Why Are Young People Leaving the Church?

A few years ago the George Barna research group conducted a series of studies aimed at answering a troubling question in Christianity today. Namely, why are young people leaving the church? The research found that 59% of young Christians disconnect either permanently or for an extended period of time from church life after age 15. Why? This is a question that no doubt haunts the minds of many Christian adults, in particular the parents of the kids who are within this 59^th percentile, some of whose children never return to the faith of their youth. Does scripture reveal any insight into this issue? I believe that it does.

But first, a caveat. I firmly believe that the answer to every question we ever raise among ourselves can be found by laying a foundation of biblical truth. However, in this particular case, after laying that foundation I believe the question at hand requires a certain amount of speculation, logic, and historical perspective to arrive at an answer. I believe this because on some level this question addresses issues unique to our time and culture which the bible does not specifically speak to. Make no mistake. I am not hinting that we turn to a source other than the word of God to seek answers to the questions of life. What I am saying is that sometimes, as in this case, the bible provides the root or nucleus of the issue or problem. It is then up to us as students of scripture to take that kernel of truth and extrapolate it out into specific application.

In answering this question I will be making an assumption. The assumption is that we are talking about a real renunciation of faith here. Although there could be tangential aspects of this issue such as someone leaving for a season of sin and then repenting and returning, which the Barna group admittedly included in their rather alarming statistic, I am intentionally avoiding such in my thoughts here. I am dealing strictly with the issue of a young person, raised in a Christian home, who becomes an adult and subsequently leaves the church, in the sense that he or she no longer professes Christ, if they ever did, and proceeds to live a lifestyle of carnality and worldliness alien to biblical Christianity for a prolonged period of time. With that being said, my response as to why this happens is actually very simple to state, although I will spend some time developing it with scripture. In short, I believe young people, or people of any age, who repudiate Christianity and leave the church always do so because they were never genuine believers in the first place. I will present my statement for this position as a series of interconnected building blocks which, when stacked atop each other, will serve to support the structure of my argument.

The first component, or building block, is the biblical doctrine of eternal security. This doctrine teaches that salvation is a free gift from God, and once granted to a believer, cannot be lost by any means. The scriptural support for this belief is overwhelming. Jesus, in John 10:27-29 refers to Himself as a shepherd with sheep who hear his voice, recognize Him as their shepherd, and follow Him. He goes on to teach that nothing can snatch His sheep out of His hand. Building on this concept we see first Paul in Ephesians 4:30 refer to Christians as sealed for the day of redemption, and then Jude in Jude 24 reveal that believers are kept from stumbling by God so that He can present us blameless to Himself. If it was possible to lose one's salvation then how could one be sealed until the day of redemption, which obviously refers to the end times when Christ will return and set up His kingdom and ultimately judge the nations of the world? If the capacity to lose one's salvation was in Paul's mind then he should have phrased it as “sealed until the day of rejection, or sinning, or falling away. Furthermore, who does the sealing? The implication is one of “being sealed” by something outside of ourselves rather than we being responsible for our own sealing, which just wouldn't make any logical sense. Jude reinforces this with his writing that it is God Himself who keeps us from stumbling, for His own purposes.

Paul slips in another facet of this idea of eternal security in his letter to the church at Philippi. In verse 6 of chapter 1 he tells the church that God, who had already begun a good work in them will bring that work to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. What is this work that God had begun in the Philippian church? It was to make them partners or participants in the gospel, as revealed in verse 5. Some would say that based on the context and various clues revealed throughout this letter that what Paul had in mind here was financial partnership. This may be so, but the question of exactly what form the partnership took is irrelevant for this discussion. The reason is that regardless of exactly what Paul had in view when he wrote those words, participation of any sort in the ministry of the gospel such that warrants praise from an Apostle of Jesus Christ indicates the presence of true believers and authentic disciples of Christ. Therefore, his statement that God would bring this work to completion clinches the Philippian church's ultimate success in staying true to Christ.

If there was still any doubt about the veracity of this doctrine, Romans 8:38-39 soundly trounces any and all objections:

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Paul is blatantly covering all of his bases here in making sure that nothing is left out as a potential antagonist who can separate us from the inheritance that we have in Jesus. He gives an exhaustive list of things temporal and spiritual. But then, as if to anticipate and silence objections, he follows his list with the phrase “nor any other created thing”. It's as if he's saying, in effect, “My list is quite complete, but just in case some of you want to try to poke holes in it, allow me to seal the deal by including a blanket statement which covers anything I might have missed.” And since everything apart from God falls under the category of a created thing, Paul is literally saying “everything”. Now, if nothing that exists can come between us and the love of God, why would we imagine that our pitiful sinful attempts to divorce ourselves from our Lord could possibly ever work?

Now then, this teaching on eternal security must be accompanied by an additional point. This will serve as the second building block of my overall argument for why young people leave the church. Namely, if eternal security is true then why does the bible warn so adamantly against apostasy? Doesn't the fact that apostatizing is even brought up an evidence for the fact that we can in fact lose our salvation? Before I answer that, we need to define the word so that we are clear on its meaning. Apostasy simply means the abandonment or renunciation of a religious or political belief. It is the theological term for exactly what we are discussing here, that of walking away from or abandoning Christianity.

An example of a passage of scripture which might cause us to scratch our heads would be 1 Corinthians 15:1-2:

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain.

Contrary to what opponents of eternal security might endorse, this passage does not teach that Christians can lose their salvation. If it does then Paul was insane and didn't even know his own mind. Furthermore, since according to 2 Peter 1:20-21, the authors of scripture were empowered by the Holy Spirit and wrote in such a way that it was breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16), then in addition to Paul being off his rocker so is God. Because you can't say in one passage that nothing can separate us from the love of God and then turn around in another letter and say that “oh, by the way, you are capable of doing it yourself.” That simply doesn't hold logical water. Furthermore, the statement that Paul makes here in 1 Corinthians is quite correct. If one was to stop holding fast to the word of God, and by implication separate themselves from their relationship with Him, then yes they would in fact have believed in vain. But a philosophical statement that is technically accurate does not necessarily make it a fact. I can state that if I was to leap off of a bridge and provide enough aerodynamic lift to my body then I would be able to fly without that statement having any basis in reality.

And besides, I don't believe that Paul was actually making the statement that if it were possible to fall away from Christ then belief would have been in vain. I think Paul was getting at another angle. Namely that there were those in the Corinthian church he was writing to who had made professions of faith but were not authentic disciples of Christ. We see this reality evidenced in Jesus's Earthly ministry when, in John chapter 6 He taught the Jews about His deity represented in a reference to Himself as the bread which came down out of heaven. In response to this teaching the scripture says in verse 66 “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him any more.” There is very clearly a possibility of people expressing faith in Christ that is not genuine and eventually revealing their true colors when the proverbial push comes to shove. The Apostle John makes this even more blunt in 1 John 2:19 where he says the following:

They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

This verse requires no explanation. You can't really state this point any clearer than John did in his epistle. And I haven't even touched on the example of Judas Iscariot, perhaps the ultimate example of how apostasy works. It is no less than a biblical reality that sometimes people who profess to be Christians are really not and prove it by walking away from the church.

In addition to this apostatizing that goes on, there is another element we see in scripture of this type of false Christianity. That is the teaching of the visible and invisible church. This pattern of thought has its roots as far back as the writings of Augustine in the 4^th century A.D. but it was brought into full prominence in the reformation, principally due to the efforts of John Calvin to express it. The idea is that there is a visible church, comprised of the formal institution on Earth which preaches the gospel. There is also the invisible church, which is made up of the elect, who are known only to God. All who are in the invisible church are in the visible church. But not all who are a part of the visible church are also members of the invisible church. Augustine and later Calvin didn't just make this stuff up out of their heads. They got it right from the teachings of Jesus Himself.

The parable of the tares among the wheat found in Matthew 13:24-30 presents a reality that is exactly what the doctrine of the visible and invisible church is intended to convey. Namely, that there are unbelievers, or tares, mixed in among the believers, or the wheat in this context. These unbelievers are left in place by God so that His children will not be disrupted. Then at the judgment God will separate the tares from the wheat, the unbelievers from the believers, the visible church from the invisible church. Again, this is exactly the point that Paul was making back in 1 Corinthians when he referred to vain belief. And it's the same point that John was expounding in 1 John. There is a remarkable symmetry to the teaching found on this topic throughout scripture. And it should make us realize that, in the words of Bilbo Baggins, “not all that glitters is gold”.

With these points being made and building off of each other a picture is emerging of young people, raised in Christian homes, perhaps making expressions of faith as children, who then grow up and abandon the religion of their parents as adults in a classic modern day example of biblical apostasy. But why does it seem so prevalent at this point in American history that it is occurring in such large numbers? Why aren't these young tares just staying in among the wheat as in the parable? I believe to answer that we need to go back in time and take a brief look at the culture in which the United States was founded.

Peruse the writings of almost any of our founding fathers, their personal letters, their newspaper articles, their political documents, etc. and you will notice an overwhelming trend. Repeatedly, the men who founded this country echoed a similar sentiment; that we have a creator and that the Christian religion in its focus on worshiping Him is the only source of a moral society. Furthermore, such a moral society is absolutely necessary for the pursuit of liberty to succeed in a nation. Said another way, these men, by and large, believed that religion and morality were the two fundamental foundations upon which they sought to build a country. Even the ones who were not followers of Christ, such as Benjamin Franklin, still held the bible in high regard as the only source of absolute truth. Franklin himself, who some historical revisionists would claim was a staunch Atheist, in an address before the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, urged the congress of this young nation to institute a policy of public prayer each morning before they began their work for the day for the express purpose of asking for God's help, a practice which is still in effect to this day over two hundred years later. And this was one of the least religious of the founding fathers making this request. It was this cultural mindset they took when approaching the daunting task of drafting a Constitution for the governance of the United States. Although the Constitution itself does not overtly reference God or Christianity, they form the warp and the woof of its essence. And make no mistake, these men were by no means aberrations. They represented the thread of common thought in the populace of the colonies at that time.

This was so because of the men and women who were the forefathers of our founding fathers; the Pilgrims and Puritans. These were groups of people who were deeply committed Christians with a comprehensive biblical world view which informed every area of their lives. While by no means being perfect, they were true believers and followers of Jesus who saw as their mission in life the laying of a framework of religious belief in this country that their descendants could use to pursue lives of religious freedom which would honor God. These pioneers saw themselves as stepping stones upon whose backs future generations could walk to glory. In the opening of the Mayflower Compact, the first political document enacted in North America, they penned the following words...

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc. Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia...

These were people who were serious indeed about their religion. So serious in fact, that they endured the death of about half their population during their first winter in the new world. In the words of William Bradford, the governor of the Plymouth colony of Pilgrims for 30 years...

“...they cherished a great hope and inward zeal of laying good foundations, or at least of making some way towards it, for the propagation and advance of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the remote parts of the world, even though they should be but stepping stones to others in the performance of so great a work.”

It was because of this intense devotion and single minded zeal for the increase of the glory of God that the colonies which would come to be known as the United States of America were steeped in that high regard for biblical truth, morality, and ethics as well as the creator God who fashioned them that the founding fathers, as mentioned earlier, espoused in their writings and speeches. This resulted in an interesting situation in which Christianity became normative. And not legislated morality or enforced state religion such as the Roman Catholic church practiced. Rather, it was a normative Christianity born of internal morality and desire. This sounds rather idyllic doesn't it? There's just one glaring problem. It doesn't sync with the biblical record at all.

You see, the Bible paints a picture of a small number of true believers who are mixed in among a populace of those who are opposed to God. This was so even in Israel, a nation with a theocratic government which enjoyed having their system of religion interwoven into their governmental structure. Isaiah 10:20-22 refers to a faithful remnant who would return to the land and rely on the Lord. And when Elijah was feeling depressed because of the opposition he was experiencing from Jezebel the Lord told him the following: “Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.” Jesus told of this same principle of remnants, small numbers, and exclusivity in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” The Bible never discusses those whom God saves as being the majority, except for future fulfillment prophecies of the time when He will restore the fortunes of the nation of Israel as a whole. So, it simply does not fit with the biblical precedent that suddenly, in America, things would be radically different just because the country was founded upon biblical standards. It follows then that the only logical conclusion is that throughout the history of the United States there were many who claimed to be in the invisible church but who were in reality solely members of the visible church.

How does this relate to the issue at hand today of young Christians walking away from the faith? I believe the numbers of authentic disciples of Jesus were not substantially different two hundred years ago than they are today. Obviously, there is no way to quantify this. But I believe the evidence from God's word supports this notion. The difference today is that, starting with the publication of the Origin of Species in 1859, moving to the secularization of American universities in the late 19^th century, continuing on into the 20^th with Nietzsche's notion of “killing God”, proceeding from there into the removal of prayer from public schools, and culminating in the legalization of abortion and same sex marriage in some states, our country has systematically dismantled the notion of normative Christianity that we once had. And the removal of that idea, flawed though the idea may have been, has removed whatever social stigma that may have existed in our past over the notion of abandoning the Christian religion. Said more bluntly, nowadays no one cares about dropping their faith like a bad habit. On the surface this appears particularly alarming to those who are truly born again, clinging to godly principles in a country gone mad with sin and depravity. But it's really just the removing of the veil of falsehood and of the visible church that once draped our country.

Some may take this argument of mine and become depressed by it. I choose to take a different view. I believe that rather than being a cause for alarm we can take solace in the fact that God is still on His throne, He is still sovereign, and He is still graciously saving just as many people today as ever. It may seem like less. But we have been living in shades of gray for the past two hundred plus years. It was these murky areas on the borders of black and white that caused Jonathan Edwards, even in the midst of the so called Great Awakening in the mid 1700s, to utter these scathing words in his first sermon to his church in Northampton, Massachusetts:

There have been few places that have enjoyed such eminent powerful means of grace as you of this place have enjoyed. You have lived all your days under a most clear, convincing dispensation of God's word. The whole land is full of gospel light, but this place has been distinguishingly blessed of God with excellent means for a long time under your now deceased minister.

And it argues a dismal degree of obduracy and blindness, that persons could stand it out under such a ministry. In what a clear and awakening manner have you hundreds of times had your danger and misery in a natural condition set before you! How clearly have you had the way of salvation shown to you, and how movingly have you had the encouragements of the gospel offered to you!

Such as can live all their days under such means of awakening and of conversion, and have stood it out and have been proof against such preaching, are undoubtedly of exceeding hard hearts. They that are still unawakened, doubtless their hearts are much harder than if they had not lived under such great advantages. Powerful preaching, if it don't awaken, it hardens more than other preaching.

Those means are now gone; you'll have them no more. You have stood it out until the bellows are burnt. You had the preaching, the calls and warnings of your eminent deceased minister till he was worn out in calling and warning and exhorting of you. God was so gracious, and so loathe that you should perish, that he continued his ability of preaching to wonderment. But the founder melted in vain as to you. He did not cease blowing till the bellows were worn out, as it were burnt out, in vain, trying if he could not extract some true silver from amongst the lead. He was very loathe to give you over till he had persuaded, and God seemed loathe to give you over by continuing of him so long to call upon you and warn you. But how many wicked are there that are not yet plucked away?

And lest anyone think that this was only the condition of his congregation prior to the Great Awakening of the 1730s, Edwards had this to say a short time after that great spiritual upswing:

In the latter part of May, it began to be very sensible that the Spirit of God was gradually withdrawing from us, and after this time Satan seemed to be more let loose, and raged in a dreadful manner.

The face of nominal Christianity, or Christianity in name only, was one that Jonathan Edwards was well familiar with. And it is the same face that rears its ugly head once again in the early days of the 21^st century. It is a face that, at this point in history is clearing away those shades of gray that had Edwards and other pastors of his era preaching to churches full of carnal, spiritually dead sinners. It is now revealing in ever greater numbers the true face of Christianity, as the faithful remain while the pretenders fall away. It is this reason more than any other superficial socio-political issues which the problem may be ascribed to by studies and researchers that is causing our young people to walk away from the church in numbers greater than we have ever seen.

The Method

A thorough examination of what the bible teaches about global missions must start with Jesus's great commission in Matthew 28:18-20. But it cannot end there. Jesus taught us what our mission is. He taught us why we are to pursue it. And He taught us how to go about it. But then He ascended to Heaven, leaving behind His Apostles, His personal authoritative representatives on Earth. These men had the unimaginable responsibility of carrying on Christ's work of establishing and building up His bride, the church, to prepare her for His future return. They did so with great power granted to them by God; the power to perform miracles and to both instruct and correct in Jesus's name. Furthermore, as it pertains to this discussion, they revealed more of how Christians are to go about conducting the work of global missions, both then and now. In particular, the Apostle Paul, as Christ's chosen instrument to carry His name beyond the nation of Israel and to the Gentile nations, has a tremendous amount of rich teaching on this subject of missions. We can see his methodology in both how he instructed his personal disciples, such as Timothy, as well as in the record of his own activities and how he went about his ministry. Today we will consider the latter, beginning with a snapshot of his life found in Acts chapter 14:

¹⁹ But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing him to be dead. ²⁰ But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe. ²¹ After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, ²² strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God." ²³ When they had appointed elders for them in every church, having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

Before we begin to consider what we can learn from this account it's important to set the stage with some historical context. The events recorded here took place in approximately 44 A.D., so about 14 years after Christ's crucifixion. Paul, along with his partner Barnabas, is on what is classically considered his “first missionary journey.” At this point the name of Jesus has already been preached and salvation offered to the Gentiles, by Peter at Cornelius's home in Acts 10, in 37 A.D. However, widespread evangelism targeted at non Jews was not yet in full swing. This changed later on. But suffice to say for now, Paul's methodology was to travel to a city, begin preaching the gospel in the local Synagogue to the Jews, and only after that would he sometimes share the gospel with Gentiles exclusively. We can see this pattern in Acts 13, as follows:

⁴ So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus. ⁵ When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper. ⁶ When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus, ⁷ who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.

Paul and Barnabas proceeded from this point to the mainland of Asia Minor (modern day Turkey) and went from city to city following the same approach, first in Perga, then in Pisidian Antioch. And it was in Pisidian Antioch that a momentous event transpired, composed of two related incidents. After preaching a powerful sermon of the good news of Jesus, in the Synagogue, the Jews were filled with jealousy over the success the apostles were having. So they began to contradict what Paul had said and even went so far as to blaspheme. In response, the missionaries uttered the following condemnation:

⁴⁶ Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. ⁴⁷ For so the Lord has commanded us, 'I have placed you as a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the end of the earth.”

Following this the Jews of that city rose up in protest and began to cause even greater trouble for the apostles. They gathered together “women of prominence” and “leading men of the city” in order to drive the missionaries out of town. And it is in this situation, in Acts 13:51, that we read the following:

But they shook off the dust of their feet in protest against them and went to Iconium.

This shaking of the dust off one's feet is a curious phrase and bears some explanation. This was a Jewish practice in the first century. When a Jew would visit a Gentile city, upon leaving that place he would “shake the dust off of his feet” as a sign of his separation from the worldly practices of the Gentiles. Jesus used this same symbolism in instructing His disciples as to how they should respond to unbelieving Jews in Matthew 10:14. The principle here is that, if a Jew refused to accept Jesus as the Messiah, the disciples were to demonstrate their separation from and condemnation of those Jews in the same way that Jews typically responded to Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas used this approach in Pisidian Antioch to demonstrate that if the Jews were going to reject their message then the missionaries wanted nothing more to do with them.

Now, this does not mean that Paul never again preached the gospel to Jews. On the contrary, we can see in the very next chapter that when he visited Iconium he began by entering the synagogue once again. However, the verbal condemnation and dust shaking incidents in Pisidian Antioch do seem to demonstrate a shift of approach that would inform Paul's ministry from then on. So in a very real sense what we witness in the following chapters of Acts is the very beginning of global missions, in the sense that Jesus's great commission was taken by His Apostles and applied to the global community in a manner that had not happened previously.

And it is in this context that we come to Lystra in Acts 14:8. Paul performs a miracle, at which the crowds are amazed and attempt to label he and Barnabas as gods. After quelling this heresy, they are confronted by some of the Jews from Antioch and Iconium. These people were so hostile to the gospel message that driving the Christians away from their own cities was not enough for them. They were so passionate about squashing news of Jesus that they followed His messengers in an attempt to stymie their efforts elsewhere as well. What an incredible parallel we can see here between this account of 1^st century Mediterranean hostility and opposition to Jesus and 21^st century American anger and combativeness toward those who would seek to follow Jesus. We could spend the rest of this essay considering the ever growing list of examples of Godless Atheist/Humanist proselytizing against the name of Christ and those who take a stand for what is taught in the Bible: the Phil Robertson homosexual controversy, the Chik-fil-a same sex marriage controversy, etc. But is that the most productive use of our time? Apparently Paul didn't think so. Go back to Acts 14:19-23 and look at how he responded to these attacks from the Jews. Are you still looking? Perhaps you missed the fiery rhetoric that he launched in response to his stoning in verse 19. Still don't see anything? That's because, obviously, there was no response. In fact, the astonishing thing is that Paul seems to have given no answer whatsoever, at least not that is recorded in scripture. These Jews followed him many miles to other cities, expressly intended to harass and subvert his ministry, and ultimately attempted to murder him by stoning. And what did Paul do? He rolled right on with his work. This is incredible. Now obviously there is a huge element of miraculous wonder here of someone being stoned, seemingly to death, and then popping right up and carrying on with what he was doing. But beyond that there is an aspect in which we can be informed about our own efforts to evangelize on both a local and global scale today by how Paul responded to his antagonists then. Punishment, vengeance, and opposition are not the purview of humans. They are the sole jurisdiction of God alone. Scripture is clear on this. For example, in Deuteronomy 32:35 God says “Vengeance is Mine, and retribution,”, in Matthew 10:28 Jesus taught “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”, and in Zephaniah 3:8 we read the following statement: “Therefore wait for Me,” declares the Lord, “For the day when I rise up as a witness.” The clear principle is this. God has given us a mission to accomplish. That is, to proclaim the glory of His son to all the people groups of the world. That is what we are to be about; not worrying, complaining, or railing against those who would oppose His name. Paul, rather than confronting his attackers simply kept doing what he had been doing. We would be well advised to do the same in the area of global missions, personal evangelism, and all other areas of life.

Now then, just what was it that Paul was actually doing while he was being attacked and persecuted? How was he going about the business of global missions? A succinct method of summarizing his work would be to use the familiar modern term of “church planting.” But rather than just tossing out an abrupt purpose statement of “go start a church” I believe scripture gives us more detail than that. The New Testament writers never used the term of “church planting”. They were too busy telling us what all went into this process of starting a new church of Christians. We can see that principle here, with three elements of Paul's ministry that really formed the backbone of his efforts in the world: sharing the gospel, establishing local leadership, and discipling believers.

The preaching and teaching of the gospel is perhaps the most obvious component of Paul's ministry. The historical record in Acts is rampant with descriptions of his work that center on sharing the good news of Jesus with people. On this missionary journey in particular, the author of Acts, Luke, makes great pains to be clear that everywhere he went Paul spread the gospel. Here is a list of the specific descriptions of this in just two chapters of Acts which document this first missionary journey:

1. Acts 13:5 – They proclaimed the word of God in Salamis.
2. Acts 13:7 – They communicated the word of God to Sergius Paulus the proconsul.
3. Acts 13:16-41 – Paul preaches a lengthy and powerful sermon at the synagogue in Pisidian Antioch.
4. Acts 13:43 – After the synagogue meeting had broken up Paul and Barnabas continued speaking the truth to them.
5. Acts 14:1-3 – Once again the missionaries spoke of Jesus in the synagogue in Iconium.
6. Acts 14:9 – Paul was once again speaking, implicitly if not explicitly recorded for us, about the gospel.
7. Acts 14:15-17 – Paul and Barnabas communicate truth in an attempt to combat a heretical opinion of themsevles.
8. Acts 14:20 – They preached the gospel in Derbe.
9. Acts 14:24 – The word was spoken in Perga.

As we can see, the preaching and teaching of the gospel was absolutely central and critical to Paul's missionary endeavors. Thus this element should form the backbone of our modern efforts in the arena of global missions.

The second piece of the puzzle in Paul's formula for missions is to establish local leadership. We can see this specifically in Acts 14:23 where Paul and Barnabas “had appointed elders for them in every church”. The game plan of these early missionaries was not to put down roots and settle in an area. They were constantly on the move, criss crossing the region, sometimes doubling back on their tracks to re-visit churches they had already established, but always seeking to expand the reach of Christ's gospel ever outward. The longest recorded length of time that Paul spent at any one place was later on in Ephesus where he stayed for three years, strengthening the church there. But this extended visit to Ephesus was an anomaly in Paul's ministry. His goal was always to establish local leadership and then move on while the leadership he had set up became responsible for governing the church. In Acts chapter 20 he speaks to the elders of the church in Ephesus and reveals how he instructed them and trained them for ministry. In Titus 1:5 he reminds his disciple Titus that “For this reason I left you in Crete, that you would set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you”. In 2 Timothy 2:2 he tells Timothy that “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” These passages make it clear that Paul's intention was not to lead the churches he established, but rather to train other men, his “sons in the faith”, to be faithful stewards in positions of leadership in those churches. As such it is critically important that we follow that same model today.

To lend further credibility to what we already see in scripture, looking at the issue pragmatically leads to this same conclusion that established local leadership is the best approach for church planting. Mission boards such as Biblical Ministries Worldwide have found that converts who are natives of the country in question are much more effective at leading existing believers and evangelizing to potential believers than foreign missionaries are. Once trained and equipped for the work of ministry these men have an ethnic connection to and shared cultural heritage with the people who surround them and live beside them. If this fact did not line up with scripture we would need to cast it by the wayside. But since it does in fact align itself so well with the approach already laid down for us by the 1^st century missionaries it makes even more sense to follow this approach.

The third core element of Paul's ministry approach was the discipling of believers. At multiple points throughout his ministry he would go back to areas he had already visited, for no other reason than to “strengthen the souls of the disciples” and to “encourage them in the faith” as it is described in our passage in Acts 14. Discipleship is a central theme of New Testament Christian thought and practice. It was borne on the wings of Hebrew culture which extended back over a thousand years into the Old Testament and the institution of the Levitical priesthood as well as the prophetic office. This practice evolved into the system used under 1^st century Judaism in which the relationship between a rabbi and his student was the principle method in which new rabbis were trained. Then Jesus took this paradigm and used it as the method with which He raised up His Apostles who would follow in His footsteps. The overarching theme of all this disciple making was one of time. It was antithetical to the very concept of discipleship to rush this process. The whole idea was for the student to learn to be as exactly like his master as was humanly possible. This dictates that time be spent, as it is impossible to learn the depth of a person's nature in just a short time. So it was only natural for Paul, bred into this school of thought by Gamaliel, one of the most prominent rabbis of that day, and then further instructed by special revelation direct from Jesus Himself, to take this same approach with his personal ministry. We can see this perhaps no better than with Paul's relationship with Timothy. They first met during Paul's second missionary journey, which by the way was wholly intentioned with the express purpose of going back to every city that had been visited on the first journey for the purpose of following up with the converts there; in other words it was purposed for the sake of discipleship. Acts 15:36 reveals this motive to us:

After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are.”

In the course of re-visiting these towns the missionaries came back to Lystra, where Timothy lived. He was already a believer when Paul met him, as revealed in Acts 16:1. And the friendship they struck up was nothing short of phenomenal. Timothy accompanied Paul on many of his travels, Paul wrote multiple personal letters to him which we enjoy reading in our modern English bibles, and ultimately Paul installed him as the pastor of the Ephesian church. To say that Paul invested much of his life in discipling this man is a grand understatement. Their discipling relationship and probably others like it that Paul had which are not recorded in scripture formed the basis of his approach to missions. On all of these grounds we can very confidently say that to neglect disciple making today in either global missions or our local churches here in America is absolutely un-biblical.

Now then, having examined some of the “nuts and bolts” of how Paul did global missions, let's pull the lens back out for a moment and consider two broader angles that should inform our thinking on this.

First, a potential objection that some may raise to this whole idea of church planting. Namely, some might say the following. Regardless of how Paul did things he was still only just a man. We choose to follow Christ's approach. It is never recorded in the gospels that Jesus attempted to do any sort of church planting. What He focused on was the personal relationships and disciple making. That is what's most important.

I would like to respond to this by looking at Acts 9:15. This is the familiar story in which God calls a disciple named Ananias to minister to Saul and help to establish his ministry after Christ appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Ananias is understandably fearful of going to Saul due to his reputation as a persecutor of the church. He voices this concern to the Lord, who responds with the following statement:

But the Lord said to him, “Go, because this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel.”

God is speaking about Saul here. He uses an interesting phrase to refer to him; chosen instrument. Almost every English translation translates this phrase the same way. And it is essentially word for word accurate with the original Greek. But even though the wording is accurate I would like to explore a nuance of this phrase that I think is lost in the translation. So let's break it down. The word instrument can also be called a tool, a vessel, or an implement. The Greeks commonly used their word for vessel as a metaphor for the body because they believed in an eternal soul that lived temporarily in bodies. The word chosen is literally the act of picking or choosing out. This same word can easily be applied to humans since we make choices all the time. But when it is applied to God, what does it become? Doesn't it become something more than just a normal choice as it is applied to mankind? Should we not find a more accurate and fitting method to refer to God's choices? Actually, we don't have to because God has already done it for us. Consider Ephesians 1:4...

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.

Although it is obviously a different tense, the word chose that we see here is the root of the word chosen used back in Acts 9:15. And what is Ephesians 1:4 referring to when it highlights God's choice? It is referring to the doctrine of God's divine and sovereign election of saints before the creation of the world. Building off of that, scripture makes it very clear that God has perfect foreknowledge of all things and He views all of time in the present (Isaiah 42:9, Psalm 90:4). Therefore, any choice that He has ever made relating to an aspect of His creation was locked in before that event occurred. This leads us to the inescapable conclusion that all of God's choices are really demonstrations or permutations of His sovereign elective work. If this is so, then as it applies to Saul when the Lord called him His “chosen instrument” what He was saying, in effect, was that Saul was literally His “vessel of election.” Saul was the tool that God had selected out to do the work of facilitating His election of man. We can see this with crystal clarity in Acts 13:48...

When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

How does this relate to our examination of Paul's approach to global missions? It relates in this way; our mandate to emulate the practices of Paul in all of his work and writings that are recorded in scripture transcend his status as an Apostle or the fact that his writings are in the canon of inspired scripture. It goes beyond the material realm that humanity dwells in and is defined by the truth that Paul was the conduit through which God accomplished His elective work in the world. We could say this equally of all the Apostles. But it is particularly clear and relevant for Paul since scripture makes it so. Therefore, it is entirely accurate, fitting, and biblical to say it this way: Paul's approach to global missions is God's approach to global missions.

Carrying on with that theme, there is one more question I want to answer here. Namely, why is the institution or organism of the church the vehicle that God has chosen for the propagation of His gospel into the world? It certainly seems that God favors people living in community. Matthew 18:20 refers to two or three being gathered together in His name. Paul extensively uses the analogy of a human body to refer to the church, with all of the implications of fellowship that arise from that example. But the deeper question that I want to answer is why does God favor community so much? The answer can be found in one word, “us”. Genesis 1:26 records a private conversation among the Godhead during the process of creation, as follows: “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;” Who is the “Us” that is referred to here? It is a reference to the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God Himself is a community which dwells in perfect harmony and intimacy. This is the grass roots foundational level upon which the doctrine of the church is built. God desires us to live in community because that style of living is what best reflects His own character. We looked a few weeks ago at the truth that God's commands and instructions are not separate from Himself; but rather they are an extension of who He is. In the same way, the structure and design of the church as the mode of Christian living and ministry is not merely some idea that God came up with that He thought would work the best. It works the best because it best mirrors God's own existence. Jesus said this beautifully in His high priestly prayer in John 17:11...

“I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.”

This should be Earth shaking for us. Because I believe all too often we tend to view church with a carnal, profane, and secular mindset. That is, a church is a group of people at a building who get together to worship and do acts of service. Those things are true. But the church is so much more than that. It is the Earthly representation of the character and nature of the tri-une God who dwells in unapproachable light with perfect harmony and equality. If that does not cause us to spiritually gulp and take stock of our investment in the church then I fear we are so de-sensitized to spiritual things by the secularism of our culture that we may be incapable of sensing God's presence and truth when it is presented to us. And if so, that is a state that calls into question our very salvation.

So to summarize, the approach of the Apostle Paul to the issue of global missions was as follows. He spent his time planting churches by sharing the gospel, establishing local leadership, and discipling believers. He did this with a single minded devotion which relegated Godless opposition to his work to a position of low importance. We ought to follow Paul's example because not only was he an Apostle of Jesus Christ. Not only is much of his written work in the canon of scripture. But he was God's specifically chosen vessel of election in the world. Finally, God desired Paul to plant churches, desires us to function in a church, and desires us to focus our efforts in global missions on church planting because that is the best representation of His own nature and character.

The Mission

Consider the words “Missions” and “Missionaries”.  We throw these terms around quite a bit in the church.  But how knowledgeable are we about what they actually mean.  What is the point of missions?  What is its source and what is its destination?  How well do we understand what a missionary is?  Is our view of both the importance and the role of missions and missionaries grounded in biblical understanding?  These are the questions we will seek to answer today.

Our principle passage of scripture for this will be what is classically considered “the great commission”, found in Matthew 28:18-20…

¹⁸ And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Please note that this famous passage includes verse 18.  Some sources include only 19 and 20.  But this is, in my opinion, a mistake that prevents us from coming to a full and complete understanding of this passage.  In fact, I would go as far as to say that if one considers these verses without including verse 18 then one will have missed the entire point of what is being communicated here.  We will see why shortly. 

But before we get to that let’s begin by considering verses 19 and 20.   This is essentially a list of instructions, or a recipe, for how to evangelize on a global scale.  But there are nuances that may be missed by a casual reading in English.  For example, the tendency would be to assume that there are multiple commands here, as follows:

¹⁹Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

However, in Greek only “make disciples” is an imperative verb; “go”, “baptizing”, and “teaching” are participles which modify that main verb.  What Jesus was commissioning His followers to do was make disciples.  Everything else is subservient to that primary focus.  Making disciples is what Christians are to be about.  That is our mission.  To put it bluntly, if making disciples is not what we are engaged in then we are not doing what Jesus said to do.  With that point clear the next step is to figure out how Jesus wants us to accomplish this task.  What are the ingredients of a mission of making disciples on a global scale the way Christ envisioned?  We can break this down into three steps, provided explicitly by the text.

The first step is to “go”.  There are two elements we need to understand about this.  First is that Matthew, the author of this gospel, recorded these words of Jesus in a very specific way.  You see, in Greek if you have a participle preceding a verb the participle picks up the tense of that verb.  In this case, our verb is “make disciples” and its tense is imperative.  It is a command, an instruction, or an order.  And because “go” precedes it, “go” is also imperative.  So in other words, it is understood that when Jesus said to “make disciples” His intention was for us to do that “while we are going.”  That leads us to our second point, which arises as a question formed from the first point.  Namely, where are we supposed to be going?  Look at the word “nations” in  verse 19.  In the original Greek the word here is “ethnos”,  which means people group, tribe, or race.  In the translation into English I think we lose some of the nuance of this idea.  It is certainly true that a nation is made up of people groups, and sometimes, although I think this would be rare, possibly even just one people group.  But the meaning here isn't just that we are to go to every nation on Earth to make disciples.  We are to hit every single people group on Earth to make disciples.  What this means practically is that our mission is not accomplished when all the modern nations of the world have been reached with the gospel.  The mission, as Jesus outlined it here, is only complete when every tribe, both within those nations and the groups outside of traditional nation states, have had the gospel preached to them.  With that being said, it may shock you to realize that according to best estimates there are over 4,000 people groups, over 3 billion individuals, or just over 42% of the worlds population who have not heard the gospel and have no indigenous community of Christians who can evangelize their own people. 

Why is this significant?  There are two reasons.  First, Jesus commanded us to reach these people and they are not being reached.  Second, look at Matthew 24:14: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”  Now, there is a lot of disagreement over this verse in Christendom.  Some would say that this it means that the end times as prophesied throughout the bible will not come until all the “ethnos”, or people groups, have heard the gospel.  Others would say that no, when Jesus says “the end” here He is referring to the destruction of Jerusalem, which is the question the disciples were asking back in verse 3 of the same chapter.  They would further claim that this prophecy has already been fulfilled.  I am going to avoid getting into this debate, because I believe there is a greater truth at stake here that we must understand before we need worry about specific time sequence application of Jesus's words.  Namely, this verse makes it abundantly clear that the preaching of the gospel to all people groups is of exceedingly great importance to our Lord.  It is so important to Him that he ties it directly to the fulfillment of prophetic statements.  If He thought it was this important to preach the gospel to all people groups, and he commanded us to do it, then should we not make this mission our priority?

Going back to our passage in Matthew 28:19, we can see quite clearly that the next instruction in Jesus's formula for global missions, after going into the world to make disciples, is to baptize them.  Now this is interesting.  The list presented here of instructions in how to fulfill our mission is quite short.  There are only three components to how He wants us to make disciples.  This tells us that all three of them are of great importance and significance.  So it is interesting to me that baptism is included in this list.  The reason I find it interesting is that I think we often downplay the importance of baptism.  We treat it as Christian extra credit or something.  We put on kid gloves with new believers regarding how critical it is that they be baptized.  This should not be so.  Baptism is so important to the Christian faith that Jesus Himself ranked it as one of the three central elements of global missions.  It certainly does not save us; notice that Jesus says to make disciples and then baptize them.  We are to baptize those who have already become disciples by believing in Christ, not baptize them in order to make them disciples of Christ.  So it does not save us, but it is a requirement for those who have been saved.

Finally, we are to teach.  And what are we to teach?  “To obey everything that I have commanded you.”  The teaching and training of followers of Christ is a work with the very highest of importance.  The ultimate objective of Christians is to be like Christ, to be “little Christs” as it were.  How can we be like Christ if we don't know what He taught?  And remember that God's instructions flow out of His very nature.  They are not a list of things to do that He made up out of thin air.  Rather, who He is automatically produces what we should do.  So the obeying of Christ's commands is to be like Him.  

But how do we teach obedience?  One word: modeling.  Consider the words of Jesus in John 15:12 – “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”  Jesus taught by example.  He led the way.  He said “Come, follow me where I am going and do what I am doing.” rather than “You go there and do this and that or such and such.”  And remember the context of this passage.  Jesus has just given the ultimate object lesson to His Apostles by washing their feet in what was probably the most profound act of humility and service they had ever seen.  He, their master, had lowered Himself to the level of a slave to do to them what they were too prideful to do to one another.  I imagine the twelve were somewhat spellbound by the time Jesus gets to verse 12 of chapter 15.  They would have been enraptured, hanging on His every word at this point.

Let us further consider that this command to teach obedience extends beyond just the scope of global missions.  It flows both ways.  It is a requirement of those making disciples.  But it is also a requirement of those being made disciples.  Each one of us, as those who claim to be followers of Christ, are expected by Him to be taught obedience to His commands.  Being taught carries with it an implication of a willingness to be taught.  So the question that hangs in the air like an 800 pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to acknowledge is this.  Do you have a willingness and an eagerness to be taught how to obey the commands of Jesus?  Are you seeking out someone to learn from?  Does this submission to instruction form the framework of your life?  Or are you merely coasting along in your supposed life of faith, unwilling to be stretched by the difficult teachings of the Son of God?

So in summary, the work of global missions is as follows:  while we are assumed to be going to all the people groups of the world we are to make Disciples of Christ, baptize them into the Christian faith, and follow up by teaching and training them in everything that Jesus commanded.

Now then, having established the framework of global missions in verse 19 and 20, let’s return to verse 18 that I made such a big deal about earlier.  Notice that Jesus says “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”  This is a short sentence that has extraordinarily long and far reaching implications.  The truth that Christ has been given all authority forms the framework for the rest of this passage, most of which we have already looked at.  Therefore, we must carefully contemplate and spend time dwelling upon the ramifications of this statement.  I have identified 19 ways in which the authority, or supremacy, of Jesus is seen in the bible.  This is by no means an exhaustive list.  But it should serve to drive our thoughts in the direction they should go.  That is: firmly, squarely, and exclusively upon the Son of God.

The supremacy of Christ is seen:

1.              Instructionally (Matt. 7:29) – Jesus taught and continues to teach with incomparable authority.

2.              Royally (Mark 16:19) – Jesus sitting at His Father’s “right hand”, in Jewish culture, indicated equality in ruling power and sovereign authority.

3.              Judicially (John 12:48) – Through the medium of His words Jesus will judge mankind.

4.              Glorifiably* (John 16:13-15) – The primary function of one third of the Godhead is to bring glory and honor to Christ.

5.              Mercifully (Acts 2:38) – Only Christ is capable of granting forgiveness of sins.

6.              Salvifically* (Acts 4:12) – The name of Jesus is the only name by which anyone can ever be saved from death.

7.              Believably (Acts 18:8) – The person of Christ is believable to those who behold Him.

8.              Powerfully (Rom. 1:3-4) – In His resurrection Christ was raised with power and majesty.

9.              Righteously (Rom. 5:18) – In order to be capable of one act of righteousness Christ is required logically to be filled with righteousness.

10.            Diplomatically (1 Cor. 1:10) – It is in the name of Jesus Christ that agreements should be reached and divisions mended.

11.            Graciously (Gal. 1:6) – It is Christ’s grace by which the elect are called by the Father.

12.            Revelatorially* (Gal. 1:11-12) – It is Christ who reveals the gospel, the truth about Himself, to mankind.

13.            Psychologically (Phil. 4:6-7) – By dwelling upon Christ we can experience a true peace defined by a lack of destructive stress.

14.            Positionally (Col. 1:18) – Christ is before all things, He is first in all things, and He is the head of all things.

15.            Philosophically (Col. 2:8) – The contrast with hollow and deceptive philosophies based on worldly principles is a fulfilling and accurate philosophy based on Christ-like principles.

16.            Hereditarily (Heb. 1:1-2) – Christ is the heir of God the Father in all things.

17.            Sacrificially (1 Pet. 3:18) – It is through His death that Christ brings us to God.

18.            Existentially (2 Peter 1:4) – This means neither the 19^th century philosophical notion of existentialism (the theory that men are free agents who determine their own destiny) nor the pagan notion of apotheosis (man becoming gods).  Rather, it points to a mysterious, organic connection with God that is accomplished through Christ.

19.            Advocationally* (1 John 2:1) – Christ Himself actually makes intercession with the Father on our behalf when we sin.  This is a unique and exclusive role.

My prayer is that after carefully considering this short list of examples of the supremacy of Jesus Christ your soul is soaring to new heights of appreciation for His majesty and glory and honor and power.  That is the correct frame of mind with which to consider every area of life.  But in particular, we must keep Christ’s authority in mind as we consider the very next phrase in our passage: “Go therefore”.  This is a curious phrase, perhaps rendered more modernly in English as “Therefore, go…”  The emphasis here is on “therefore” rather than “go”, although most bible translations position “go” first in order.  This type of statement is called a conjunction.  Its purpose in grammar is to show a relationship between two things, a cause and effect, or a sequence of events.  In this case, everything else that Jesus says in this passage is informed by, dependent on, and enabled by what He has just said, namely that “all authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me.”  So then, when we consider that the rest of this passage is a set of instructions about how to do global missions, it must be understood that missions is somehow directly influenced and predicated upon this authority that has been given to Christ.

The question is, how and why?  To answer that we need to first explore the etymology of the words mission and missionary.  They are actually a little more complicated to define biblically than you might think because, perhaps surprisingly, neither is found anywhere in the bible.  They are moderately recent terms, finding their first known usage around 1600 A.D. by the order of Jesuits.  Both words come from the Latin “mitto”, which is itself a translation of the Greek apostollo, meaning to send.  Ah hah!  Now we’re getting somewhere.  Apostollo has a familiar ring to it because it is the Greek root for apostolos, meaning someone who is sent, which we translate into English as apostle.  This is a word that we are obviously quite familiar with.  So in a very real sense, the word missionary is a modern version of the ancient word apostle.  This clue enables us to uncover a sequence of thought that both helps to define missionary and to discover the link between Christ's authority and the work of global missions that we have seen in Matthew 28.  We will begin by considering the usage of apostle in scripture.

1.      The twelve (Luke 6:13) – Here we see apostle used to refer specifically to those twelve closest disciples of Jesus who He personally commissioned to be His authoritative human representatives on Earth after His departure.  These would be the men upon whom the primary human burden of building up the church would fall.

2.      Those gifted (Eph. 4:11-12) – A second usage of apostle in scripture is seen here, in this list of gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Apparently, some in the body of Christ are expressly commissioned by the Holy Spirit as apostles, again meaning “sent ones.”  In this context the word seems to have broader application than just the twelve.  It could be that this category serves to capture all of the other high ranking first century ministers who were not among the twelve, such as Paul, Barnabas, and James the brother of Jesus.

3.      Everyone else (Acts 14:4, 14; 2 Cor. 8:23) – In Acts 14 we see apostle used to refer specifically to Paul and Barnabas in verse 14.  The word is also used in verse 4 in what appears inconclusively to be a broader sense.  But the deal is sealed by comparing those verses with the appearance of apostle in 2 Corinthians.  In that passage the implication is obviously common Christians.  And the word used, although translated into English in most bible versions as “messengers” is actually the same Greek word “apostolos.”  So there is clearly a sense in which all believers, while not having the same level of authority as the Apostles (with a capital A) are still considered apostles (with a lower case a) and are commissioned as “sent ones.”

Now then, with those points in mind we need to consider the cultural understanding of apostle in the Hellenistic world.  The Greeks were seafarers.  They first used this word “apostolos” in maritime language to refer to ships or even fleets that were sent out into the world, both in domestic and military applications.  Further on in history “apostolos” came to refer more specifically to either the military commander of these naval expeditions or a group of colonists who were sent to settle new lands.  So the idea here is not just of someone who is sent, but a person or a group of persons who is sent with authority.  And not just a small level of authority but with the full authority of the government they had been sent by to increase the influence of their home country.

If we draw “apostolos” back into a biblical context it should be apparent that the government in Greek culture becomes Jesus Himself in this usage.  And the military commander or group of colonists becomes individual or groups of Christians.  And suddenly the link between Christ's supremacy and the work of global missions leaps into focus.  It is because of the authority granted to Jesus that He sends us out into the world to make disciples with authority.  This is a critical point that we dare not miss.  Jesus frames His speech such that the work of missions is directly related to and enabled by His authority.  So in a very real and tangible way missions is all about Christ.  But not just in the message.  It is all about Him in even its existence as a goal for the church.  Colossians 1:16 comes to mind:  all things have been created through Him and for Him.  Applied to global missions we could say it like this.  Missions is about Christ, authorized by Christ, and for Christ.

As if that wasn't enough evidence, look at how Jesus chose to end His statement in verse 20.  “and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”  It is remarkable how He book ends this sweeping statement on global missions with first His authority and finally His presence.  In fact, this is so significant that I suggest we amend our summary of a moment ago to this: Missions is about Christ, authorized by Christ, for Christ, and accompanied by Christ.  To take the words of Paul in Ephesians 4 that He applied there to God the Father; Christ is over all and through all and in all.  Global missions is all about Christ!  Because of that it is of exceedingly great importance.  Its centrality should be at the forefront of our thoughts and our minds and our efforts as a body of believers.  It is absolutely unacceptable biblically to sideline missions in favor of other pursuits.  Or to relegate it to a backseat because of difficult financial situations.  Or to be closed off personally to the possibility of being called to global missions work as a missionary.  If we are to take any of those stances on this subject then we are to blatantly defy the specific and clear teaching of Jesus Himself.

*I know that these words are not correct grammatically.  However, I chose to ignore grammar in this case to preserve the symmetry of words which identify areas in which the supremacy of Christ can be seen.