Bible Students

This week went through chapters four through six of Encountering Theology of Mission. Chapter four covers “The Purpose and Nature of Mission.” Missions slowly moves the world into the eventual state where the whole world with every people group will worship God. The purpose of missions is to go throughout the world and proclaim the glory of God, that others would come to know Him. Missions exists because praise exists. Missions should not overlook the cross in order to bring social reform. Missions must focus on the internal condition of each individual. 

Chapter five is about “The Task of Missions: Convictions and Controversy.” While the purpose of missions is singular, the tasks are many. There are many theories about the tasks of missions, however it is clear that evangelism is a complete essential. Converting locals to Christianity is key to missions, regardless of the cultural context. Missions is not a taming of wild people. Salvation is not of this world and is not liberation from social opposition, but is rather other-worldly and liberation from sin and separation from God. The task of the missionary is not to be a social reformer, but an ambassador for the King.

Chapter six is “The Task of Missions: Convergence and Conclusions.” While the church must have compassion on the poor and the weak of this world, the primary recipient of the gospel must be the poor and weak in spirit. Spiritual aspects of this world must be the primary sight of the church. Christ served the people’s physical needs, but He mostly served the spiritual needs. The creation mandate is given to everyone to better the world, but the gospel mandate is given to the church for the distribution of the gospel. 

In reflection, I believe one of the biggest take-aways from this section is the difference between meeting the physical needs and the spiritual needs of the world. I desire to go into missions. I feel that as I go onto the field the physical needs will be my main focus simply due to how obvious that need is. However, I must remain focused on the spiritual needs of the people I am going to. That need is not as easily seen. 

I feel many people who do missions, especially short-term mission’s teenagers, focus on meeting the physical needs of the people they are going to while not realizing that even meeting the physical needs of the people may be further hurting them. For example, if a person has a fatalistic worldview and so is in poverty because they believe tomorrow does not matter, giving them more finances would not help the root of their problem. In fact, poverty is not always the problem at all, even when a country would seem to be poor. 

I feel that as an American I have grown up believing that throwing money at things will solve them. I am not the first to believe this, and I am not original in agreeing that Americans especially in our view of missions see material poverty as the ultimate shame, rather than spiritual poverty. I need to consciously try to remember that it is not the material poverty that causes problems, but the spiritual poverty. As mentioned earlier, sometimes the spiritual poverty is actually the cause of the material poverty. 

Regardless on what the underlying issues are of the material poverty, restoring spiritual wealth is an eternally greater gain than giving material wealth. Jesus did look after many physical needs of the people He was around, but His primary goal was the spiritual needs. As a Christian who sees Jesus as the primary example for living my life, I believe His example of missions through the Incarnation is a great witness to the responsibility Christians have to cater to spiritual needs over material needs. 

People should be shown the relief that the future Kingdom gives through physical healing and material relief, but that is only a glimpse. The road to getting there must be through loving the Lord and knowing the salvation He offers as one’s own. 

In short, this week’s reading has confirmed and fleshed out the theology of missions revolving around restoring the spiritual needs of a people group rather than the physical needs.