to the Lord’s calling for the church. Lastly, the layman, or the churchgoer who isn’t necessarily a leader or called to be a full time missionary, the function again looks different than the other roles. Laymen must realize that just because God has not called them to full time mission work in another country, that they too have a vital role to play. Laymen must be willing to invest and be a part of the “sending” of missionaries. Laymen must invest their time, money, and most of all, their prayers and not just assume that they aren’t needed since they aren’t on the front lines. In the end, all people have been created to glorify the Father and help advance the Kingdom. Everything else is secondary.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kuck, David W. ³Preaching on Acts for Mission Formation, Currents in Theology and Mission 31:1 (February 2004): 32.

McIntosh, John A. Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, Ed. A Scott Moreau, s.v. “Missio Dei.” Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2000).
Moreau, Scott A., Corwin, Gary R., and McGee, Gary B. Introducing World Mission: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 31.

Piper, John. Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids; Baker Academic, 2009), 15.

Sanders, Van. “The Mission of God and the Local Church,” in Pursuing the Mission of God in Church Planting, ed. John M. Bailey, Alpharetta: North American Mission Board, 2006, 24.
Williamson, G.I. The Westminster Shorter Catechism. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 1970), 1.

----------------------- [1] G.I. Williamson, The Westminster Shorter Catechism. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 1970), 1. [2] John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids; Baker Academic, 2009), 15.

[3] Genesis 12:1-2 (English Standard Version).

[4] Scott A. Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, and Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Mission: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 31.

[5] Matthew 28:19-20 (English Standard Version)

[6] Moreau, 45.

[7] Acts 1:8 (English Standard Version)

[8] David W. Kuck, ³Preaching on Acts for Mission Formation, Currents in Theology and Mission 31:1 (February 2004): 32.

[9] McIntosh, John A. Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A Scott
Moreau, s.v. “Missio Dei.” Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2000).

[10] Van Sanders. “The Mission of God and the Local Church,” in Pursuing the 5Vefr„‘’•–Ÿ ¨ªÇÓÞóô[pic] [11] l Mission of God in Church Planting, ed. John M. Bailey, Alpharetta: North American
Mission Board, 2006, 24.

[12] Piper, 127.

[13] Moreau, 81.

[14] Ibid.

Bibliography: Kuck, David W. ³Preaching on Acts for Mission Formation, Currents in Theology and Mission 31:1 (February 2004): 32. Moreau, Scott A., Corwin, Gary R., and McGee, Gary B. Introducing World Mission: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 31. Piper, John. Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids; Baker Academic, 2009), 15. Mission Board, 2006, 24. Williamson, G.I. The Westminster Shorter Catechism. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Company, 1970), 1. [2] John Piper, Let The Nations Be Glad! The Supremacy of God in Missions, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids; Baker Academic, 2009), 15. [4] Scott A. Moreau, Gary R. Corwin, and Gary B. McGee, Introducing World Mission: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2004), 31. Mission Board, 2006, 24.