The Purpose and Centrality of the Local Church Part 6

This is the final part of a series on the centrality of the local church in God's redemptive purposes in the world. It has not been attempt to bring us back to a Rome-like view of the church or salvation but, rather, an attempt to do away with our Western individualism and help you to get a vision of and passion for the local assembly that God has given you. I hope it has been helpful.

The centrality of the church can be seen in that the responsibility for missions is given to the church.

This point is very relevant for me because I have seen first-hand both the lack of passion for missions in the local church and the lack of passion for the church in missions organizations. That is all besides the fact that most churches misapply their mission, turning church services into productions that are meant to draw in lost people with everything but the biblical gospel.

And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and 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." Matthew 28:18-20

This is the probably the main text that comes to most Christian minds when thinking about missions. Often called "the great commission" this text makes it clear that the gospel was meant to be effectively preached in all nations.

There is, however, much debate over what Jesus intended to be the eternal result of his words. Was this only a commission for the original disciples to fulfill? Does this obligate every person to serve a term of some length as a missionary?

Without going into a long exegetical study of the passage I will tell you my own conclusions. Just by knowing the rest of the New Testament we can know that this commission is meant to drive Christians during the entire church-age; that is, until Jesus comes back. The grammar of the commission tells us that the emphasis is not on "go" but on "make disciples." Therefore, every Christian is called to be a part of the fulfillment of this commission, but not every Christian is called to go on a "missions term." However, this commission clearly has global aspirations. Therefore, global missions is necessary to obey Jesus' commission.

So what we should really be asking is how Jesus intended this commission to be fulfilled and how the early church obeyed him. So let's see what we can learn from the book of Acts about these two things.

1. How did Jesus intend for this to be done?

In Acts 1 Jesus tells the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them and then gives a statement similar to the great commission cited above (Acts 1:8). He wasn't urgent for the disciples to start on a missionary journey as soon as he ascended. Instead, it seems that Jesus wanted the church to officially be started. He wanted things to go in their proper order and the Holy Spirit to empower their evangelism, which would happen in an incredible way in Acts 2.

2. How did the apostles work to fulfill the great commission?

The reason I use the "apostles" rather than "the church" in the title for this point is simply to avoid circular reasoning. The fact is 1st century Christian missions was church-centered to the core. The best example I can give for this is Acts 13-14 where we see how Paul and Barnabas went about their missionary journey.

In Acts 13:1-3 we see Paul (Saul) and Barnabas being set apart as missionaries in the context of the local church at Antioch. The congregation fasted and prayed about it and then layed hands on them and sent them.

The rest of Acts 13 and into 14 describes the missionary journey. To summarize, the fruit of the journey was church plants (Acts 14:21-25). They made many disciples of Christ and encouraged them, appointing elders for the new local churches.

After all this what did they do? Return to Antioch to let their sending church share in the joy of their labors (Acts 14:26-27). They then did something that we don't see much nowadays with missionaries, "And they stayed there a long time with the disciples." (Acts 14:28).

So we see three things: (1) the local church sent the missionaries, (2) the missionaries planted local churches, and (3) the missionaries returned to the local church to report and commit themselves to their own congregation once again.

We could look at a lot more but I think this gets the point across. Love your church, love the gospel, and love the lost enough to preach the gospel to them. I don't think para-church organizations are the God-ordained means for this task, they are only helpful inasmuch as they seek to work alongside God's church. Sending a para-church orginization to fulfill the great commission without the church is like sending the Boy Scouts to war...they may be entheusiastic about it but they lack the power and authority to win.

Grace, Peace, and much love,
Stephen