Bible Students

This week covered chapters seven and eight, titled “The Motivation for Missions” and “The Church and Mission.” These chapters showed a lot about what congregations as a whole and as individuals should be doing in order to fulfill their obligation to be a light in the world. These two chapters gave a lot of perspective in terms of how a missionary should be taken by the mission of God, and not attempt to “take hold” of the mission for themself. 

Chapter seven, “The Motivation for Missions,” speaks of the positive and negative motivations people often have for going into missionary work. The ideal motivation for someone to go into missions work is the desire to make Christ known throughout the earth and to be a part of bringing people into the great multitude who will worship Christ at the end of the age. However, there are also bad desires which drive people toward mission. Luckily, by God’s grace, He can still use the bad desires to accomplish good goals, but they do not bring good reward for those who do the work with poor motives. Some of those motives include fame or money (which is ironic, considering the cost of being a faithful missionary). Often, however, motivations are mixed and there are both good and bad motivations. In the past, there have also been bad methods which were used to bring people to Christ even though the motivations behind them were very good. For example, in zeal for the gospel and bringing people to know Christ, many missionaries of the past used coercion to bring people to Him. This was not a great method to use, but it was brought by good motivations. 

An especially bad motivation for missions is ecclesiological building in denominational battles. Denominations will go in and “take over” an area in order to build up their own Christian base. Additionally, when multiple denominations are on the field, there can often occur what is known as “sheep stealing” and “shepherd stealing,” where the missional leaders attempt to take followers and leaders from other organizations. This is obviously a poor motivation for missionary work, even if God can use it to accomplish His goals. 

Finally, the best motivation for missions with the best method of missions is the great compassion that faithful missionaries have to those who they minister to on the field. This brings people to Christ while also desiring that they would go on their own accord. I hope to go on mission out of compassion and love for Jesus as well as the lost, and not out of any sort of mixed desires. 

Chapter eight discusses “The Church and Mission,” which describes the connection and overlap between the organizational church and the mission of the church. The first question to be asked is, “does the church have a mission, or does the mission have a church?” I believe the latter is the case. The mission of God was given a church which can act as a catalyst for the progress of the gospel through the world. The mission is God’s, not the church, and the church has the privilege of being a part of the bringing about of this mission. 

The church must genuinely and actually practice mission in all that it does. This is different than labeling everything as mission, but actually practicing mission in everything the church does. An important thing to note is that organizations can act as a great hindrance to the gospel, as well as a great tool for the distribution of the gospel. Organizations can help a lot in terms of finances and on-the-field technical issues that a home church could not help with. 

I believe the most important take-away from these two chapters is that each missionary is not taking hold of the mission of the church, but is rather being taken hold of by the mission of God. Missionaries should seek to be used by God, and not to use the mission of God as a means to their own end. Motives should be pure, and missionaries should not fight over sheep or shepherds. Missionaries must live with a humble submission to the call of God. As someone who wants to do missions, I must always remember I am not going on my own accord, as if I could take hold of the mission of God, but rather going as an ambassador who has been taken hold of by the mission of God.