Missions Textbook 18
The Biblical Basis of Missions

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

The Bible is the only book that tells us about Jesus, including His interpretation of His own past. Just before Jesus left the earth to return to heaven, He told the believers to “make disciples” of people from every culture, and He clarified that command with two phrases, “baptizing” and “teaching” everyone to obey Jesus. His definition of baptize required the mental assent of the person being baptized; the believers, therefore, needed to inform the people of everything that Jesus had done and said, and if those being evangelized agreed with that message, then they would receive further teaching on how Jesus wanted them to live (Matt. 28:18-20).

The Old Testament

This was not a new command, however. After His resurrection Jesus met two depressed disciples who had not realized that He had risen from the dead. Jesus walked them through the entire Old Testament (the New Testament had not been written yet) showing them where He had appeared, beginning in Genesis through Malachi (Luke 24:27). This lecture demonstrated that after Adam and Eve had used their God-given free will to sin against God, God began dragging people back to a personal relationship with Him. The initial stages of God’s plan to restore humanity to its original state of perfection began in Genesis 1-11. God began by informing the snake, who was the Devil in disguise, that God would send another “Seed” to destroy Satan, even though God’s “Seed” would be damaged in the process. This is called the Proto-evangel, and can be found in Genesis 3:15. The New Testament makes it clear that the woman’s “Seed” was Jesus.

The Bible reveals to us a little about the background of this war between God and Satan. In Isaiah 14:12-14, Satan proclaims five “I will’s” against God, but God informs Satan that God will destroy him (v15). Ezekiel 28:12-19 adds more information about Satan’s fall into sin against God.

From that point on in the Garden of Eden, God communicated His grace to individuals, telling them what pleased Him and what didn’t please Him. If they chose to love God, they obeyed; if they didn’t love God, they disobeyed, and God judged them, as the universal flood demonstrated in Genesis 6-9. Then the world rebelled again at the Tower of Babel, and God created languages to keep world humanity from uniting in sin against God.

Genesis 1-11 paints broad stokes of God’s dealing with humans, but all along the way, God continues to offer his grace and love to them, even though the vast majority rejected it. In spite of this rejection, God did not completely destroy humanity, as He had the right to do as Creator. Instead He showed His grace and mercy by not killing Adam and Eve immediately (Genesis 2:17), by stopping the vicious sins described in Genesis 6:5, by saving eight people during the flood, and by inventing languages to hinder worldwide sin which would eventually bring God’s judgment again.

After the human disasters of the Flood and the Tower of Babel, God chose a single person from the Chaldean culture, Abraham. Because Abraham responded in faith toward God and left his homeland to follow God, God promised that He would make Abraham into a great nation (Gen. 12:1-3), but also that through Abraham all the nations would be blessed. Later, God gave Abraham God’s own personal righteousness as a free gift (Genesis 15:6). God wasn’t done with the nations, but He wanted to use Abraham and his descendants (Isaac, Jacob and Joseph) to draw the Gentiles nations (non-Jews) to this God who showed so much grace and mercy. A few examples include Abraham and the Hittites (Gen. 23), Isaac and the Philistines (Gen. 16), Jacob and the Canaanites (Gen. 33:18), Joseph and the Egyptians (Gen. 30-50), and Moses and the Egyptians (Exodus 1-18).

Once God had freed the Hebrews from the Egyptians, He told Moses why God had chosen the Hebrew nation. He did not choose them for personal salvation or because they were strong and numerous, but because God had made a promise to Abraham to make Abraham a great nation (Deut. 7:6-8). In addition, when God gave the Law to Moses (Exodus 19:5-6), God added that the Jewish nation was to be different from the other nations (“a holy nation”) and that the Jewish nation itself would be a “kingdom of priests.” This meant that God had chosen Israel to bring the rest of the world to God! (Exodus 19:6). From that point forward, God was always desiring to bring the nations to himself through Israel. The entire nation of Israel was chosen to be a mediator between God and man (all men, Gentiles included!). This is extremely important! God did not save each Hebrew by this call to reach the world; God’s choice of Israel allowed each Hebrew to decide for himself if he wanted to obey God.

The proselytes – foreigners who joined the Hebrews to follow the God of Israel –  were accepted and allowed to worship just like the Hebrews (Leviticus 17:8). One of Israel’s two main leaders after Moses was Caleb, who was a Kenizzite of the Canaanites (Genesis 15:19, Joshua 14:14), and four Gentile women are listed in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew 1:3-6 – Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba.

Most people do not realize that Job in the Old Testament was not Jewish and lived at the same time as Abraham. God was also reaching out to peoples outside Israel’s influence. Job did not connect with God through Israel. In the same way that God does not “need” believers to bring other people to Himself, God did not “need” Israel to evangelize the world. Obviously, the Israelites had no opportunity to communicate God’s message to the Chinese, but Job lets us know that God was actively communicating with people outside the line of Abraham. The emphasis on the Hebrews became clear as God revealed that the Savior of the entire world would come from the Jewish nation.

The disobedience of the Hebrews eventually caused them to be thrown out of the Promised Land, but it was only temporary, because God had made a promise to Abraham, and God always keeps his promises. Romans 9-11 informs us that God actually uses their punishment to bring more Gentiles into the kingdom!

God’s covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7:13 includes Gentiles in God’s kingdom. The prophet Zechariah in 14:9 looked forward to the time when God will be king over all the Earth. Even some of King David’s Psalms were missionary ones: 47:9; 67:1-6; 72:8, 11; 86:9; 96; 117; 145:10-12; 150 (the last sentence!).

Solomon’s Temple was intended to draw Gentiles to God (I Kings 8:41-43). By the time the OT prophets arose, God was stating plainly that He wanted to save people from all nations for His glory. “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other” (Isaiah 45:22). “These [foreigners] I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). There are too many to list in Isaiah: “a light to the nations” (42:1,6). Salvation for all (43:6-12; 45:1, 22; 48:20; 49:6-12; please note: Sinim is China!). God will offer His Son’s blood on the cross for many nations (52:13-15). Jeremiah’s famous prophecy in 33:6, that all nations will come to God, and the New Covenant of Jeremiah 33:31-34 that Peter applies to everyone in Acts 2. Of the Minor Prophets, Jonah stands out as the example of a rebellious missionary who did not want to evangelize the Ninevite Gentiles, but he did.

Last, but not least, is Daniel. God had promised to kick the Hebrews out of the land if they continued to disobey Him. In 597 BCE God allowed Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, to invade Israel and take captives back to Babylon. Daniel and three of his friends, some of the exiles, chose death over disobedience to God, but God kept them alive, and by the end of Daniel 2:49, the entire kingdom of Babylon had very probably been given God’s Word. In Daniel 4:37, King Nebuchadnezzar got saved! Think of the impact on Babylon and the surrounding nations. When the Persians took over, Daniel was instrumental in communicating God’s message to the Persians through King Darius. When their 70 years of exile came to an end, God allowed the Hebrews to return to Jerusalem.

Not all the Hebrews returned to Israel when God allowed them to leave Babylon. Many stayed in Babylon. It is reasonable to assume that some of them moved eastward and settled in the East. Some of these Hebrews would have spread the messages in the Torah, and perhaps that is how the Magi in Matthew 2 discovered the connection of a star to the Messiah, prophesied in Numbers 24:7. God continued to use His written Word to reach people about Himself.

From the time of the Babylonian Captivity to the birth of Jesus, God kept bringing Gentiles to Himself by various means. Since the Hebrews only needed ten males to form a synagogue, these places of worship popped up all over the Middle East, Europe, and beyond. Gentiles everywhere could hear the reading of the Scriptures if they were seeking more than their dead pagan deities. The Jewish monotheism stood out as completely different from the surrounding religions. Whereas the Gentiles observed sporadic worship events, the weekly Hebrew Sabbath observance kept God’s message in front of the Gentiles constantly. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew text, became the common “Bible” for not only the Gentiles, but also for those Hebrews who had lost their only language while spending seventy years in exile. The morality of Jewish theology challenged the heathen Gentile morality. Israel’s God had personal morals and expected the same from His followers. The Jewish hope of a Messiah appealed to those who found the emptiness of their pagan religions wanting and drove them to seek more meaning in life.

The New Testament

When we move to the New Testament, the first verse that transitions us into the life of Jesus is Matthew 1:1. Abraham had a son, Isaac, who typified the promised seed in his saving function by being offered on Mount Moriah as a living sacrifice.

David had a son, Solomon, who typified the promised seed in his royalty, being the king of glory. Don’t miss the connection between these two “sons”!

In the Gospels Jesus focused on choosing His Jewish disciples, but along the way He constantly drew Gentiles to Himself: a Roman centurion in Matthew 8, a Canaanite woman in Matthew 15, a demon-possessed man of the Gerasenes in Mark 5, a Roman centurion in Luke 7, a Samaritan leper in Luke 17, and an entire Samaritan village in John 4. When Jesus cleansed the temple in Mark 11, He quoted Isaiah 56:7 which referred to all the Gentile nations. John the Baptist made his famous statement that Jesus would take away the sins of the whole world (John 1:29). The apostle John wrote the most famous verses in the Bible, telling the world that God loves every human being (John 3:16-17).

Because the Hebrews clung tenaciously to the Old Testament monotheism, they needed time to discover and process the fact that their Messiah was full deity as well as fully human. Once they realized this, they were confronted with the fact that His mission did not fit with their idea of their Messiah. Now they had to choose. Reject him and keep looking for their own version of a messiah or follow Him and obey His commands to take the message of the Cross to the Gentiles as well as to their countrymen.

Now we come to the meat of the mission. Every Gospel and the Book of Acts contain a version of the Great Commission. Five times gives a complete picture!

Matthew 28:18-20 – “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Going, therefore, 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.’” Going is an assumed fact; this is not a command, but a statement of the believers’ moving through life. While going, believers are commanded to “make disciples,” which is explained by baptizing (evangelism) and teaching, and carry out this command to every culture and ethnic group around the world.

Mark 16:15 – “And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” Go and preach (proclaim) are both commands. This proclamation does not refer to a specific cultural way of communicating information, such as behind a pulpit or handing out a tract.

Luke 24:46-49 – “He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.’” There are no commands in this verse! Only facts! Facts are stronger than commands: because you love me and want to obey me, you are going to proclaim what you’ve seen and heard. Facts are not dependent on human response. God will do this. Commands can be disobeyed. No human disobedience can stop this.

John 20:21 – “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’” The manner in which Jesus is sending his disciples into the world shocks us into wondering about the implications of what it means to be sent just like the Father sent Jesus.’

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.” Some have preached this verse as a command to go and witness, but Jesus makes a much stronger statement by simply declaring that the disciples would receive the power of the Holy Spirit and that they would be His witnesses throughout the world.

When Jesus made the statement, “I will build my church,” He added no conditional necessities for the accomplishment of this task. He didn’t add that His church could only be built with the help of His disciples. Since Jesus is God, He doesn’t need anything or anybody’s help to carry out His plans. His disciples are blessed to be used in the process, but not “needed” to complete the task. Jesus also never gave His disciples a specific timeframe for the completion of His church. Every generation will be allowed to take part, but since only the Father knows His own timing (Matthew 24:36), it’s a misguided notion that our generation will “finish the job.” Just as the disciples at the ascension of Jesus thought the Kingdom was coming in their lifetime, God may still have a few surprises for His followers, and He may have planned another 2,000 years before Jesus returns to bring judgment on the world for rejecting Him. My son, Erich, who is a pastor, thinks that if the Lord wants “a great multitude that no one could number” worshipping Him before His throne, then another 2,000 years is not unreasonable.

What motivated the disciples and the rest of the new believers in Acts 2 to go out and spread the Good News? Just imagine experiencing the same six events that the disciples had experienced:

  1. The incarnation: God adding humanity to His deity and living among us, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory.” John 1:14. Men and angels were stunned!
  2. The perfect human life of Jesus, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” John 8:46. Jesus was either loved or hated.
  3. The Crucifixion (All four Gospels). Jesus was born to die. Intentionally. For our sins.
  4. The Resurrection (All four Gospels). David had prophesied this in Psalm 22.
  5. The Ascension (Acts 1:1-11). The disciples knew that Jesus was going to set up God’s kingdom on the earth, but they did not know when.
  6. Pentecost (Acts 2). The Holy Spirit fills all the believers, a unique attribute of the Church, and 3,000 were saved on the first day.

Imagine the new insight into Scripture from all of this. First Jesus telling the disciples that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all the truth, and then Jesus opening up the entire Old Testament to those two men on road to Emmaus and showing them Himself throughout the Old Testament, and then Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and recognizing prophesies about Jesus in the Old Testament as he was preaching his first sermon after Pentecost.

Imagine the ability to heal people with the direct power from the Holy Spirit (Acts 3), the new courage that came in the face of persecution (Acts 4:19-20, 29; 5:29), the ability to raise the dead (Acts 9:36-42), and the unbelievable zeal on the part of the believers, even in the midst of persecution, as indicated in Acts 11:19-21. Obviously, the believers in the New Testament needed no prodding to tell everyone about what they had personally experienced. John made that clear in his first letter, 1 John 1:1-4. Eyewitnesses of such global and earth-shaking events couldn’t stop talking about it. The church in the first century did not need to have the word “mission” defined for them, nor did they need any college course on personal evangelism.

In Matthew 16:19, Jesus had told Peter that Jesus would give Peter the “keys to the Kingdom.” In Acts 2, Peter preached the first evangelistic sermon to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem. Thousands were baptized. In Acts 9, he laid hands on the believing Samaritans, who were “only” half-Jewish. Then in Acts 10, we have a very long story – retold by Peter in Acts 11 – about the conversion of a Roman centurion and his entire family and household. Peter baptized them. Peter was then thrown into prison, escaped in Acts 12, and disappeared from the main story line in Acts. One could recognize that Peter had used the keys to the kingdom given to Him by Jesus to bring the Jews, Samaritans and the first Gentiles into the kingdom of heaven.

Then Paul, after his conversion in Acts 9, took center-stage when he and Barnabas embarked on their famous first missionary journey to Asia Minor (present-day Turkey) where they went beyond leading Gentiles to Jesus and actually started local churches with those who believed – Jews and Gentiles. From that point, there is no more doubt that God wants everybody in His kingdom, which He says plainly through Paul to Timothy (I Tim. 2:4): “God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Paul wrote most of the letters in the New Testament, and these refer to God’s mission of reaching the unsaved with the Gospel. Paul’s letter to the Romans was extremely evangelistic. Paul gave extensive advice to the Corinthians about witnessing (1 Cor. 5:9-10). Galatians clarified the Gospel for everyone and leveled the playing field for all who want to come into God’s Kingdom. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28). Peter gives instruction for how to witness when one is asked about the believer’s hope (1 Pet. 3:15-16).

In the last book of the New Testament, Revelation, even though God will be judging people for their sins, He will not destroy everyone all at once. He will give people time to repent of their sins, and when they do not, He still will give them more time (Rev. 9:20-21). God also will send His witnesses to the world throughout His judgments: 144,000 Jewish witnesses in Rev. 7, and two very powerful witnesses in Rev. 11. Many people will come to Jesus during the Great Tribulation as described in the prophets and Revelation 6-19. In the middle of that horrible time, God will win many people by His love, even though they will be persecuted for their faith in Jesus. Following that Tribulation, many, many Gentiles will worship Jesus during the millennium.

What is “missions”? Telling the Gospel to anybody and everybody with whom we come in contact. Telling them:

  1. About the God-Man Jesus who died on the Cross for our sins.
  2. That if we love Jesus and repent to Him of our sins, we will not experience the well-deserved wrath of God for those sins (since Jesus already paid for them).
  3. That we can be ushered into an eternal relationship with Jesus that begins while we are still on this earth and continues into eternity after our earthly life.

What is the “biblical basis of missions”? From Genesis 3 to Revelation 20, God is reaching out to humanity, Hebrew and Gentile alike, offering to all of us forgiveness of sins and eternal life with Him personally. God has been using His followers to bring people to Himself since Abel witnessed to Cain by obeying God with the proper sacrifice in Genesis 4.

We Never Saw It Coming: An Introduction to Christian Missions (textbook)

SHOP

Privacy Policy