To whom does the Great Commission apply?

Earth boy

Have you ever had someone tell you what God’s will is for your life? Like, “it’s God’s will for you to marry that girl [or guy]”; or “it’s God’s will for you to give me all the money in your pockets”; or “it’s God’s will for you to stay up all night and pray with me.” I have had sincere people say all these things to me. And funny, the girl that person told me to marry is not the woman I am married to now.

The point being is not that Christians are inherently dangerous people (although admittedly some are), but rather that discerning the will of God for our lives is not as easy as sometimes we make on. And being a student at CIU, a place which has a long, distinguished history of preparing harvesters for the harvest field, necessarily carries with it the ever present reality that you, yes YOU, will be confronted with and have to struggle over the question, “has God called me to be a missionary?”

I like to tell people that our questions reveal more about our theology than any of our answers due to the presuppositions that give rise to the questions we ask. This is also the case when it comes to the idea of missions, missionaries, and missiology.

Missiology, now there’s a strange word. What does that mean? The study of “Mss.”, the “missing”, the Messiah, or what? Well actually, one of the tasks of missiology is to clarify what the mission of the church is as revealed in the Holy Book. And this is not a simple task since we have all been influenced by powerful religious forces out of our control.

Let me tell you what I am trying to say. People have contradicting ideas about where mission takes place. Some argue that mission only occurs after one has crossed vast geographical regions, like from the Western world to the non-Western world. This notion dates to the time of Christendom where it was assumed that everyone within the borders of Europe were Christians by virtue of being baptized into the state church. Therefore, by default everyone outside of this region was assumed to be non-Christian. In such a context, mission was understood as something that was done outside of the borders of Christendom in the rest of the world.

Others have made the case that mission transpires when a person serves cross-culturally, for example, when an American goes to Bhutan or when an American reaches out in word and deed to an unbelieving Bhutanese community in the States. In biblical categories, one thinks of Joseph in Egypt, Jonah in Nineveh, or Jesus among Gentiles. This perspective is an improvement upon the previous one but is not without problems because people can work cross-culturally but still be ministering among Christians.

After decades of debate by those peculiar people known as missiologists, the consensus is that if mission is to come to fruition it must be on the boundary of belief. As such, whenever and wherever one crosses the boundary from church to non-church, faith to non-faith, belief to non-belief, then this is mission (evangelism being distinguished from mission as it only involves proclamation).

Are you still with me? Note this means that crossing the belief boundary may include geographic and cultural elements, but if the barrier or divide having to do with faith is not crossed, than wherever you are, either overseas geographically or in a cross-cultural setting, mission has not transpired.

All this indicates that mission actually can occur in one’s own mono-cultural backyard. Matthew’s inclusive phrase “all nations” (Mt. 28:19), Luke’s record of Christ’s call to proclaim His name “beginning from Jerusalem” (24:47), and His command to “be My witnesses both in Jerusalem . . . and even to the remotest part of the earth” (At. 1:8), verify this view. However, allow me to quickly add that even though there is a biblical basis for mono-cultural mission, the emphasis in mission should always be placed on those with the least access to the gospel which presently entail over 6000 unreached people groups amounting to over one-third of the world’s population.

So has God called you to be a missionary? Bad question, because it assumes that the Great Commission doesn’t apply to all believers. The truth is God calls all His children to a missional mindset and lifestyle (cf. Matt. 5:16; Phil 2:16; 1 Pt. 3:15–16), the only remaining issue being simply where. Accordingly, a non-missional Christian is actually an oxymoron; it is simply a betrayal of the intrinsic nature of each disciple of Jesus Christ.

ChrisLittle

Chris Little is professor of intercultural studies at CIU. On nice days, he’s been known to ride a motorcycle to work.