SAINT FRUMENTIUS THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE

Missiology

Contents

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 SAINT FRUMENTIUS THEOLOGICAL COLLEGE......................................................................................1
Missiology...........................................................................................................................................1
Chapter-One: -.............................................................................................................................................5
Basic Concepts of Mission..........................................................................................................................5
Meaning and Definition of Missiology........................................................................................................5
1.1.1. The Meaning of Missiology.......................................................................................................5
1.1.2. The Definition of Missiology.........................................................................................................5
1.1.3Theology of Mission........................................................................................................................6
1.2 Vision of God for His Creature..............................................................................................................7
1.3 God’s Mission.......................................................................................................................................7
1.4 Mission and Evangelization...................................................................................................................9
1.5 Missionary and His Qualifications.......................................................................................................10
1.6The Goal of Mission.............................................................................................................................14
1.7. The cost of missionary today..............................................................................................................16
The Creation and Mission......................................................................................................................18
2.1.2. The Fall and Mission...................................................................................................................19
2.1.3. The History ofsalvation and Mission...........................................................................................21
2.1.3.1. Noah and his sons.................................................................................................................21
2.1.3.2 The Call of Abraham.............................................................................................................23
2.1.3.3 God’s Mission in Liberating Israel from Egypt......................................................................25
2.1.3.4God’s Mission through the Prophets.......................................................................................31
"For Your Maker Is Your Husband" (Isaiah 54-55)...............................................................................31
"Come to the Waters" (Isaiah 54-55).................................................................................................33
Chapter 55 begins with the analogy cited by Jesus in the New Testament of the water of life- the Holy
Spirit (see John 4:10-14; 7:37-38; Revelation 21:6; 22:1, 17). These ties back to earlier references in
Isaiah, such as 12:3 and 44:3. We are told to buy even though we have no money. It is a totally free
gift- albeit a gift with conditions. God requires true repentance accompanied by faith and then baptism
(see Acts 2:38; Hebrews 11:6). Of course, what many do not understand is that repentance is more than
just being sorry for past sins. It also involves a lifelong commitment to obeying God..........................33
"Arise; Shine; for Your Light Has Come!" (Isaiah 60)..........................................................................34
2.2.1. Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God..........................................................................................38
2.2.1.1 The basic Features of the Kingdom of God............................................................................39
2.2.1.2. The power of the New Kingdom...........................................................................................39

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 2.2.1.3. The train of the Apostles about the Kingdom of God...........................................................40
2.2.4. Mission in the early Church.........................................................................................................45
1.2.4.1. The historical expansion of the kingdom of God...........................................................45
2.2.4.2. Women’s Partnership in Mission..........................................................................................47
2.2.3. The community of God’s kingdom..............................................................................................49
Traditionally, Paul is said to have made three missionary journeys, plus a fourth journey to Rome. In the
Acts facts series, we have retained this traditional manner of dividing up Paul’s several journeys recorded
in the book of Acts....................................................................................................................................50
A. After Paul’s Conversion.................................................................................................................50
B. The 1stMissionary Journey.............................................................................................................50
C. Period in Syrian Antioch................................................................................................................51
D. The 2ndMissionary Journey............................................................................................................51
E. The 3rdMissionary Journey.............................................................................................................51
F. Period in Jerusalem and Caesarea..................................................................................................52
G Journey to Rome................................................................................................................................52
Chapter Three: Basic Missionary Tasks....................................................................................................53
3.1Preaching the Gospel/Evangelization:..............................................................................................53
3.2Preaching God’s people/Edification:................................................................................................54
3.3Healing (medical ministry):..............................................................................................................55
3.3.1. Types Biblical healing.............................................................................................................56
3.4 The issue of Stewardship:................................................................................................................57
3.4.1. Features of Biblical Stewardship.............................................................................................57
Summary...................................................................................................................................................61
Chapter Four:.............................................................................................................................................62
Mission in world circumstances................................................................................................................62
The challenges of Culture, World view and our understanding of scripture in..........................................62
4.1.1. Culture and People’s understand of Scripture:.........................................................................62
4.1.2. Mission and Cross communication..........................................................................................63
4.1.3. Mission of God and Contextualization.....................................................................................63
4.1.4. Culture Shock and Transition in the Mission:..........................................................................65
4.1.4.5 Christian Mission and Socio-Cultural Transformation:.........................................................67
Section two: Ecumenical Movement in the Religious pluralistic Context.................................................68

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 4.2.1. The Ecumenical movement of Mission and the Disciples:.......................................................68
4.2.2. Mission in the religious Pluralistic context..............................................................................72
4.2.3 Biblical Strategy of Church Mission.........................................................................................74
4.2.3 What are the Dangers of Strategic Planning in Mission?...................................................80

Chapter-One: -
Basic Concepts of Mission
Meaning and Definition of Missiology

1.1.1. The Meaning of Missiology

The term missiology is made up of two heterogeneous words, the first one is Latin: ‘Missio’ and
the second one Greek: ‘Logos’ and it refers the work of the Lord’s move on the earth.Mission is a
presupposition of the coming of the kingdom. "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached

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throughout the whole world, as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come" (Matt.
24:14).Mission is the extension of the love of the Trinitarian God, for the transformation of the
whole world

1.1.2. The Definition of Missiology

Missiology can be defined as “the systematic study of the evangelizing activity of the Church and
of the means with which to implement it. It is a scientific study of the missionary reality of the
Church where the scientific discipline and the missionary charisma mutually enrich themselves.
“Missiology is the dynamic foundation of all theological studies and the heart of ecclesiology.
Another definition is the systematic theology of mission.
We can also defined missiology as a “branch of theology that methodologically and with different
approaches deepens, but always departing as theology from the revelation of God, the origin of the
missionary mandate and its intimate relationship with being the church.As one of the scholars and
promoters of missiology defines it, “It is the systematic and critical knowledge of the expansive
activity of the Catholic Church/universal/, or, more analytically, it is the science that studies the
expansive activity of the Catholic Church in its basis and in its norms (theory of the mission), in its
historical development (history of the mission), in its present state (missiogrphy). It is the coherent
ensemble of empirical knowledge and of critically researched, scientifically elaborated,
systematically organized and methodologically presented theological doctrines. It is closely related
to ecclesial missionary activities in its idea and realization, in its agents and receivers, in its
permanent basis and in its variable forms, specific objectives and contextual conditioning, in its
historical development and in the present situation.
Missiology, therefore, is the systematic study of the theological justification and of the carrying
out of Jesus’ mandate seen in its context, in its subjects, in the receivers and in its methodology.

1.1.3Theology of Mission

We say that missiology studies the theology of mission in a systematically and organic way. It
expounds the biblical foundations in order to grasp the consistency of mission in the Word in and
through which God comes to save every human being and all of humanity. It deepens the
Trinitarian, Christological, and [pneumatologicaldimension] of mission because, by presenting the
constitutive nature of the Church, it relates it to its coming forth from the Trinity in order to be the

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realization of the Father’s project, carried out in Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. It
identifies, in the missionary journey of the Church’s history, the fundamental steps, where the
mission makes human history be understood as salvation history. It reflects, moreover, upon the
theological theses that analyze mission in its context, in its aims and in the models proposed. It
gathers from the context, the modern challenges faced by mission. It critically reads the
methodology for missionary activity deepens the reflection on the missionary vocation natural to
the Church, theologically motivates the spirituality and the pastoral work for mission, the
structures and the organization of missionary animation and cooperation. It places mission itself in
the eschatological perspective of the Kingdom.
In Ephesians chapter four versus eleven to twelve /4:11-12/ we see that the sphere of the ministry
is the body of Christ, which may be expressed locally as a church, or extra locally as the work
(Acts 13:1-3). It is for this reason also that apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers are linked
together, though actually the sphere of an apostle’s work is quite different from that of the other
three. But all belong to the one ministry, whose sphere of service is the Body of Christ. The Body
of Christ is the governing principle of the Church, the mission, and the work. The basic principle
of the churches is the [Body, the basic principle of the ministry is the Body] and the basic principle
of the mission is the Body. The churches are the Body expressed locally like the church in Ethiopia
and the ministry is the Body in function in that local church and the mission is the Body seeking
increase (Acts 13:1-3; 21:19).
God uses the apostles, the prophets, evangelists and teachers to impart His grace to the Church.
Their various gifts enable them to transmit grace from the Head to the Body. Spiritual mission is
nothing but ministering Christ to His people. God’s thought in giving these men as gift to His
church was that a Christ, personally known and experienced.They were given to the Church “for
the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the mission, unto the building up of the Body of
Christ”. (Eph 4:11-13).

1.2 Vision of God for His Creature

In order to follow and serve God according His vision, we have to come up to the level of Paul’s
message to King Agrippa in Acts 29:19. [“Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to
the heavenly vision.”]This is because if there is no vision of God, the people cast off restraint.
(Prov 29:18). It is for this reason Saint Paul prays for the Ephesians Christians as follows:

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 “That the God of Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation in the full knowledge of Him. And to enlighten all that they may see what the
economy of the mystery is which throughout the ages has been hidden in God, Who created
all things” (Eph 1:17; 3:9).
In fact, God makes clear His vision to His creature in the [holy Bible] particularly; He
consummated it in His epistle to the seven churches in Ephesus (Rev 21:2-4). The book of
revelation is the revelation which covers all the ages, including the Kingdom of God, the new
heaven and new earth, and the ultimate consummation of the Church, the New Jerusalem.Simply
put, the vision of God extend all the way from the first vision of Adam in genesis to the ultimate
vision of the manifestation of the Church, the New Jerusalemis revealed in the book. This and this
alone is the complete vision of God.God’s vision is a transcendent vision; a vision that inherits all
that was in the past and a vision that is all-inclusive. God makes crystal clear His vision in the
epistle to the Ephesians chapter one verse nine and ten.
“And He made know to us the mystery of His will according to His pleasure, which He purposed
in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment to bring all things
in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ (NIV).
Thanks to God, He makes plain His vision in different ways (Heb 1:1-2). The entire Holy Bible
contains God’s vision for His creature. Whether or not we can come up to the standard of these
visions depends entirely on our understanding of the visions contained in the Bible.

1.3 God’s Mission

Like His vision, God’s mission is also found in the entire Bible. Dan Beeby, in his Canon and
Mission, argues for the importance of reading the whole Bible. He speaks of ‘canonical
interpretation, which does not set one part of the Bible over against another, or choose which parts
to emphasize. He notes several ways of looking at the overall pattern of the Bible, which can help
us to see God’s mission to His world. Here are some:
1. The “U” pattern.This pattern goes from the heights to the depths and back again. God creates
the good world, but it goes wrong at the fall, continues in sin, reaches the depths when people
crucify Jesus Christ, and when is little by little restored as the new creation. The pattern can be
seen in many ways of the stories of the Bible,and especially in the life of Christ, Who comes down
from heaven right to death, and then is raised and returns to heaven.

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2. Promise and fulfillment. This sees the New Testament as showing the fulfillment in Christ of
all to which the Old Testament points, and the pointing on towards the fulfillment of all that Christ
came to bring.
3. From beginning to end. The Bible moves from the perfect Garden of Eden to the perfect
heavenly city of Revelation which is the newly Jerusalem. It is the story of how God’s world
becomes full of people, and how God works to make His world what He wants it to be.
4. Relationships- the Bible tells of five basic relationships, which went wrong at the beginning,
and which God restores through Jesus Christ. The relationships are: the relationship of God to
creation, of God to humanity, of human beings to other human beings, of human beings to
creation, and of individual people to themselves.
5. Promises, Blessing and Covenants-this can be found in Genesis 1-11, where they are given to
all God’s creatures, with no conditions attached. Then, beginning with God’s call to Abraham in
Genesis 12, there are covenants made with Israel. The Bible can see as the story of how these
covenants work out. It is important here that the covenant with Abraham is not only for the
blessing of his descendants, but that through them all the nations should be blessed (Gen 12:3).
All these patterns underline the same thing: the Bible portrays God working in the whole of His
world during the whole of history. Although most of it is about Israel, its concern is for all human
beings. If we look at the overall shape of the Bible, we have to conclude that, whatever Israel was
chosen for, God’s purposes have always been for the whole of humanity and not only for one
particular nation. Jesus Christ is at the corner of all the patterns, so it is clear that Jesus Christ is
sent to the whole humanity and not for any one particular group of people.
Beeby notes that Israel existed for the nations. God did not call Abraham only for his own sake,
but to bring blessing to all nations. Further, Israel lived among the nations, and was constantly
interacting with them. Much of the Bible’s story is about her struggles with the nations; but we can
also see how the she depended on the nations. For example, she survived famine by going to Egypt
at the time of Joseph, but then she had to be rescued from Egypt at the time of Moses. In all this
Israel was supposed to be a witness to the nations. She was supposed to show them what God was
like- although she often failed.

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 1.4 Mission and Evangelization
The office of mission authority is not mentioned as one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Bible.
But it replaces the apostolic authority in the history of the Church. In 1 Corinthians 12:8-11 Paul
identifies the Holy Spirit as both source and giver of a variety of gifts: “To one is given through
the Holy Spirit the utterance of [wisdom], and to another the utterance of knowledge according to
the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to anothergifts of healingby that one Spirit, to
another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to
another speaking in different kinds of tongues and to still another the interpretation of tongues…
all these things one and the same Spirit does, Who apportions to each one individually as he wills”
(NIV).
In Ephesians chapter four verses eleven to twelve, Saint Paul enumerated the gifts of the Holy
Spirit given for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of the ministry and unto the building up
of the Body of Christ. There, the office of apostleship,prophecy, evangelization, shepherd hood
and teaching were identified.
In Romans chapter 12:6-8, the apostle identified the gift of prophecy, servant
hood,teaching,encouragement,giving, leadership and mercy.
In the above gifts of the Holy Spirit, the word‘mission ‘is not mentioned in name,it is later equates
with the gift if apostleship. Mission has always helped the Church to go beyond the frontiers of
the accomplished in order to face the one of novelty, of the unheard of the risky, as long as Christ
is preached. It is a calling for the great commission of the Lord (Matt 28:18-20). And this is the
main task of the Apostles.
As to the gifted men raised up of God for the ministry in the Church, they labor both in the
churches and in the mission. When they are in their own local church, they seek to edify the
church. When they are in other places, namely in the places of the unbelievers, they bear the
burden of evangelization or mission. When they are in the local church, they are prophets and
teachers. When they are sent to other places, they are apostles or missionaries. The men are the
same, at the local church or abroad, but their ministries differ according to the sphere of their
service.
In Acts 13:1-2 we saw that God had established one of His churches in Antioch, which was the
leading church for the Gentile churches built by the Apostle Paul in Greece and Asia Minor as a
local church; and then He gave gifts of prophecy and teaching to a few individuals in that local

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church to equip them minister there as prophets and teachers, so that the church might be built up.
These prophets and teachers constituted the ministry in that church. The ministry is mainly
edification. When in life and in gift these ministers had reached a certain age of spiritual maturity,
God sent two of their number to work in other places as missionary. In the history of the Church,
this missionary activity was the first missionary activity of Saint Paul (Acts 13 and 14). When
Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas were as a member of the local church of Antioch, they were
working as edifiers but the Holy Spirit was called them for missionary activities in other places.
The Apostles have the sphere of local service that is edification of the church and extra local to
evangelize non-believers.
Thus, the terms mission and evangelization are equate terms. The Church termed the
evangelization of Saint Paul to the non-Christians as a mission. We can used them
interchangeably. The missionary can serve as an edifier as well as an evangelist in the Church.

1.5 Missionary and His Qualifications

1.5.1. Setting Apart and Calling
“The word of the Lord came to me saying: ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I know you, and
before you were born I consecrated you’” (Jer 1:4-5).
“Listen to me, you islands, hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the Lord called me;
from my birth he has made mention of my name” (Isa 49:1).
“ But when he who set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace was pleased
to reveal his Son in me, in order that might preach him among the Gentiles” (Gal 1:15-16).
“Paul, the servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God” (Rom
1:1).
As God makes crystal clear in the above Biblical verses and in other parts of the bible, before a
certain individual became an apostle or a missionary, he must be set apart and called by God.
These two qualifications were directly resulted from the will of God Himself.In his epistle to the
Galatians, Paul do not tried to determine the reason why God decided to reveal His Son in him, nor
is interested in trying to do so. The whole matter is introduced simply to explain the qualification
needed for missionary activities. It was God’s good will that Paul preached the Gentiles and that is
all Paul needed to know. His reaction to this mystery is hard to understand. In his response to the
calling, he simply said “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” For if I do this of my own

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will, I have a reword, but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission” (1Cor 9:16-
17).
To defend his position against those who sand in opposition to his apostleship, he appeals to the
similar situation of the prophet Jeremiah (1:4-5). In both his and the prophets cases the puzzling
aspect of the call is unpreparedness of the one called. The decision has been made long ago and
was unilateral; God had marked Jeremiah while he was still in his mother’s womb. In just the same
way, God’s sudden and unexpected move to appoint Paul an apostle to the Church he was
persecuting was a unilateral and incomprehensible action on God’s part.Hence, the apostle follows
the same of line thought expressed in Jeremiah 1:4-5 and attributes this apparent abruptness in
God’s behavior to the fact that He had actually “set him apart”while he was yet in his mother’s
womb. The apostle’s continuing awareness of this qualification for apostleship is confirmed by his
use in his epistle to the Romans (Rom 1:1).There, he introduces himself as an apostle he called by
God.
1.5.1.1. The time of setting apart and calling
According to Galatians chapter one verse fifteen, God ‘called’ Saint Paul and as well as ‘set him
apart.’As clearly indicated the ‘setting apart’ was carried out when the one called is in the womb.
But, did the “call too?” As Paul NadimTaraziexplainedin his book “a Commentary on the
Galatians” He said no.According to him, these two actions are not equated. He invites us to refer
other Pauline literatures to differentiate them. In his point of view a quick glance at the Pauline
literature will show that the idea of calling always refers to the call God makes to us through Jesus
Christ:, through the word of the gospel. The most pertinent text he mentions was 1 Cor 7:17-24.
“…Let everyone lead the life which the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called
him. This is my rule in all the churches. Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised?
Let him not seek to remove the marks of circumcision. Was anyone at the time of his call
uncircumcised? Let him not seek circumcision…Everyone should remain in the state in which he
was called. Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail
yourself of the opportunity. For he who was called by the Lord as a slave is a freedom of the
Lord.Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ…So, brothers, in whatever state
each was called, there let him remain with God.”
According to the above Biblical passage, God “calls” while on is already in state of circumcision
oruncircumcision, slavery or freedom, etc.and so the call cannot come before one is born.

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 The missionary is called into a new state that applies to all regardless of prior status. These are
some of the terms of calling:
 The fellowship of Jesus Christ (1Cor 1:9).
 Peace (1Cor 7:15; Col3:15).
 Grace (Gal 1:6).
 Freedom (Gal 5:13).
 One Hope (Eph 4:4).
 One Body (Col 3:15).
 Holiness (1Thess 4:7).
 Holiness and Faith ( 2Thess 2:13-14).
 To be holy (Rom 1:7; 1 Cor1:2).
 To be justified (Rom 8:30).
These are terms of calling not setting apart, becausesuch terms do not apply to one who has not
even been born. Thus, the call comes through the gospel that is through the apostolic preaching is
hardly be heard and understood by those who are yet in the womb.
According to Paul Nadim, all of the above facts lead us to the conclusion that Paul writes “God
---called me through His grace” in Galatia 1:15, he is referring to his historical call to be the
apostle of Christ to the Gentiles took place at the gates of Damascus . But the “setting apart” was
done before his birth.
A. Why Calling?
The one body into which all Christians are called (Col 3:15) presupposes many functions, so God
through His Spirit assigns to each a particular gift for the common good (1 Cor 12:4-11; Eph4:11-
12). One of this is apostleship (1Cor 12:28 Eph 4:11), and that is Paul’s particular calling (Rom
1:1 1Cor 1:1). Therefore, “calling” is related to function in a certain way. And the call is summed
up to reveal the Lord and savior Jesus Chris (Gal 1: 16).
Jeremiah was called to be a messenger or a prophet to the nations (Jer 1:5) and Saint Paul to be an
apostle for the Gentiles. In the same way the missionary is called for the non-believers. As
Jeremiah was the prototype for Saint Paul and Saint Paul is a prototype for the missionary.
B. The Call of the Addressee

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Saint Paul used Jeremiah’s imagery not only to speak of his own call but also that of the
Galatians. The same terminology is used in both chapter one verse six and fifteen: “…him who
called you in the grace of Christ…” in the former and, “… had called me through his grace.”
But there is a difference on the caller: Saint Paul was directly called by the risen Christ, while in
the Galatians case it was by Paul’s mission.
1.5.1 Obedience to the call
The Lord said to me “Do not say, ‘I am youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go; and
whatever I command, you will speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you,
says the Lord.” Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
“Behold, I have put my words to your mouth.” … the Lord said to me,”…I am with you to deliver
you, says the Lord. And behold I make you this day as a fortified city and a fortified wall of bronze
against … the people of the land. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail over you,
for I am with you to deliver you say the Lord.
This message is the absolute guarantee of the missionary if he becomes obedient to the call.
1.5.2. Uttering what is precious
Thus, says the Lord: “… if you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless you will be as
my mouth” (Jer 15:19). The Lord was make crystal clear what He wants to be a missionary. The
missionary should be equipped in discriminating what is precious and what is worthless in order to
become as a mouth of the Lord.
1.5.4 Considering himself as a representative of Christ
We know that an apostle in the early Church was a representative of the risen Lord without any
kind of limitation on territory of his activity (Mt 28:19 Mk 16:15 Lk 24:47Acts 1:8; 2:9-11). And
we know from Saint Paul himself that he did preach the Jews as well as the Gentiles (1Cor 9:20;
2Cor 11:24).
1.5.5. The City in the Hill
The missionary is the city on the hill. The missionary should have an understanding of that he is
the salt and light of the world. He is a city on a hill before a watching world. As ‘salt,’ he penetrate
to the society and act as preservative against social putrefaction, restoring and affirming whatever
is good and just and lovely in the things around him (Phil 4:4). As ‘light,’ he stands before forces
of darkness a sign of the truth about the human condition and the meaning and direction of history
and existence. He bears witness, not only by what he does, but more by what he is, a redeemed

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man whose personal sanctity and corporate dealings reflect God’s own concern for justice and
righteousness in the world.

1.5.6. Prayer for himself and his addressees

When the Apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Thessalonians Christians, he wanted to reassure
these new believers that they were not forgotten that he and his companions still cared deeply for
them. He tells them, “We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers” (1
Thess. 1:2).The adverb ‘always,’ however, reinforces our impression that Paul is stressing that he
prays regularly for the Thessalonians. It is also likely that the plural “we” Paul is implying that he
meet often with Silas and Timothy to pray for these dear people. Certainly enough, Paul also
remembered the Thessalonians in his private times of prayers.
Far from being victimized by a group of itinerant moral preachers or missionaries who sought their
money and food, the Thessalonians were evangelized by a trio of men who proclaimed to them the
living and true God. These were men whose lives had been touched deeply by the risen Christ and
they poured themselves out to the Thessalonians in a loving and carrying way. Their abrupt
departure did not indicate a lake of concern; on the contrary, they were forced to leave, and now
they prayed together constantly to the living God for these fledging and vulnerable believers!
In his epistle to the Ephesians, he wrote his heartily prayer as follows: “I have not stopped giving
thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may
know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may
know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and
his incomparable great power for us who believe” Eph 1:16-19).
Thus, the missionaries should follow the footsteps of the above missionaries.

1.6The Goal of Mission

A firm basis of every missionary effort is taking into consideration and moving in the light of the
Revelation and especially of the mystery of the Trinity. The starting point of any apostolic
activity on our behalf, is the promise and order of the Risen Lord in its Trinitarian perspective:
"As the Father has sent me, even so I send you ... Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:21-

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22). The love of the Father has been expressed through the sendingof the Son. "For God so loved
the world that he gave his only Son.... For God sent the Son into the world" (John 3:16-17).
The Son then sends his disciples, with the power of the Holy Spirit, to call all the children of
God, who were dispersed, in his kingdom. All, men and women, created in the likeness of God,
must return to the freedom of love, and share in the life of love of the three persons of the Holy
Trinity. God's glory, which radiates upon all creatures, has to transform all things, and "to be
raised upon the earth and upon the heavens."
The sending of the Son forms the beginning, and defines more especially Christian mission. The
work of the Son is not simply an announcement, it is an event. The Incarnation, which is the
"assuming" of human nature, is the most predominant event in the history of the universe, the
recreation for its regeneration within the life of the Holy Trinity. It opens the way for the
eschaton, the fulfillment of the world's evolution.
This "assuming" in love, the continuous transfer of life in love, the transfiguration of all things in
the light of God's glory is being continued in space and time through the mission of the church,
the body of Christ.
The conjunction "as," which is found in John 20:21, remains very decisive for Orthodox
mission. It is I who always remains your model, Christ stresses. You must walk in my footsteps
and follow my example. Christological dogma defines the way of the mission of the Trinitarian
God, which the faithful continue. The most crucial point in mission is not what one announces,
but what one lives, what one is. Humankind is "becoming" as much as they remain in Christ.
"Being in Christ" forms the heart of mission. "He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that
bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5).
From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit shares in the sending of the Son. The Incarnation is
realized "by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary." The Spirit cooperates with the one who is the
best of humankind: the all Holy Virgin Mary, who without reservation and with much joy
submits herself to the will of God, for the realization of the mission of the Son. It is the Spirit in
the form of a dove, who at the Jordan River seals the beginning of the public ministry of the
Son.     In the form of tongues of fire and "like the rush of a mighty wind," the Spirit creates the
church, transforming the scared disciples into brave apostles, full of divine light, knowledge and
power. It is the Spirit that unceasingly gives life to the church and all members within,
transforming them into a living temple of the mystical body of Christ, enabling them to share in

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the safeguarding of Christ's mission for the salvation of the whole world. The energies of the
Trinitarian God are always personal, "from the Father through the Son in the Spirit." This
Trinitarian faith is to be found in the depth of our thoughts and actions.
From the beginning, the apostles' perspective and aim had been to spread the gospel "to the end
of the earth," to invite all nations to enter the Church. "Go ye and make disciples of all nations"
(Matt. 28:19). No person is excerpted from this calling. No local church has the right to
individually enjoy the Christian gospel and keep it exclusively as its own treasure.

1.7. The cost of missionary today

According to Orthodox thought, the world is led to a transformation. The whole universe has
been invited to enter the church, to become the church of Christ, in order to become after the end
of centuries the heavenly kingdom of God. "The Church is the center of the universe, the sphere
in which its destinies are determined"
The thought that has been developed mainly by the Church Fathers, that the human person must
comprise the whole world in his/her ascent towards the personal God, designates the Orthodox
respect not only to every human person, but also to nature. All things willfind their own logos
(reason), which is Christ. "All things in heaven and things on earth" It is in this "mystery of the
will of God" (Eph. I: 9-10) that we participate when we work for mission. This perspective frees
us from any individualistic piety, any tendency to marginalize the apostolic effort.
In the Gospel of St. Mark, mission is connected more intensively with "the whole world" and
"the whole creation." "Go into the entire world and preach the gospel to the whole creation"
(Mark 16:15). We Christians must take this world and creation into serious consideration and
study it continuously, in its evolution, multiformality, pluralism and dynamism.
a) Absorbed many times by the marked historical conscience that characterizes our church; many
Orthodox have very often oriented them towards the past. Nevertheless, the eschatological
dimension, which we have already spoken about, remains a basic aspect of the Orthodox
theological inheritance.  The head of the Church is he "who is, who was, and who is to come, the
Almighty" (Rev. 1:8). Consequently, the future should be for us another basic field of vision.
In this scope, the serious theological study of the new emerging civilization and new means of
communication, which combines together the whole of humankind and contributes to the
interdependence and inter-penetration of thoughts, insights and customs, is necessary. It is

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incumbent on us to face seriously the tremendous revolution which is pushing humanity from the
old industrial era to a universal electronic culture, to a world society of interdependence. The old
passage from the oral wordto the written one, formerly offered tremendous possibilities to
humankind for storing knowledge and experience, and decisively accelerated human progress
and evolution. The new passage from the written word to the "electronic word" has opened
infinite possibilities for accumulating universal knowledge and created a new human
intelligence. The gospel must also play a crucial role in the forthcoming new culture.
Closely related to this is the new type of life experienced in big cities. Today, city dwellers
comprise about one half of the world's population. But parallel to the search for the ways to
spread the gospel of hope within these new situations and new languages is the need for an
understanding of the new existential problems that are created by modern atheism, agnosticism,
secularism: the being absorbed by everyday earthly activity, which pushes every spiritual interest
into the shadow of indifference. The responsible and serious dialogue in modern currents of
thought, which allows the accomplishments of science, is a fundamental task for us.
In many instances, the leadership of the Orthodox Church has been limited to a marginal,
"worshipping only" role and has been indifferent to approaching the intellectuals and artists, who
easily catch the vibrations of modern problems and then send them forth, thus creating new ones.
This is a difficult area, which needs special sensitivity, patience and endurance. In any case, the
church cannot be indifferent to this field. The word of life, freedom, justice and hope, which it
continues to transfer through the centuries, has to reach, in a dynamic way, the thought and heart
of its most restless children.
b) As our planet is becoming a "megalopolis"(multi –Society) of which Christians constitute a
minority - less than one third - the need for unity among Christians and the dialogue with people
of other religious convictions are taking on new dimensions and special importance. In
particular, the need for unity among all Christians is more direct and imperative. We Christians
are now aware that we cannot offer our witness in a convincing manner as long as we are
divided. Reconciliation and unity of Christians has direct missionary dimensions and
consequences.

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 CHAPTER TWO:

BIBLICAL FOUNDATION OF MISSION

Old Testament Foundation of Mission

The Creation and Mission.

The creation story in the book of Genesis depicts God creating the world in six days, and at the end
of the six day, ‘God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good’ (Gen 1:31).
God’s affirmative evaluation of the entire created order reflects the Biblical theological fact that
the world began in a state of shalom. Shalom existed because God ruled the universe.
Only a shallow translation of the Hebrew word “Shalom” would limit its definition to the idea of
the absence of conflict or peace. Although it certainly includes peace, shalom also conveys the
justices and righteousness that produces peace (Jer 6:13, 28).
Genesis 1-2 shows that humans were originally in a healthy relationship with God and the other
creations. The relationship between God and His creation, of God to humanity, of human beings to
other human beings, of human beings to creation and of individual people to themselves was good.
It describes God creating human beings in His own image and putting them in a good land. The
Bible moves from the perfect Garden of Eden to the perfect heavenly city of Revelation. It
contains how God works to make His world what He wants to be and man’s response.
And the Bible makes crystal clear that the creatures were created to worship the creator. Psalm 148
calls all creature to worship God, and it mentions His special relationship with Israel. This Psalm
says, “Sun, Moon, and stars; hills, animals and kings: all created by God and they are under the
control of the one Creator God. All the waters, the weather and the fertility are in fact subject to
the will of this one God. There are not different gods for different peoples: all people are called to
worship the one God”.
The psalm makes clear that there is only one God, who is over all other apparent gods, and who
makes demands on all peoples. The Bible is clear that God does indeed speak to all sorts of people
in all sorts of ways. Romans 1:19-29 tells us that everyone can know something about God, and as
we see throughout the Old Testament, ‘God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many
times and in various ways’ (Heb 1:1). It tells us God’s universal sovereignty and of His
commitment to His entire creature.

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 2.1.2. The Fall and Mission

Genesis 3-11 introduces a world of peoples. It describes the introduction of sin to the world, the
expulsion of the first human beings form the good Garden of Eden, and the increase in human
wickedness that leads to judgment in the flood. Genesis 3 shows that humans were separated from
God as a result of sin. This is shown by the cherubim with the fiery sword that guard the way back
into Eden. People clearly need a way back, but it will be different from the way they left. In the
following chapters we read that sacrifice is one way. Three people in Genesis 1-11 are said to be
righteous: Abel, Enoch, and Noah. Two of these offered sacrifices accepted by God. Here, God
makes clear that not just any sacrifice will please God, but any person has the possibility to offer
right sacrifice like Abel and Noah. What made Abel’s and Noah’s sacrifice acceptable is for Abel,
we are told that God did not only accept his sacrifices: He also accepted him. For Noah, it was
God’s covenant with His people. Thus, if we want God to accept us and our sacrifices we need to
know what an acceptable sacrifice is.
In genesis 7 and 8 the land and its creatures disappear, and then emerge again, making a new world
after the flood. This is our world: a world of human beings who are still wicked, yet to which God
is unconditionally committed (Gen 8:21-22). And in which he promises blessing and requires
justice Gen 9:1-7).
The great fact about this world is the covenant of Genesis 9:8-17. It includes all peoples-in fact; it
includes all living creatures (verse 12, 16) and the earth itself (v 13). There is no exception at all.
2.1.2.1. The bad Results of the fall
A. Different Beliefs
Even though, the Bible makes very plain that there is one God everyone should worship Him (Ex
20:2-3), the fall of human being resulted in many beliefs and gods. At any given time, a particular
people would have a main god, but they would also believe in other gods. These gods had their
own characteristics, and usually ruled over different aspects of life. Societies become pluralistic.
Gods were associated with particular peoples and particular places. Often, a god was seen as the
god of a particular people or even a particular city. He or she has a temple in that place and had
power in that area. Religions became territorial and national. Sometimes the King has a special
relationship with the god. He ruled according to the rule of the god or the god’s law and led the
people in serving the god. He therefore represented the god to the people and the people to the god;
and sometimes seen as divine himself.

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 Gods had particular functions. The most important gods had to do with the aspects of life that most
concerned the people: weather, food production, childbirth, war and death. For example, the
Egyptian god Hati was the god of the Nile, and the Canaanite god Baal was in control of the
rainand fertility of the earth. There were gods associated with the Sun, Moon, or the stars. There
were also gods for the animals.
Instead of narrating God’s history, the people narrate the history of the false gods. Not only
narrating their stories, they were also sort of worships. The different gods took different forms and
were represented by different images. They had priests and temples, and sacrifices to the extent
that even human scarifies. Then there were various rites that served the gods and persuaded them
to acts in ways beneficial to human beings For example, sexual exploits that gave rise to the cult of
prostitution.
There were people who knew the stories of the gods and what required of the people. Then there
were those who were qualified to carry out the rituals, to tell the future and to help people with
everyday problems through magic practices. This look like the picture of the world we live as a
result of the sin. The Bible tells us that all human beings created in the image of God ends in this
way.
B. The Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1-9).
This sees the division of peoples as part of God’s judgment. When everyone worked together, their
sinfulness led them to work for themselves and against God. They wanted to stay together and to
develop power for themselves in their own land (v 4). God therefore confused their language and
scattered them. We see that the differences between peoples will be a barrier to communication
and to cooperation. This is obviously true today, when people of different languages, cultures and
faiths find it very difficult to understand each other. The lack of communication is a result human
sin.
C. Shalom and Fall
Shalom donates a state wherein God rules, resulting in a harmonious relationship between God and
human being. And that relationship results in:
I. The wholeness of persons, physical, psychological, spiritual and emotional well-being,
II. The wholeness of human interactions- love and family, social justice, righteousness and peace,
and

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III. The wholeness of the relationship between humankind and the rest of creation-ecological
sustenance and environmental stewardship.
However, the account of the fall of humanity in Genesis 3 conveys the tragic disruption of that
shalom. Through Adam and Eve’s disobedience via the serpent’s deception, sin entered into the
world. A closer look at the nature of the serpent’s temptation reveals the fundamental genesis of
sin, namely, the desire to know enough to be like God, to know enough to be the masters of the
universe (Gen 3:5ff). “Wanting to be gods and taking life into their own hands (Adam and Eve
with the aid of the serpent) mounted in insurrection. In essence, the act challenged God’s rule, and
consequently shalom existence collapsed.
In place of it, humanity, alienated from God, attempted to rule, which has resulted in widespread
deception, distortion and domination in all forms of human relationships- with God, with one’s self
and family, within the community…and with the environment. An all-encompassing holistic
deprivation manifesting injustice, poverty, war, immorality and environmental debasement as a
result of humanity’s rule replaced the shalom of God’s rule. We became sad and mad and bad.
As we have seen above God created such world, and humankind shone as the crown jewel of that
creation; being made in the image of God to facilitate shalom existence (Gen 1:26-31).

2.1.3. The History ofsalvation and Mission

God’s redemptive response to the fallen condition constitutes the rest of Biblical kingdom story.
God first subjected the earth and its inhabitants to a thorough cleansing, a removing of the curse,
and thus renewing the creation, which the story of Noah and the flood represents (Gen 6:11ff).
With a cleansed and renewed creation, God then initiated the long-term project of redemption.
For the realization of this project, God has spiritual giants in every age. These are path-breakers or
pioneers who open the way to God. They are guidance or heroes of that age. They are initiators or
beginners to the way to God or the leaders in the mission.
The Old Testament speaks of several individuals who held such position. Now we will see the
major once here below:

2.1.3.1. Noah and his sons

In Genesis 1-11, two pictures of true faith, namely, rest and walking with God were mentioned. It
also offers another picture of how human beings can relate to God. God taking the initiative
chooses to come down to us in order to climb up to Him. We see this in Genesis 3:8, in the

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beautiful picture of God walking in the garden. What is required of us is that we respond by
walking with Him. Sadly, Adam and Eve were too ashamed and afraid to do this. But, Enoch and
Noah, two of the three righteous people in genesis 1-11, did respond by walking with God (Gen
5:24; 6:9).
When we read the Bible, Noah’s family, including himself, his wife, his three children and their
wives were the only ones who were serving God and God Himself was recognized their
service.Noah worked with God according to God’s salvation (Gen 6:14). He was one in the same
interest with God. At that time God was very much interested in building the ark.
The ark built by Noah was a type of Christ. It is not a Christ far away from us, but a practical
Christ. In his age, Noah built up a practical Christ for the then generation for their salvation. He
was building up the ark, and as today’s missionaries, we also should build up the ark, who is Jesus
Christ.
By the time God came and charged Noah to build the ark, he was already walking with God and in
the eyes of God was a righteous man in that age (Gen 6:9). This indicates that he was saved and
become a means for the salvation of his family. Noah was saved by the ark which was built by his
work (Phi 2:12). Noah built the ark that eventually saved him and his family not only from God’s
judgment, but also from that crooked and perverted generation. And through this work he
condemned the world.
“By faith Noah, having been divinely instructed concerning things not yet seen and being moved
by pious fear, prepared an ark for the salvation of his house, through which he condemned the
world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Heb 11:7).
We must work out such kind of salvation for ourselves and others. But Noah was not only saved
from perdition; he was also saved out of that evil age into a new age. The ark which he built
terminated the old generation and ushered in a new one. That was the kind of salvation that Noah
was building. It was not simply a salvation from eternal perdition, but a salvation from the crooked
and perverted generation also. That kind of salvation was prepared by God and Noah cooperates
with God to save the generation. This was the mission of God in the Noah’s generation.
The ark was of three stories Gen 6:16). The three stories signify the height of the ark. The three
section of the tabernacle signifies the depths into which we all must enter. The three stories of the
ark signify the height we all must attain. In one sense we are getting deeper and in another sense
we are getting higher. Undoubtedly, the three stories of the ark signify the Triune God: The Father,

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the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit thereto found us brought us to the Son and inspired us
to believe in the Son. After we believed in the Son, we called “Abba, Father” Gal 4: 6). The
Holy Spirit brings us to the Son, and the Son brings us to the Father.
In the ark there was one window or window towards the heavens (Gen 6:16). That was the
heavenly light. The Hebrew word for opening has the same root as the word for noon. This means
that when we are under the window, you are in the noon time. You are in the sunshine and are full
of light. The story you are in is indicated by the amount of light you have. The more light you
have, the higher you are and the less light you have, the lower you have.

2.1.3.2 The Call of Abraham

Genesis 1-11 tells us about the world of nations. Genesis 12-50 tells us about God’s mission to that
world. It starts with God’s command to Abraham to leave his land and his people to go to a new
land, and goes on to some of the most important verses in the Bible.
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will
be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all
peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Gen 12:2-3).
Saint Paul calls this blessing ‘the gospel announced in advance’ (Gal 3:8). God’s covenant to bless
Abraham and his family is not for their own comfort, but for the blessing of all the mixed up,
sinful peoples descended from Noah. Abraham is reminded of this binding of Isaac (22:18), Jacob
is given the same message at Bethel (28:14), and right at the end of Genesis Joseph recognizesthat
all that has happened to him has been for the saving many lives (Gen 50:20). The Bible is about
God’s plan to bless the nations. His method is one man and his family.
This was confirmed in the New Testament through Saint Paul in his epistle to the Galatians:
“And Scripture, foreseeing that on the basis of faith God would make righteous the Gentiles,
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying that, ‘In you shall all the Gentiles be blessed.’
Thus, those of faith are blessed along with Abraham the believer” (Gal 3:8-9).
Genesis 18:18 and 22:18 also actually says the same thing, but Saint Paul is directly quoting
Genesis 12:3. It is only in 12:3 that we find the express promise of God unlike Genesis 18:18, and
only there do we find it addressed to Abraham himself unlike Genesis 22:18. Here Paul is
expressing the inclusion of the Galatians to the covenant of Abraham through faith. He is arguing
that the Galatians Christians are the true sons of Abraham and therefore, the true inheritors of

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 God’s promise to him (Gal 3:6-77). For Paul, Genesis 12:3 is a key covenant for the righteousness
which is found through faith in Jesus Christ.
According to him, Genesis 12:3 occurs before the first mention of Abrahams’ circumcision, which
appears in Genesis chapter 17 merely as an outward sign of a covenant already made through
God’s free promise in chapter 12. In Galatia 3:17 Paul expressed the lapse of time between the
promise to Abraham and his circumcision.
The main stress of the Genesis quotation by Saint Paul is that the blessing of the nations is in
Abraham. Abraham was a believer, and those of faith are blessed along with Abraham the
believer. Saint Paul is quoting Ecclesiastical (Sirach) 44:20 and 1 Maccabeus 2:52 when referring
Abraham as a faithful or believer. The former states that “When he was tested he was found
faithful and the latter links this test to Genesis 15:6: “Was not Abraham found faithful when tested,
and it was reckoned to him as righteousness?” Thus, by referring to Abraham as ‘faithful’ in
Galatians chapter 3:9 he points to Abraham’s faith.
A. Abraham among the nations
The people to be blessed through Abraham were both the religious men and the Gentiles. As we
have said above, the promise to Abraham that God will make of him a great nation was not an end
in itself, but a means to bless all the families of the earth, or said a little differently, to restore the
whole world of nations under the rule and reign of God. For the Christians, herein lies the Biblical
seed of understanding God’s global mission in terms of God’s kingdom. Through the particularity
of a people with whom God has entered into a covenant relationship, a kingdom community, God
invites all into right relationship with Him so that all can experience the restoration of shalom and
forgiveness of sin.
Abraham was brought up among the Mesopotamian religions, and he and his family also lived in
Canaan and Egypt. In Abraham we see God calling someone out of a religious family, and starting
his mission to a multi-religious and Gentile world.
According to Jewish commentators, Abraham was turn away from the worship of sun, moon, and
stars, but later became a champion of the one God fighting polytheism, preaches against idolatry
and destroys his father’s idols.
B. Abraham’s Response to God
At first, he simply obeyed and reached Canaan. This is the witness of Saint Paul in his epistle to
the Hebrews:

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 “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed
and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the
promised land like a Stanger in a foreign country, he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob who
were heirs with him of the same promise” (Heb 11:8-9).
After he was entered Canaan, he started to worship God through the rituals. Genesis later describes
him as making vows, offering sacrifice to the extent of his own son, giving tithes, praying and
cleansing himself. In all this, Abraham was responded to the God he had called him. For example,
he built an altar near Bethel, but not in Bethel (Gen 12:8),he offered his son for sacrifice (Gen 22).
On His side, God was working with Abraham and his family. He speaks to them, works for them,
encourages them, and loves them. They respond, sometimes in faith and obedience, and sometimes
in doubt and sin. What is important in Genesis is God’s covenantal relationship with Abraham and
his family.
God does not seem to have told Abraham who was or anything about himself. However, He did
promise land, blessings and children and Abraham recognizes God as El-Elyon- El-Most High, the
creator of heaven and earth (Gen 14:18ff) and God Himself introduces as El-Shaddai-El-Almighty
(Gen 17:1). He learnt, then, that God was his King, and that he and his family belong to him and
must be loyal to him. But, before that, he learnt that God was the one who took the initiative, and
would always keep his promises. He learnt too, that the covenant was not only for his relations but
also for his whole household, including foreign slaves (Gen 17:12-13).
C. Abraham’s Descendants
Isaac, Jacob and Jacob’s sons all had to learn the same lessons like their forefather Abraham. The
God of their father was also their God. He had called them as individuals and as a family. He
would keep His promise and His covenant and fulfill His purpose through them, no matter how
long it took them to learn their lessons of faith and obedience. Like their father they had the duty to
keep the promise not only for themselves but also for the blessing of all peoples through him. They
should be concern about the blessing of others. If God keeps His covenant with Abraham, we can
expect him also to keep His promise to bless all peoples through him.

2.1.3.3 God’s Mission in Liberating Israel from Egypt

I. The development of Israel as a nation
God’s plan for blessing the nations was not only an individual and his family but a whole people in
a land (Gen 12:1-3). By the end of Genesis, Abraham’s family has grown, but is not yet a nation; it

25
 owns only one field (Gen 23). From the events surrounding Abraham and his descendants Isaac
and Jacob, a people or a nation began to take shape in the form of the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen
49, 50:24-25). But their sense of people hood did not really solidify until the time of Moses and the
events surrounding him. Enslaved under severe Egyptian oppression, Abraham’s descendants cried
out to their God and God heard them(Ex 3:3-7). God used Moses to liberate the Hebrew people
from Egypt (Ex. 3-12).
As we shall see, Israel’s job was to show the nations their God: the one creator God of Genesis,
who later revealed himself to Moses as Yahweh (Ex.3:14). The name Yahweh is derived from the
verb to be, and is translated as ‘I am who I am’ or ‘I will be who I will be.’ This is a God not let
human beings define Him. He is. He really exists. He is not the embodiment of a nation or of some
aspect of the weather or the universe. He is not limited to any people or any place. He is neither a
philosophical idea nor a theological concept. He is not what any one imagines him to be. He is,
quite simply, the only real God who actually exists, regardless of what anyone thinks about Him.
God was not only revealed His identity to Moses, He was also revealed His power against the
many gods of the Egyptians. The book of Exodus indicates the direct opposition between Israel’s
God and the Egyptian gods. We can see the plagues as a competition between God’s prophets and
the Egyptian magicians, which implies a competition between their respective gods. This is clear
from the nature of the plagues, in which Yahweh shows Himself as in control of the Egyptian
gods.
For example, the Nile turning to blood shows that Yahweh is greater than Hapi, the god of the
Nile, and Osiris, whose bloodstream was said to be the Nile. The death of cattle shows
thatYahweh is greater than Hathor, the mother and sky goddess who was represented by a cow,
and thenApis, the fertility god who was represented by a bull. The plagues of frogs, hail, locusts
and darkness show that Yahweh is greater than Heket, the goddess of childbirth, who was
represented by a frog; than Seth, the god of wind and storms; than Isis, the goddess of life; than
Min, the god of fertility and then all the various sun gods. The death of the firstborn shows that
Yahweh is greater than Osiris, the judge of the dead (Ex 18:10-11 Num 33:4 Lev 18:3). Through
these and other signs and miracles Israel and the other nations had to go through a long process to
learn who Yahweh is and what was involved in being His special people. Israel should understand
her choice by Yahweh of all people for the sake of all people.
II. The Covenantal Relationship between God and Israel

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Three months after Israel was liberated from the hands of Egypt, God invited the people to enter
into a covenant relationship, wherein they would be God’s people and Yahweh would be
their God (Ex 19:1-8). The people’s acceptance of God’s invitation realized and set in motion
God’ plan of universal redemption via the particularity of a people.
Bound then by covenant, God began to set the boundaries of the new nation in the form of laws
that provided the structure for religious, political, economic, military, and judicial institutions, thus
did the Hebrew people again nationhood, its identity shaped by its experience with the God who
mercifully heard their cry, powerfully liberated them, and willfully determined to lead them as
their king.
After the children of Israel left Egyptian bondage, the Lord chose to lead them by a peculiar route.
God did that which had never been done before, by opening up a pathway for them in the Red Sea.
This was not a case of repeating a miracle that had been done before, it was unique; it was the first
of its kind.
However, in order for the children of Israel not to become swollen headed, God decided to test
them a bit. He first made the children of Israel travel three days, after crossing the Red Sea, but
without water (Ex 15:22-25). They were very thirsty, as they had crossed into the wilderness.
Everywhere was bare and dry. With their parched throats they suddenly came across the first place
of plenty of water, and they were all too eager to shout “this is water at last; let us drink!” But
alas! The water they had just come across was bitter!
The children of Israel rejoiced thinking they at last found water and plenty of it at that. They took
the first sip of it and had to spite of it out. God could easily have given them sweet water at the
first; after all He is God, the unlimited one. If He can create the world out of nothing, He can also
provide pure, clean, fresh water at the first shot. Yet, God rather chose to put them in a situation
where they would have to call on Him, cry to Him for direction.
At Marah the children cried unto the Lord and He showed their leader, Moses, a healing tree.
When Moses cut a branch from it and cast it into the waters they were healed. God led them by a
pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. This He did throughout the 40 year sojourn in
the wilderness (Num.9:16-23).
Anywhere the cloud rested, they stayed, and for as long as it stayed, the children remained where it
stopped. The day the cloud moved, they packed up their tents and moved with it.

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 After the death of Moses, Joshua was appointed by God to lead the children of Israel. This is the
grace and faith that worked for Joshua as he led the children to the edge of the Jordan on their way
to the Promised Land (Josh 1:1-7; 3:14-16). They need to cross the river to enter to the land of
promise. But, the river Jordan was so full, its banks were overflowing. The Lord had told Joshua
again and again to be bold, fearless and forward looking (Josh 1:1-7).
Armed with the assurance that Yahweh would be with Him and with the multitudes, Joshua
commanded the priests and the leaders of the tribes to advance, apparently into a watery death. He
knew the voice of God and he obeyed. It was as his followers obeyed him that God moved on their
behalf. First the priests stepped into the river. Miraculously, as they did so, the waters were held
back like a wall; the ground became dry and the rest of the nation crossed over to the other side.
Just as it had happened at the Red Sea during the time of Moses, the Jordan parted, and a way was
made for them all. The river has no choice but to part for them. The word of the Lord had gone out
many generations before that the Lord had given to them, the land. All obstacles to the fulfillment
of God’s promise had to be removed. Had they not crossed over, they would never have entered
into the Promised Land.
Now, Israel maintained its identity intentionally without a human king for nearly two
hundredyears under the leadership of charismatic judges on an ‘as needed basis,’ for in the mind
of the early Israelites God reigned as their only king (Jud. 18:22-23).
III. God’s Nation among the nations
Israel is God’s special people, because of what he has done for them. However, the context of this
is that the whole earth with all its peoples belongs to God. Israel’s job is to be obedient. Her
function will then be twofold among the nations. She will be:
A. A Kingdom of priests
The priests had tasks such as teaching the law of God (Lev. 10:11), handling sacrifices (Lev. 1-7)
and blessing the people (Num 6:22-27). If Israel is to be priesthood among the nations, she should
bring them knowledge of God and His laws show them how they can have forgiveness of sin and
fellowship with God, and bring the nations God’s blessing.
B. A Holy Nation
That is, the will reflect God’s character of Holiness. Holiness here is not just an aspect of God: it is
His essence. For Israel to be holy, she will have to be different from the other nations as God is
different from their gods. Exodus 19 begins to tell them what holiness means. The people must be

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 cleansed and consecrated, for God is so pure that no one can survive His presence without His
invitation and without being purified according His instructions. Not only in Exodus but also in
Leviticus and Numbers what holiness means in practice is detailed.
Exodus-Numbers contains the account of ‘Yahweh’ actions in taking Israel as His people, the laws
by which He expects them to organize their society, details of the tabernacle, worship and
sacrifice, the choice of priests and their consecration and duties, and categorization of clean and
unclean or holy and common things. All these are aspects of God’s covenant with Israel, as is
made clear by the structure of the book of Deuteronomy, which reviews the earlier events.
This is the call that both makes Israel different from the other nations and requires her to live
differently from the other nations. The various Biblical covenants contain all the ingredients of
such treaties. These points to the first characteristic that distinguished Israel among the nations:
Israel had no human king. Her king was Yahweh. The other nations had kings that were
believed to represent their god, and sometimes even to be divine themselves. Israel’s covenant is
made directly by Yahweh, at His initiative. Moses is a prophet, and not a king. The holy nation is
under the direct rule of God.
Deuteronomy tells us that if Israel kept the covenant, other nations would look at her and say,
‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’ (Deut. 4:6). The whole
Deuteronomy 28-29 shows that their relationship with other nations is dependable on the loyalty
towards the covenant. If they keep the covenant, they will at peace, and defeat anyone who attacks
them, and all the peoples on earth will see that they are called by the name of the Lord (28:10). If
they break the covenant, all their relationships with the nations will go wrong. They will lose their
land, and in exile they will worship other gods (28:64). This, too, will be seen by the nations
(29:22-28). Weather Israel is obedient or disobedient, God will speak to the nations through them;
but disobedience will bring all sorts of trouble on Israel.
In general, the Pentateuch tells us how God called Israel as His covenant people for the nations.
The rest of the Old Testament is the record of how they continued to live among the nations.
Throughout the record, we see God keeping His covenant.
IV. Israel broken the covenant
The books from Judges to Chronicles show how Israel keeps on trying to be like the other nations.
As Moses and Joshua warned, they turn after other gods, and they try to worship Yahweh as if he

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 were like the other gods. They also choose to have kings, so that they can compete with the nations
in political power.
When Israel was made a nation at Sinai, she was given no king. When she settled in Canaan, she
still had no king. As Gideon explained when the people wanted to make him a king, “I will not
rule over you, nor will my son rule over you. The Lord will rule over you” (Judg. 8:23). Israel
did not have a king like the other nations because Yahweh was her King.
However, in first Samuel 8:5, 20 we read that Israel wanted a king because she wanted to be like
the other nations in this way. Corruption was entered into the house of priesthood (1Sam. 4-7). The
sons of Samuel were not trustworthy; they began to panic and demanded a king.
Yahweh’s response is interesting (1Sam. 8:7-9). He gave them what they asked for, but first
warned them of the consequence. They were not only changing their leadership, but rejecting His
Kingship, and that was just like serving other gods. The people continued to insist that they wanted
a king, and repeated that they wanted to be like the other nations. So they got their king.
V. God’s Covenant with the Kings
Not surprisingly, God kept His covenant with the kings. He let Israel go the way she chose, but
directed the whole process of finding the first king. More than that, He chose to use Israel’s
kingship to bless her and to bless the nations. He made a further covenant with David and his
descendants, and eventually sent Jesus the Messiah as the true king of Israel. He lays a duty over
the kings to be appointed by God Himself, Building God’s temple, shepherding His people, ruling
according His law and fighting in His name.
Although much of the tragic failures of the nation can be traced to the corrupt monarchical rule of
the Israelite king as the Lord had warned through the prophet (1Sam. 8:10-18), the monarchy
further defined the nation of the kingdom of God, primarily in the person and rule of David.
During the reign of David, Israel experienced its finest years as it subdued enemy nations,
prospered in material wealth, and strengthened its religious and political identity in Yahweh God.
In the eyes of many, the era of David’s rule fulfilled the promise made to Abraham that from his
seed God would forge a great nation. Israel would not forget the prosperity experienced under
King David.And as the kings that followed fell into moral and political failures and Israel spilt into
northern and southern kingdoms only to be taken into captivity by foreign powers, the memory of
the person of David determined Israel’s hope for a coming Messiah who will save them from
corruption, subjugation and evil.

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 The king’s power is clearly distinguished from God’s power; the king subjects himself to God by
listening to the prophets.

2.1.3.4God’s Mission through the Prophets

At this point in the history of Israel and God’s mission, God focuses upon the ministry of the
prophets, whose dual message of uncompromising judgment and messianic hope further defined
the notion of the kingdom of God. As the human kingdom of Israel in the south and Judah in the
north all but caricatured the kingdom of God, the prophets and apocalyptic looked to God’s future
of a coming kingdom to be inaugurated by a Messiah figure (Isa 9:6-7; Dan 7:13-14). The hope
of the coming ‘day of the Lord’, while enduring the shame of captivity, kept Israel from total
despair and annihilation.
But beyond the solace and challenge that the prophetic message brought to their present situation,
it more significantly defined their future hope in the coming kingdom of God via a messiah in the
line of David. The prophets promised that someday the messiah would come to bring God’s actual
rule on earth in a new and powerful way. To mention some of the messianic messages:
A. The Isaianic Mission of the Lord
In Isaiah 65:17-25, the prophet makes crystal clear that what the messiah will do after He come.
This messiah will usher in a new era where he will put an end to tears, make premature death non-
existent, implement justice and prosperity as standard experiences, and cause God’s peace and
harmony to characterize all relationships; even ‘the wolf and the lamb will feed together.’
When Jesus Christ began His public ministry with a scene in the Nazareth synagogue, He was
quoted from the Prophet Isaiah; “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to
bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Isa 61:1-2;
Luke 4:18-19).And Jesus Christ said ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’ (Luke
4:21).
The prophets have fully adopted the idea of the already and yet not kingdom of God as they have
built upon the classic works of the New Testament. The prophetic literature, especially Isaiah
hinted at a messiah that will come as a suffering servant (Isa 53).
I. The New Covenant and New Jerusalem of Isaiah
"For Your Maker Is Your Husband" (Isaiah 54-55)

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Paul uses verse 1 of Isaiah 54 in his allegory of Sarah and Hagar (Galatians 4:22-31). The barren
woman, he says, is like Sarah with the prophecies given her about having many descendants.
According to Paul, she represents the New Covenant marriage, to which no children were yet
spiritually born - referred to by Paul as "Jerusalem above, the mother of us all." This New
Covenant is actually mentioned in Isaiah 54, as will be explained in a moment.

The "married woman" signified the Old Covenant marriage that already was - physical Israel with
its millions of children. This was parallel to Hagar, who bore a son to Abraham while Sarah was
yet barren. Yet the child of Hagar was produced apart from faith. God promised that Sarah, though
barren, would produce a child through whom His promised blessings would come. The Church
will give birth to its children at the return of Jesus Christ. And eventually, as more and more
become part of, and are eventually born of, the New Covenant, the children of the woman who was
barren will eventually outnumber those of her rival who are those born of the flesh in ancient
Israel.

Isaiah himself goes on to say that the physical Israelites will no longer be forsaken in their
marriage to God, will be accepted of God and will grow to fill the earth- when they, too, are joined
to Him and brought forth according to the New Covenant (verses 4-8), which will be
accomplished through the Holy Spirit, as we learn in chapter 55. Indeed, in verses 2-3 of Isaiah 54
we see reference to Israel's expansion, earlier prophesied in Genesis 28:14. Yet, while physical on
one level, the subject of the previous verse in Isaiah seems to make it primarily a reference to the
expansion of spiritual Israel, the family of God - parallel to Christ's assurance that in His Father's
house are many dwellings (see John 14:2).
Verses 11-12 of Isaiah 54 are reminiscent of the description of the New Jerusalem recorded by the
apostle John in Revelation 21:18-21. The eternal dwelling of the Church of God, the wife of Christ
(see Ephesians 5:22-33), the New Jerusalem is itself referred to as the bride (Revelation 21:9-10)-
again showing "Jerusalem above" to be synonymous with the Church.

The New Covenant is specifically mentioned in Isaiah 54:10, where God calls it "My covenant of
peace" and relates it to His mercy. "This expression is also found in Ezek. 34:25-31. It is linked
with the New Covenant of Jeremiah 31, for its benefits become possible only after the Messiah

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 forgives the sins of God's people and makes them righteous. Some of the benefits overlap: God
will Himself teach the people, and they will be established in righteousness (Jer. 31:31-34). Yet the
focus of this covenant is on security. God throws a protective covering over His people so that they
will be safe" (Isaiah 54:10). In verse 9, God equates the surety of His covenant of peace with Israel
to that of His covenant with Noah that He would never again flood the whole earth (see Genesis
9:8-17).
In John 6:45, Jesus referred to Isaiah 54:13, showing that when the Father decides to teach
someone His way, they will understand Jesus' role in His plan of salvation. And eventually, all will
be taught that way. The last verse in Isaiah 54 gives us a most important factor in this regard. God
explains that the righteousness of His servants comes not from themselves but from Him. It is God
who draws us to Himself. It is He who actually grants us repentance. It is He who then forgives us
and imputes us as righteous through the atoning blood of Christ. It is He who then lives in us
through the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to actually live in righteousness—that is, in
obedience to His law. Of course, this does require our participation. If we ultimately refuse God's
work in us, then He will not redeem us.
II. The Water of Life in Isaiah
"Come to the Waters" (Isaiah 54-55)
Chapter 55 begins with the analogy cited by Jesus in the New Testament of the water of life- the
Holy Spirit (see John 4:10-14; 7:37-38; Revelation 21:6; 22:1, 17). These ties back to earlier
references in Isaiah, such as 12:3 and 44:3. We are told to buy even though we have no money. It
is a totally free gift- albeit a gift with conditions. God requires true repentance accompanied by
faith and then baptism (see Acts 2:38; Hebrews 11:6). Of course, what many do not understand is
that repentance is more than just being sorry for past sins. It also involves a lifelong commitment
to obeying God.

"Wine and milk in Isaiah 55:1, are symbols of complete satisfaction (v. 2). Not only does God's
salvation supply what is necessary for life, but it also provides what brings joy." As Jesus said, "I
have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly" (John
10:10)meaning now and on into eternity beyond. "Abundance" is directly mentioned in verse 2 of
Isaiah 55. Notice also that the invitation to "eat" and "delight" in abundance can be likened to a

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 banquet. Jesus gave parables that picture salvation as partaking of a banquet (see Matthew 8:11;
Luke 14:15-24). Isaiah 55:2 mentions the bread analogy used by Jesus as well (see John 6:48-58).

Verse 3 of Isaiah 55 mentions the "sure mercies of David." Paul explained in his speech at Antioch
of Pisidia in Acts 13:34 that this referred to Jesus being raised from the dead, and he goes on to
cite Psalm 16 of David, which is full of many promises of future inheritance, blessings and
pleasures. These "sure mercies" are also described here as an "everlasting covenant" that God is
willing to make with all who "thirst" and come to God. And David was a witness of these promises
(Isaiah 55:4). Indeed, there may also be a reference here to the Davidic covenant itself wherein
God promised David an eternal offspring, throne and kingdom. This, of course, is ultimately
fulfilled in Christ who was destined to inherit the throne of David. Yet this promise is for us as
wellsince Jesus said that His followers would share His throne with Him (Revelation 3:21;
compare Romans 8:17).
Isaiah 55 goes on to say that even the wicked may seek and find God if they forsake their wrong
way and "return" to Himthe Old Testament term for repent. God says He will have mercy,
immediately followed by a statement that His thoughts and ways are higher than our thoughts and
ways.God offers the wicked that the sharpest difference between God's thoughts and our thoughts
are seen. We feel anger and outrage and call for revenge. God feels compassion and love and
extends mercy. Thus God's word is gentle and life-giving; in Isaiah's analogy, like the gentle rain
that waters the earth and causes life to spring up. What a warm and wonderful view of God (v.
10)."
III. Isaiah on the Coming Light
"Arise; Shine; for Your Light Has Come!" (Isaiah 60)
Chapter 60 focuses on the glory of Zion to come. It begins and ends with allusions to the light that
will come - the light being God Himself and His glory (verses 1-3, 19-20).
Several of these verses were cited by John in the book of Revelation as he described the New
Jerusalem of the final age. The gates will not be shut, so that the wealth or glory and honor of the
nations can be brought in (verse 11; Revelation 21:25-26). There will no longer be a need for the
sun to give light, and the light of God will continue day and night (verse 19) and the New
Jerusalem (Revelation 21:23; 22:5).

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 And those who have afflicted the city and its people, or at least the descendants of the guilty, will
come and bow down at the feet of its inhabitants (Isaiah 60:14). Several passages in this chapter
and elsewhere in the Bible describe people flowing to Jerusalem and generously bringing fine
gifts. God's purpose for this seems twofold- for the humbling of those who in the past have been
hostile to physical and spiritual Israel and for the building and beautification of Jerusalem and
God's temple. Jesus said they will even be worshiped, showing that they will have been elevated to
divine existence (Revelation 3:9; compare 19:10; 22:8-9).
B. Ezekiel and the Messiah
In Ezekiel 34:23-24 the Lord proclaims, “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David,
and He shall feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their
God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. “This Messianic prophecy explains, about
the genealogy of the Messiah and what He did after he came. The Lord advices the Jews to await a
Messiah who would be the “son of David” from the tribes of Judah, one who would gather
together and lead of the tribes of the one people of God. Among other Old Testament texts that
have similar idea are especially Jeremiah 3:18; 30:8; 31:27: Ezek 11:14-20; Zech 10:6).
C. Jeremiah and the New Covenant
From this revolutionary message, we hear words of promise from the prophet Jeremiah, words
about a new covenant and a renewed relationship between God and God's people.The words are
addressed to a people in exile, far from home and bereft of hope. The covenant between God and
Israel, the covenant made so long ago at Sinai, is (or seems to be) broken. God has not protected
Israel from harm and they have been taken into exile. Into such a situation, the prophet speaks
words of promise. But he frames those promises in terms of the very relationship in question. The
prophet speaks of a covenant - like the one made at Sinai - between Yahwehand Israel. "The days
are surely coming, says Yahweh, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and the house of Judah" (Jeremiah 31:31).
There is both continuity and discontinuity with what has come before. The continuity lies in the
character of God and the love God continues to have for a wayward people. God will not abandon
Israel forever. God will not forget God's promises made so long ago at Sinai:
"I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will be their God." (Exodus 29:45; cf. Exodus 6:7)
"And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people." (Leviticus 26:12)

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 Just so, in this new covenant, God promises, "I will be their God, and they shall be my people"
(Jeremiah 31:33). The relationship is not new. Israel knows this God, and God knows this people.
The promises Jeremiah speaks build on a long and shared history between Yahweh and Israel, a
history marked by wavering on the part of the people and by faithfulness on the part of Yahweh.
God continues to love this wayward people; they continue to be God's treasured possession. In this
new covenant there is indeed continuity with what has come before.
The discontinuity is, of course, implied with the term, "new." This is a new covenant with Israel,
not like the covenant at Sinai, "a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says
Yahweh" (Jeremiah 31:32). Still, what is new about this covenant is not so much its content, but
the means by which God will bring it about.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: “I
will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they
shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know Yahweh,"
for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, saysYahweh; for I will forgive
their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34)
Unlike the old covenant, then, written on stone tablets that can be broken and scrolls that can be
lost, the new covenant will be written within the people, on their very hearts. No need for remedial
religious education, because everyone will know Yahweh, from the king to the stable boy, from
the oldest elder to the youngest child.
And it will all be Yahweh’s doing. "I will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no
more." The people have not demonstrated a great aptitude for faithfulness during the many years of
the old covenant, so this time Yahweh will do it differently. This time, the covenant relies solely
on Yahweh’s mercy, Yahweh’s ever-present grace in forgiving a disobedient people and calling
them back into relationship with him.
And it is all God's doing. In and through Jesus Christ, the God of Jeremiah continues to forgive,
renew, reform, and call God's people into right relationship with him and with one another. God is
faithful, even when we are not. That is the good news that Jeremiah proclaimed.
D. The ministry of John the Baptist
John the Baptist was a servant of the Lord, who was born 6 months ahead of Jesus, and who was
foretold in Malachi, the last Prophet in the Old Testament. "Remember the Law of Moses, My
servant, which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, with the statutes and judgments. Behold, I

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will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And
he will turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse"
(Malachi 4:4-6).
When Jesus was born, people of Israel abandoned the words of God's covenant and worshipped
foreign gods. They offered the blind and blemish as a sacrifice, and made the temple of God a
place of business. Jesus Christ is foretold in the Law of Moses and the Prophets. The Law gives
man the knowledge of sin, showing how he is sinful (Romans 3:20). It is a sin not to abide by all
things written in the books of the Law, to perform.
Thus, God foretold to send John the Baptist in order to restore the hearts of the Israelites to Jesus
Christ, and to prepare their hearts to receive Jesus Christ. Before John the Baptist baptized Jesus,
he gave the baptism of repentance to the people of Israel in the wilderness of Judea. His purpose of
baptizing them with water was to lead them to believe and look for Jesus who would be baptized
by him to take away all the sins of the world and crucified to save them from all their sins. He said
that Jesus would come and take away the incomplete sacrifices and offer one sacrifice for sins for
all time, just as the people of Israel were redeemed by bringing a sin offering without blemish, by
laying their hands on it, and by slaying it according to the sacrificial system in the Old Testament.

Many Israelites confessed their sins, repented, were baptized by him. "Repentance" means "to
return one's mind to the Lord." They came to John, and remember the Law of the Old Testament,
and confessed that they only sin until they die and cannot enter the kingdom of heaven with their
good deeds according to the Law, and returned their minds to Jesus Christ, who would blot out all
their sins once and for all and open the gate to the kingdom of heaven. The baptism that John the
Baptist gave to the people of Israel was to let them confess how much they sin in their lives and
repent and look for Jesus Christ, who would be baptized by him, the high priest and the
representative of mankind, and crucified to save them from all their sins, just as he baptized them.
This is a true biblical repentance. Therefore, John exclaimed to the people, "I indeed baptize you
with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am
not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire" (Matthew 3:11).
In order to keep the perpetual covenant of the Father, Jesus, the Son, was baptized by John the
Baptist, who is a descendant of Aaron the High Priest and the greatest man of the world (Luke 1:5,
Matthew 11:11).

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That is why John 1:6-8 states like this. "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, which all through him might believe. He
was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light." Isaiah 53:6 also states, "The Lord
has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." That is why God sent John the Baptist, His messenger, six
months prior to Jesus. John the Baptist said, "Behold! The lamb of God who takes the sin of the
world," (John 1:29) the very next day he baptized Jesus.
New Testament Foundation of Mission

2.2.1. Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God

From beginning to end the New Testament proclaims God’s kingship. From the beginning,
Mathew celebrates the coronation of the savior, the God with us king. The Sermon on the Mount
lays Matthew’s foundation for understanding the kingdom of God. As the Jews were expecting, it
fulfills the law and the prophets.
What exactly was Jesus teaching in His earthly ministry? The answer is the gospel of the
kingdom of God. We read that “Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues,
preaching the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 4:23). “Then Jesus went about all the cities and
villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom” (Matthew 9:35).
Most of Jesus parables and teachings described the kingdom of God. God established a kingdom,
the King of which is Jesus, the citizens Christians, and the laws of which are the commandments of
Christ.
This gospel message is consistent throughout the NT, beginning with John the Baptist who came
preaching in the wilderness of Judea, and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand!” (Mat.3:1-2). Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:13-15). What gospel? The gospel He just preached:
the kingdom of God is at hand! Jesus said, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other
cities also, because for this purpose I have been sent” (Luke 4:33). Then Jesus commanded His
disciples to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and preach, saying, “The kingdom of
heaven is at hand” (Matthew 10:6-7). He sent them to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the
sick (Luke 9:2). Furthermore, Jesus said: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in
the entire world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).

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 This is the one and only gospel that Christians are to preach in the entire world until the end
comes. The Gospel of the kingdom of God was the summation of the doctrine of Christ and the
faith once delivered to the saints.

2.2.1.1 The basic Features of the Kingdom of God

What would surprise the first century Jews and Jesus’ hearers were his omissions: there is no
mention of an ethnic, political or national kingdom, a particular social order or culture, or even of
particular religious practice. This is clear in the beatitudes:
 The first three (Matt. 5:3-5) offer the blessings of kingdom, comfort and land. All these are
things that the Jews expected on return from exile. They do not yet have them, and they expected
the messiah to bring them. Jesus says that he brings them, but they are different. The kingdom is
not of this world, but of heaven.The comfort is not for exile, for mourning. The land now seems to
be the whole earth, and it will be inherited by meekness and not by military power.
 The next three (vv 6-8) tell us what kind of religion will both meet our needs and bring us to
God. It is not religion follows laws, but religion that longs for righteousness. It is not say, ‘I am
right and you are wrong,” but recognize my own need for mercy and shows mercy to others. It is
not ritual purity that allows us to into God’s presence, but purity of heart.
 The last three tell us the political implication of being God’s own people. The kings of Israel
were sometimes called God’s sons (1Chr. 17:13). Here Jesus says that God’s sons, and members of
his kingdom, are not the people who fight for land, but the people who make peace; not the people
who have victory, but the people who are persecuted. The last beatitude is about persecution as
important feature of the kingdom of God. Persecution, and not conquest, is the mark of the
kingdom of God.
From the temptations to the cross, Jesus consistently refused political power. It was on the cross
that, as all four gospels record, we see Jesus as “The King of the Jews.” Jesus redefined God’s
kingdom through the laying down of His life to redeem a new people. As He explained to Pilate,
His kingdom is ‘not of this world’ (Jn 18:36).
But Jesus’ kingdom did challenge Caesar’s power and Pilate’s power and all other ‘this-worldly’
powers. King Herod, in Matthew 2, was right to see Jesus as a challenge to Hs authority. Caiaphas
was right to see Jesus as a threat to the temple and the nation (Jn 11:48). Jesus did prevent His

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 followers from fighting for the Jews rule in the land of Israel. The temple was destroyed, and the
people did lose even the power they had in their land for nearly two thousand years.

2.2.1.2. The power of the New Kingdom

By the end of the New Testament it become clears that all political power will be threatened by the
New Kingdom. The book of revelation shows the power of God’s kingdom over all other
kingdoms. And whose is that power? The vision of heaven begins with a throne (Rev 4), and a
voice that declares the triumph of the most of the most powerful beast: the lion (Rev.5:5). The
writer looks, and sees not a powerful lion, but a Lamb-and the Lamb has been slain (Rev 5:6).
Again, it is the cross that defines the kingdom. The kingdom overrules in all the history of the
nations, with its political and religious power (Rev 17:11-6), its autonomy (Rev. 18:7), and its
economic glory (Rev. 18:11-17). The final vision is a new land, to which all the kings of all the
nations will come (Chapter 21). There will be no more temples (Rev. 21:22). The peoples will be
under the direct rule of God in the renewed land (Rev. 22:1-5).

2.2.1.3. The train of the Apostles about the Kingdom of God

In Luke 9, we see Jesus calling, authorizing, delegating, and supervising the apostles as He gives
them some field experience. All of this is to prepare them for the Great Commission which He will
call them to preach the good news.
A. Jesus Christ called the 12 Apostles
Luke 9:1 says, “And He called the twelve together…”  There were many different ways that Jesus
called these men.
I. He Called Them To Faith. 
At some point, each one of these 12 men was called to faith in Christ. Jesus walked up to
Matthew’s tax booth, and said, “Follow Me.” Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow Me.” 
When Andrew brought Peter to Jesus, the Lord said, “You are Simon the son of John; you shall be
called Cephas.” In the case of all of these 12 men there came a crisis point when they were called
to faith. They came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, and the Son of the living
God.
II. He Called Them To Permanent Discipleship.

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 After Jesus called these men, they became part-time followers. We find that Peter, James, and John
after becoming His disciples, had gone back to their fishing business. They spent the whole night
fishing and caught nothing. Jesus commanded them to put out into the deep water and let their nets
down for a catch. When they let down their nets, they enclosed so many fish that they had to signal
to their partners in another boat. Both boats were filled with so many fish that the boats began to
sink! Jesus the turned to these men and said, “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.”
At that point Luke tells us, “They left everything and followed Him.” They became permanent
disciples (followers) at that point. No more part-time discipleship. They left everything behind and
followed Him permanently.
III. He Called Them To Apostleship. 
We studied this back in Luke 6. Jesus spent the whole night in prayer, and then in the morning He
chose 12 of His disciples, whom He named as apostles. The word “apostle” simply means “one
who is sent.” Jesus had many followers, but out of that large group of followers, He chose 12 who
would be “sent ones.” These would be the ones He would send with His authority and power to be
the leaders in establishing the kingdom of God throughout the world. Now, Jesus chose them in
Luke 6 to be “sent ones”, but they do not get sent out until Luke 9.  In Mark 3:14 it says, “And He
appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach.” 
Step 1 – be with Him.  Step 2 – send them out to preach.  Well, for about the first 18 months, all
they did was Step 1. They were with Him. They watched Him heal the sick and cast out demons
and calm the storms, and raise the dead. They heard him preach the gospel of the kingdom. But
now, it’s finally time for Step 2.
IV. He called them To Internship. 
That is really what is taking place here in Luke 9.  An internship is a formal program to provide
practical experience for beginners in an occupation. Well, that’s exactly what Jesus has established
here. He is deliberately sending out the twelve to give them some practical experience in ministry
to prepare them for the real thing.
V.  He called them to World Evangelization/Mission. 
Of course, we are referring to the Great Commission that Jesus gave them after He rose from the
dead. In acts 1:8, Jesus said to them, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon
you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the
remotest part of the earth.”  Jesus called the twelve to this work.

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 B. Jesus Christ Authorized them
Luke 9:1 continues by saying, “and He gave them power and authority over all the demons and
to heal diseases.”  Basically, Jesus took the power and authority He had in Himself, and gave it to
the twelve, so that they could do what He had been doing. Now, think about the ministry of Jesus
with me. What did do in His public ministry? What activities did He engage in?  Over and over
and over, we read of Him preaching, healing, and casting out demons. Now, what do we see
Him giving His apostles authority to do?  Preach, heal, and cast out demons. So, what’s going on
here? Jesus is multiplying Himself. As long as Jesus is the only one who is preaching and doing
miracles, He can reach only a limited number of people. However, if He multiplies Himself by 12,
now He can reach 12 times as many people.
Jesus gave them both power and authority.  Power is the ability to do a thing. Authority is the
right to exercise that power. Not only did Jesus give the twelve His power, but He also gave them
the right to exercise it as His specially called ambassadors. When the twelve went into a city, they
were the personal representatives of Jesus Christ. What did they have power and authority over all
the demons and to heal diseases. In Luke 10:17, after Jesus sends out 70 others on an internship,
they return saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.”  In Mark 16:17 Jesus
said, “In My name you will cast out demons.”
C. Jesus Delegated Tasks To His Men
I. They Were To Preach The Kingdom. 
Luke 9:2 says, “And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God.” Now, that’s an
interesting statement, because this is exactly what Jesus had been doing from the beginning. In
Luke 4:42-43, Jesus had risen early to seek God after ministering late into the night the day before.
When the crowds found Him they tried to keep Him from going away. But Jesus responded, “I
must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.”  Then in
Luke 8:1, we have a summary statement of Jesus’ ministry. It says, “Soon afterwards, He began
going around from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of
God.”  This was Jesus’ purpose. He went about everywhere preaching the kingdom.
Now, what does it mean to preach the kingdom? It’s very simple. It is to preach that Jesus Christ is
the King, and you may become part of His kingdom and receive forgiveness and eternal life.
Among theterms to enter the kingdom are repentance and faith. A sinner must turn from his old
way of life, and turn to Christ as his king. We must lay down the arms of our rebellion and wave

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 the white flag of unconditional surrender. But, if we will come to Christ on His terms, He admits
us into His eternal kingdom!  To preach the kingdom is to preach salvation through Christ. When
Jesus said, “How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God” His disciples
responded, “Then who can be saved?” The disciples understood entering the kingdom was
equivalent to being saved.
Disciples, one of the tasks Jesus has still delegated to us today is to proclaim the kingdom. We are
to tell others that they can find forgiveness and eternal life and a part in His kingdom if they will
repent and trust in Jesus.
II. They Were To Demonstrate Compassion.
Not only were they to proclaim the kingdom, but they were to demonstrate it. They were to
perform miraculous healings, and cast out demons. Now, Jesus could have demonstrated who He
was in any number of ways. Jesus sent out the twelve to do exactly what He had been doing. 
Preach the kingdom and show compassion for hurting people. And this is our mandate as well.
III. They Were To Trust God For Their Needs. 
Luke 9:3 says, “Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money;
and do not even have two tunics apiece.”  Jesus’ instructions to the twelve were clear. Don’t take
anything with you. Don’t take money or bread or even an extra shirt. Leave and go with just the
clothes on your back – period. This is the cost of missionary activities.
Now that seems pretty austere, does not it? Why would the Lord require His men to go off on a trip
without any food, any money, or any change of clothes? Simple – He wants His men to learn to
trust God for their needs. Jesus knows that there are going to be times later on, when He is gone,
when they are not going to have any food or money or clothes, and they are going to have to know
that God will take care of them. So, the Lord is forcing them into a situation where they will have
to depend on God, because they can’t depend on their own resources.
Now, how will God provide for them? It is through the generosity of other people. Remember,
the twelve were going to be healing people of their incurable diseases and casting out demons from
tormented people. Donot you suppose that some of those healed and delivered people are going to
want to do something to show their gratitude? Jesus is sure of it. Over in Matthew 10:8 Jesus said,
“Freely you received, freely give.”  In other words, do not charge for your ministry. Do not ever
set a price on your ministry. Jesus had freely given them the power and authority to preach, heal
and cast out demons. He absolutely forbade the twelve from charging others for this ministry.

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 Now, if the twelve lacked integrity, they could have become very rich. People will pay almost
anything to be healed of an incurable disease, or to have a loved one raised from the dead.
However, Jesus made sure they understood that their motive in ministry was not to become
wealthy.
So, the twelve were not to take anything with them. Was this what the Lord would require of them
for the rest of their lives? No. Not, at all. Look at Luke 22:35, “And He said to them, “When I sent
you out without money belt and bag and sandals, you did not lack anything, did you?” They said,
“No, nothing.” And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along,
likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his coat and buy one.” You see, this field
experience, this internship, was a temporary situation to teach them to trust in God for their needs.
It would be useful, because they would find themselves in situations later where they had nothing
and had to trust God to take care of them. However, when they set out to fulfill the Great
Commission, they are permitted to take a money belt, a bag, and even a sword.
IV. They Were To Demonstrate Contentment. 
Luke 9:4 says, “Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that city.” So, what is the
principle here? We believe it is the principle of contentment. Jesus is instructing the twelve, that
they are not to go around from house to house. Once someone has offered their hospitality, they
are to accept it and stay there.
That is a very relevant principle for us, isn’t it? As we seek to go about doing the Lord’s work, we
need to be content with what He gives us. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Make sure that your character is
free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will
never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”  Would you describe yourself as a content person?
Are you happy and satisfied with what the Lord has provided for you, or are you always wanting
more?  To be used in the Lord’s service means we must learn the art of Christian contentment.
V. They Must Pronounce Judgment.
This comes out in Luke 9:5, “And as for those who do not receive you, as you go out from that
city, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”  When a Jew traveled into a Gentile
land, and then returned home, before he would re-enter Jewish territory, he would shake all the
Gentile dust off his sandals, robe and shirt. By doing this, he was expressing scorn and disdain for
them. Jesus is telling the twelve, that if they go into a city and the people will not receive you or
your message, shake the dust off your feet as you leave. In other words, treat them like pagan

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 Gentiles, even though they were Jews!  By shaking the dust off their feet, they were giving a visual
picture of the judgment of God that would come against them one day.
Disciples, not only must we preach the good news of the kingdom, but we must preach the bad
news of the kingdom. The bad news is that if someone rebels against the King and will not
surrender to him, He will be judged by that King one day. Here is the principle – we need to be
honest with people about what it means for them if they will not receive Jesus Christ as King. We
must be clear, if persons will not receive Christ as their King, they will face everlasting judgment
in hell. Though that is a very sober and terrifying thought, it is still a truth we must be willing to
tell others. We must give both the good news and the bad news.
D. Jesus Supervised His Men.
In verses 7-9 Luke tells us that Herod was greatly perplexed about who Jesus might be. It appears
he had a guilty conscience over beheading John the Baptist, and was afraid that maybe Jesus was
John risen from the dead, or Elijah, or one of the prophets.

2.2.4. Mission in the early Church

1.2.4.1. The historical expansion of the kingdom of God

The book of Acts tells us the story of the expansion of the heavenly kingdom from Jerusalem and
Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. The gospel moves from Jerusalem with its temple,
which was the symbol of Jewish religion in its land, to Rome which was, quite literally, the center
of Caesar’s kingdom. Acts shows us that how the expansion of the heavenly kingdom led to
increasing interaction with the earthly powers, starting in Jerusalem and ending in Rome.
Acts starts with Jesus speaking to the disciples ‘about the kingdom of God’ (Acts 1:3). They ask,
‘will you now restore the kingdom to Israel?’ which means; ‘when will we get power in our own
land?’ Jesus responds with the promise of a different kind of power, of people and land; the power
is the power of the Holy Spirit, the people are his witness and their land is not only Jerusalem and
Judea, but also Samaria and the rest of the earth (Acts 1:8). The coming of the Holy Spirit power in
Acts 2:1-12 reverses the Genesis 11 judgment on Babel- not by inviting people to build their own
Tower to gain power in their own land, but by enabling people from every land to hear the good
news of Jesus Christ. This sets the pattern for the rest of the book.

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Acts 8 tells of the persecution that pushed the witnesses out of their land into the rest of the world.
What leads to the persecution? It is all to do with the temple, with power, with land and with law.
The healing and preaching that provoked the persecution were at the temple (Acts 3:1, 2, 8, 10, 11;
4:1; 5:12, 21, 25, 42). The believers’ prayer recognizes the political powers that join together
against God and His messiah (Acts 4:24-29). They know that God is the ruler of all, but they do
not pray for political power. They ask for boldness and miracles and the power they receive is the
power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:11). One of the marks of the early church was the selling of land
(Acts 4:34-37), and the first judgment on believers is for abuse of proceeds from the sale of the
land (Acts 5:1-11).

As the witnesses go out, the Holy Spirit kingdom shows its power over increasing areas of land.
For, Paul, this means not only renewed conflict over the temple (Acts 21-22), but also steadily
increasing interaction with the representative of political power, from Jewish and Gentile leaders
in Iconium(Acts 14:5), through the magistrates’ court in Philippi (Acts 16: 22) the city officials in
Thessalonica (Acts 17:6-9), and the proconsul’s court in Corinth (Acts 18:12-16) to the public
assembly in Ephesus (Acts 19:23-41).
Paul’s commission was not only to take the gospel into the new cultures and areas: it was to carry
the name of Christ before the Gentile kings (Acts 9:15). So the whole of the last quarter of Acts
deals with the interactions with the political authorities. Paul speaks in front of the Roman
commander in Jerusalem (Acts 21:30-22:29), the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 22: 30-23:11), two
Roman governors at Caesarea (Acts 24:1-25:12), and eventually to King Agrippa and his court
(Acts 25:23-26:32). The underlying motif is the movement towards Caesar and towards Rome. It
is as a Roman citizen that Paul interacts with Roman justice (Acts 23:25-28), it is to Caesar that he
appeals (Acts 25:11), and it is Rome that is his final destination (Acts 28:14).
Acts clearly shows us the heavenly kingdom encountering the earthly kingdom over ever widening
territory and at ever higher levels of power; but at every age it is the gospel encounter and not the
political encounter that is emphases. It is clear that the Holy Spirit power is different in kind to
Caesar’s power; yet it interacts with Caesar’s power at every point.
Yet Paul and the other disciples live in the two dimensions of Caesar’s kingdom as well as in the
third dimension of God’s kingdom. It is as members of the Jewish community that Peter and John
stand before the Sanhedrin: it is as a Jew that Paul addresses the Jews (Acts 21:39), and as an

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obedient Roman citizen that he stands before governors and kings. Citizenship matters. It was as a
Roman citizen that Paul was able to speak to governors and to kings.
However, Paul seldom confronts the earthly powers on their own terms. When he stands before the
authorities, it is not as a diplomat or as a politician, but as a prisoner. When he speaks, it is not
about earthly powers but about Christ. When he finally arrives in Rome, there is no suggestion that
he actually sees Caesar or interacts with his kingdom or challenges his lordship: rather, Acts
finishes with him preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.
As Pilate understood that Jesus had committed no crime against Caesar, so Festus and Felix
realized that Paul had done nothing punishable by Roman law. None of these leaders knew what to
do with the prisoners in front of them, because these prisoners simply did not fit into the leaders
expected categories. The kingdom of God was not ‘of their world.’

2.2.4.2. Women’s Partnership in Mission.

A. Women Ministry in the Bible
The ancient Near Eastern world, of which Israel was a part, was a man’s world. Because God
spoke to Israel in a particular culture, however, does not suggest that the culture itself was holy.
The culture included polygamy, divorce, slavery, and a variety of other practices we now
recognize as unholy.
Despite the prominence of men in ancient Israelite society, God still sometimes called women as
leaders. When Josiah needed to hear the word of the Lord, he sent Hilkiah the priest and others to
a person who was undoubtedly one of the most prominent prophetic figures of his day: Huldah (2
Kings 22:12-20). Deborah was not only a prophetess, but a judge (Judges 4:4). She held the place
of greatest authority in Israel in her day. She is also one of the few judges of whom the Bible
reports no failures (Judges 4, 5).
Although first-century Jewish women rarely, if ever, studied with teachers of the Law the way
male disciples did, Jesus Christ allowed women to join as one of His disciples (Mark 15:40, 41;
Luke 8:1-3)–something the culture could have regarded as scandalous. As if this were not
scandalous enough, He allowed a woman who wished to hear His teaching "sit at his feet" (Luke
Luke10:39)–taking a posture normally reserved for disciples. Other Jewish teachers did not allow
women disciples; indeed, disciples were often teachers in training. To have sent women out on the
preaching missions (e.g., Mark 6:7-13) might have proved too scandalous to be practical;

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 nevertheless, the Gospels unanimously report that God chose women as the first witnesses of the
Resurrection, even though first-century Jewish men often dismissed the testimony of women.
Joel explicitly emphasized that when God poured out His Spirit, women as well as men would
prophesy (Joel 2:28-29). Pentecost meant that all God’s people qualified for the gifts of His Spirit
(Acts 2:17-18), just as salvation meant that male or female would have the same relationship with
God (Galatians 3:28). Subsequent outpourings of the Spirit have often led to the same effect.
A. Passages where Paul Affirmed the Ministry of Women
Paul often affirmed the ministry of women despite the gender prejudices of his culture. Many of
Paul’s co laborers in the gospel were women.
Paul commended the ministry of a woman who brought his letter to the Roman Christians
(Romans 16:1-2). Phoebe was a servant of the church at Cenchrea. "Servant “refers to; a term
that sometimes designated administrative responsibility in the Early Church. In his epistles,
however, Paul most frequently applied the term to minister of God’s Word, including himself (1
Corinthians 3:5; 2 Corinthians 3:6; 6:4; Ephesians 3:7; 6:21). He also called Phoebe a "succorer"
or "helper" of many (Romans 16:2); this term technically designated her as the church’s patron or
sponsor, most likely the owner of the home in which the church at Cenchrea was meeting. This
entitled her to a position of honor in the church.
Phoebe was not the only influential woman in the church. Whereas Paul greeted about twice as
many men as women in Romans 16, he commended the ministries of about twice as many women
as men in that list. These commendations may indicate his sensitivity to the opposition women
undoubtedly faced for their ministry and are remarkable, given the prejudice against women’s
ministry that existed in Paul’s culture.
If Paul followed ancient custom when he praised Priscilla, he may have mentioned her before her
husband Aquila because of her higher status (Romans 16:3-4). Elsewhere we learn that she and her
husband taught Scripture to another minister, Apollos (Acts 18:26). Paul also listed two fellow
apostles, Andronicus and Junia (Romans 16:7).
Elsewhere Paul referred to the ministry of two women in Philippi, who, like his many male fellow
ministers, shared in his work for the gospel there (Philippians 4:2, 3). Because women typically
achieved more prominent religious roles in Macedonia than in most parts of the Roman world,
Paul’s women colleagues in this region may have moved more quickly into prominent offices in
the church (Acts 16:14,15).

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 Although Paul ranked prophets second only to apostles (1 Corinthians 12:28), he acknowledged
the ministry of prophetesses (1 Corinthians 11:5), following the Hebrew Bible (Exodus 15:20;
Judges 4:4; 2 Kings 22:13, 14) and early Christian practice (Acts 2:17, 18; 21:9). Paul’s most
commonly used titles for these fellow laborers were "servant" and "fellow worker.”

2.2.3. The community of God’s kingdom

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you
may declare the praises of him who called you, out of darkness into his wonderful light (I Pet. 2:9).
Exodus 19:6, situated between Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and receiving the law, summarized
Israel’s calling and mission. Fist Peter 2:9 echoes this verse, and shows Israel’s calling and mission
fulfilled in Christ. The calling is still to be God’s special people among other peoples with other
faiths, but this is new kind of people.
First peter explains the origin of the new people. As Israel was chosen, so the new people are
chosen (1Pet. 1:2). As Israel was called to be holy, the new people are called to be holy (1Pet.
1:15). But, where Israel was given birth by its rescue from Egypt, the new people are given birth
through the cross and resurrection (1Pet. 1:3). The new people are not called of the land of Egypt
into the land of Canaan, but out of darkness into light (1Pet. 2:9). Israel’s inheritance was the
Promised Land, but the community of Christ’s inheritance is in heaven (1 Pet. 1:4-5). They are to
live among the pagans as aliens and strangers in the world (1 Pet.2:11-12).
A. The composition of the new community of God
Who are this new people? As 1Peter 2:4-10 describes it, they are composed of people who were
previously ‘not people.’ Saint Peter emphasizes the fact that they were not necessarily Jews. In
fact, many of the Jews rejected their messiah (Verse 7-8). Those who believe and trust in him are
not only God’s new ‘treasured possession’ (Exod. 19:5 1Pet. 2:4), but also the new temple where
God dwells (1Pet. 2:5). The blessing God gave to the descendants of Abraham is, now as He
promised, available to all people.
As saint Paul witnessed in Galatians chapter 3:26-28, Son ship to God in Christ Jesus is a unique
and unparalleled. “You all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were
baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave not
free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’’ To put another way, Saint Paul is
forcefully addressed the Galatians with ‘you all’ that includes both the gentile Christians and the

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 Jewish Christians who are present among them. To paraphrase: You all, you Galatians as well as
the Jewish Christians who are among you now and are troubling you-you are all in the same boat,
non-superior in any way to the other, since you all are now what you all have become through the
same channel of faith and by the same power of the same Spirit of the same Son of God. You are
all sons of God as no one has ever been before,-neither Jew nor Gentile.

2.2.5. Paul’s Missionary journeys

Traditionally, Paul is said to have made three missionary journeys, plus a fourth journey to Rome.
In the Acts facts series, we have retained this traditional manner of dividing up Paul’s several
journeys recorded in the book of Acts.
The four journeys of Paul are...
 1st missionary journey (Acts 13:4 to 15:35).
 2nd missionary journey (Acts 15:36 to 18:22).
 3rdmissionary journey (Acts 18:23 to 21:17).
 Journey to Rome (Acts 27:1 to 28:16).
The first two journeys start and end in Syrian Antioch. The third journey starts in Antioch and ends
in Jerusalem. Starting from Jerusalem, the fourth journey ends in Rome.
A. After Paul’s Conversion
In Acts 9, Luke records the period between Paul’s conversion and his first missionary journey. In
this period Paul was known as Saul. Paul himself speaks of this period in Acts 22 and 26, as well
as Galatians 1:13-17. Putting information from all these sources together, we find the following
activities between Paul’s conversion and first missionary journey.
 After his conversion in Damascus, Paul very nearly lost his life (Acts 9:19-25).
 Paul went away into Arabia for three years, being taught by Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:17-
18).
 Paul then came to Jerusalem where he was assisted by Barnabas. Again his life was
threatened, so he went home to Tarsus (Galatians 1:18-24, Acts 9:26-30).
 Paul next went to Antioch in Syria. From there, he was sent down to Judea with aid for
the brethren in need because of famine (Acts 11:19-30).
 Paul and Barnabas then returned to Syrian Antioch (Acts 12:25).

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 At Antioch, Paul and Barnabas are called to embark on what is known as the 1st
missionary journey (Acts 13:1-3).
B. The 1stMissionary Journey
 From Antioch’s seaport Selucia, they sail to Cyprus, and work throughout the island
(Acts 13:4-12).
 Next they go to Pamphylia and the other Antioch in Pisidia (Acts 13:13-52).
 They went down to Lycaonia, working in Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe(Acts 14:1-23).
 Passing through Pisidia and Pamphylia again, they then worked in Perga(Acts 14:24).
 They went down to Attalia and caught a ship back to Syrian Antioch (Acts 14:25-27).
C. Period in Syrian Antioch
 Between the 1st and 2nd missionary journeys there was "a long time" in Antioch in Syria
(Acts 14:28).
 During this period, Paul, Barnabas, and other companions had to go up to Jerusalem to
attend a council of the apostles regarding the issue of Christians keeping the law of Moses (Acts
15:1-29).
 Paul returned to Antioch and worked there a while (Acts 15:30-35).
D. The 2ndMissionary Journey
 Paul chose Silas and embarked on a journey that began by revisiting the places first Paul
had worked on his 1st journey (Acts 15:36-41).
 They worked in Derbe, Lystra, Iconium. Timothy joined Paul and Silas.
 Paul, with Silas and Timothy, went through the regions of Phrygia and Galatia, then on to
Troas (Acts 16:1-8)
 Paul received a vision calling him to Macedonia (Acts 16:9-40, 17:1-14).
 Paul went down to Achaia and worked in Athens (Acts 17:15-34).
 After Athens he went to work in Corinth where he met Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:1-
17).
 From Corinth Paul went to Ephesus (Acts 18:18-21).
 He took a ship to Caesarea, visiting the church there, then went back to Syrian Antioch
(Acts 18:21-22).
E. The 3rdMissionary Journey

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 After a time in Antioch, Paul set off again and visited with the churches again in Galatia
and Phrygia (Acts 18:23)
 Paul next returned to Ephesus where his work caused uproar (Acts 19:1-41).
 Paul then revisited Macedonia and Greece, and came to Troas and after that to Miletus
(Acts 20:1-38).
 From Miletus Paul sailed to Caesarea and then went to Jerusalem (Acts 21:1-17).
F. Period in Jerusalem and Caesarea
 In Jerusalem Paul had a meeting with James and the elders (Acts 21:18-26).
 Paul was caused trouble by the Jews (Acts 21:27-40).
 Paul told his story publicly and nearly got flogged (Acts 28).
 Paul went on trial and is escorted to Caesarea (Acts 23:1-35).
 He was imprisoned in Caesarea and goes before Felix (Acts 24)
 When he appeared before Festus he appealed to Caesar (Acts 25).
 Paul next appeared before Agrippa (Acts 26).
G Journey to Rome
 Paul sails for Rome under escort. On the way, he is shipwrecked (Acts 27)
 His journey from Malta to Rome (Acts 28:1-15).
 His house arrest in Rome (Acts 28:16-31).

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 Chapter Three:

Basic Missionary Tasks

3.1Preaching the Gospel/Evangelization:

Prior to His ascension, the resurrected Savior commanded His apostles to "teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them
to observe all things whatsoever, I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19-20). This calling and
commandment give into you concerning all men they shall be ordained and sent forth to preach
the everlasting gospel among the nations. The sound must go forth from this place unto the
entire world, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth-the gospel must be preached into every
creature, with signs following them that believe. All who are in the Church are directly or
indirectly indebted to missionaries for their introduction to the gospel. Historically, missionary
labor has been carried out by members of the Church who have gone "two by two” (Luke 10:1;
John 8:17) into every land and clime of the free world .The command of the Lord to preach the

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 gospel to all nations has a twofold purpose: to bring people to an understanding of the gospel of
Jesus Christ, and also to sound the warning voice to leave mankind without excuse.
After Jesus’ death and the belief that He had subsequently risen from the dead and returned to
God, the understanding of discipleship moved strongly in two related directions. First, disciples are
not simply people who follow Jesus’ teachings or who model themselves on His life (imitation).
Disciples are also profoundly united to Jesus as a person and through that union share in Jesus’
own intimate relationship with God. Through baptism, a disciple enters into the same dynamic of
Jesus’ passage through death to new life.
The letters of St. Paul, for example, express this as participating in the cross of Jesus and in His
resurrection in other words, in the triumph of glory over suffering and life over sin and death (Rom
6:3–5; Phil 3:8–11). This dynamic is continually strengthened by the regular celebration of the
Eucharist in early Christian communities. The notion of union with, and participation in, the life of
Jesus Christ is further developed in St. Paul, who also uses the language of adoption. That is,
Christian disciples are now adopted as children of God and are co-heirs to God’s promise in Jesus
(Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). Second, and closely related to this, is the emphasis on discipleship as
membership of a family. Thus, discipleship expands beyond Jesus’ few close confidants to
embrace all who follow the way of Jesus within the community of believers, that is, the Church.
This community is described as “the body of Christ” ( 1 Cor. 12:12–13).

3.2Preaching God’s people/Edification:

We believe that the church is called to proclaim and to be a sign of the kingdom of God. Christ has
commissioned the church to be His witnesses, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and
teaching them to observe all things He has commanded.
In Hs mission of preaching, teaching, and healing, Jesus announced, “The kingdom of God has
come near; repent, and believe in the good news. After His death and resurrection, Jesus
commissioned his disciples, saying, “Peace is with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.
Receive the Holy Spirit.” Empowered by that Spirit, we continue Jesus ministry of gathering the
new people of God, who acknowledge Christ as Lord and Savior.
The church is called to witness to the reign of Christ by embodying Jesus’ way in its own life and
patterning itself after the reign of God. Thus it shows the world a sample of life under the Lordship

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of Christ. By its life, the church is to be a city on a hill, a light to the nations, testifying to the
power of the resurrection by a way of life different from the societies around it.

The church is also to give witness by proclaiming the reign of God in word and deed. The church
is to seek the lost, call for repentance, announce salvation from sin, proclaim the gospel of peace,
set free the oppressed, pray for righteousness and justice, serve as Jesus did, and without coercion
urge all people to become part of the people of God. The church is called to be a channel of God’s
healing, which may include anointing with oil. Even at the risk of suffering and death, the love of
Christ compels faithful witnesses to testify for their Savior.
Such witness is a response to Jesus call to make disciples. As they are welcomed and incorporated
into the church, new Christians learn to participate in the church’s worship, in its fellowship,
education, mutual aid, decision making, service, and continuing mission. New believers also help
the church to learn new dimensions of its mission.

God calls the church to direct its mission to people from all nations and ethnic backgrounds. Jesus
commissioned His disciples to be his witnesses in “Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth. The apostle Paul preached to the Gentile nations. The church today is also called
to witness to people of every culture, ethnicity, or nationality. The mission of the church does not
require the protection of any nation or empire. Christians are strangers and aliens within all
cultures. Yet the church itself is God’s nation, encompassing people who have come from every
tribe and nation. Indeed, its mission is to reconcile differing groups, creating new humanity and
providing a preview of that day when all the nations shall stream to the mountain of the Lord and
be at peace.

3.3Healing (medical ministry):

The Hebrew word for heal is “rapha,” which means ‘to make thoroughly whole.’ The Greek word
“sozo” has the same connotation. It is used interchangeably throughout the Greek New Testament
to mean to “save” and to “heal”. We need to be free of “the sin which dothe so easily beset us”
(Hebrews 12:1), the sickness in our bodies, the fears of the soul, and all that keeps us from being
the overcoming sons of God, this is what the Bible calls sanctification; the process of cleansing
that needs to take place within our spirits, our souls, and our bodies.

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God intends for His body to be made whole. His people, being those individual members of His
body, need His wholeness to be able to perform the tasks commissioned to them as the church.
One recent move of the Holy Spirit has been the restoration of the gifts of the Spirit to the church
bringing deliverance and healing. Since Jesus is coming back for a church without spot or blemish,
a glorious church, we can look for her to be cleansed and healed before that moment. This healing
involves the total man: spirit, soul and body. “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the
washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians
5:26-27).
The Church of God believes the whole Bible to be completely and equally inspired and that it is
the written Word of God. The call to discipleship implies sharing in the work of Jesus to bring
about God’s Kingdom. Thus, Matthew 10 lists the work of the disciple as proclaiming the good
news, curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, casting out demons (Matt. 10:7–8). This
process of involvement in Jesus Christ’s work and life is also bound up with the notion of “taking
the lowest place,” or of selfless service to others, as in Mark 9:35, or even of giving up one’s life
out of love (John 15:12–13).

3.3.1. Types Biblical healing

A. The spiritual healing: Spiritual healing is when the human spirit becomes damaged and ill
from the effects of sin in our lives. Sin, in its simplest definition means missing the bulls-eye on a
target, when we miss it, we cause harm to our human spirit and cause spiritual death. Spiritual
healing then is the renewal and restoration of the human spirit. This is what is talked about by
Jesus when He said a person must be born again. This healing comes when a person receives
forgiveness from God by accepting the forgiveness offered by God when they follow and believe
the Word of Jesus Christ (Jn. 3:5).
Even for the Christian, forgiveness is something that needs to be maintained on a regular basis. If
not, then once again our spirit will become ill and wounded. This is one reason why some people
become spiritually proud and religious rather than walking in humility knowing that they are no
better than anyone else, just forgiven.
B. The emotional healing: Emotional healing or the healing of the soul is where a person no
longer has an emotional reaction to either the sins that they have committed or the sins that have

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been committed against them. When we sin, we feel guilt. Guilt is not just a fact but it is an
emotional reaction.

When somebody else sins against us, we feel all kinds of emotions, anger, shame, bitterness, etc.
Emotional healing is when you no longer react with those emotions when you think about or
remember what you did or what others do.King David after being confronted about his sin of
adultery and setting up the death of Uriah got honest with God and received not only spiritual
healing but emotional healing. In Psalm 32 He says “I confessed all my sins to you and stopped
trying to hide my guilt” (Psalm 32:5).I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the
LORD.”And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.
Not only was David forgiven but He also received the removal of the feelings of guilt. He was
emotionally healed.

C. The physical healing:

He is the one that said He was the Lord that heals us (Exodus 15:26}, and it was Jesus Christ who
fulfilled the prophecy that was made concerning the coming messiah that said the messiah would
take all our sicknesses and carry all our diseases.
It was Jesus Christ who said that one of the signs that would follow believers is that they would lay
hands on the sick and they would recover this is conducted through the Sacrament of holy unction.
Therefore, the three types of healing are related each other. Spiritual healing can be connected to
emotional healing. Just as we saw with the example of King David, he received emotional healing
after he received spiritual healing. Many times we have found that you are not released from the
torment of being emotionally wounded until you first get things right with God and receive
forgiveness yourself from God. It is pretty hard to give something that you have not received in the
first place.

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 3.4 The issue of Stewardship:

A steward is one who has been entrusted with the possessions of another to use in the best interest
of the owner. A steward is never under the false impression that he owns any of what he is
managing. If the steward began to act like an owner, he would no longer be qualified to be a
steward. Both master and steward were crystal clear as to who the true owner was.
Human are put in to God’s created environment to serve it and to look after it. This makes it clear
the main point of our ruling the earth is for its benefit, not our Owen. God created us to rule over
the rest of His creation by serving and keeping it-that is, by working hard in a way that will care
for creation and protect its best interests.

3.4.1. Features of Biblical Stewardship

1. The belief of ownership:
The psalmist begins the 24th psalm with, the earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world,
and all who live in it. In the beginning of Genesis, God creates everything and puts Adam in the
Garden to work it and to take care of it. It is clear that man was created to work and that work is
the stewardship of all of the creation that God has given him.
This is the fundamental principle of biblical stewardship. God owns everything; we are simply
managers or administrators acting on His behalf. Therefore, stewardship expresses our obedience
regarding the administration of everything God has placed under our control, which is all
encompassing. Stewardship is the commitment of one’s self and possessions to God’s service,
recognizing that we do not have the right of control over our property or ourselves.
2. The attitude of responsibility: in explaining responsibility, although God gives us “all things
richly to enjoy,” nothing is ours. Nothing really belongs to us. God owns everything; we’re
responsible for how we treat it and what we do with it. While we complain about our rights here on
earth, the Bible constantly asks, what about your responsibilities? Owners have rights; stewards
have responsibilities. We are called as God’s stewards to manage that which belongs to God.
While God has graciously entrusted us with the care, development, and enjoyment of everything
He owns as His stewards, we are responsible to manage His holdings well and according to his
desires and purposes.
3. The principle of accountability: A steward is one who manages the possessions of another. We
are all stewards of the resources, abilities and opportunities that God has entrusted to our care, and
one day each one of us will be called to give an account for how we have managed what the

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Master has given us. This is the maxim taught by the Parable of the Talents. God has entrusted
authority over the creation to us and we are not allowed to rule over it as we see fit. We are called
to exercise our dominion under the watchful eye of the Creator managing His creation in accord
with the principles He has established.
Like the servants in the Parable of the Talents Matthew 25:14-29, we will be called to give an
account of how we have administered everything we have been given, including our time, money,
abilities, information, wisdom, relationships, and authority. We will all give account to the rightful
owner as to how well we managed the things He has entrusted to us.

4. The value of reward: In Colossians 3:23-24 Paul writes: Whatever you do, work at it with all
your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an
inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. The Bible shows us in
the parables of the Kingdom that faithful stewards who do the master’s will with the master’s
resources can expect to be rewarded incompletely in this life, but fully in the next.
We all should long to hear the master say what he exclaims in Matthew 25:21: Well done, good
and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many
things. Come and share your master’s happiness! As Christians in the 21 st century, we need to
embrace this larger biblical view of stewardship, which goes beyond church budgets or building
projects, though important; it connects everything we do with what God is doing in the world.
We need to be faithful stewards of all God has given us within the opportunities presented through
His providence to glorify Him, serve the common good and further His Kingdom.
5. Spiritual example: Stewardship shows demonstrate our commitment to Christ through our
practice of the spiritual disciplines; we will demonstrate our commitment to the body of Christ
through our loyalty to God and commitment to His church; and we will demonstrate our
commitment to the work of Christ through our being good stewards.
6. Moral purity: We will engage in Stewardship activities which glorify God in our body and
which avoid the fulfillment of the lust of the flesh. We will read, watch and listen to those things
which are of positive benefit to our spiritual well-being.

3.5 Planting church

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Church planting has been happening for nearly twenty centuries. The first places that the church
spread from Judea were Samaria. Christianity spread to other areas as the mission of the Apostles
and it was due to persecution forced the Christians to leave Jerusalem. Christianity then spread to
the Gentiles largely because of the Apostle Paul, who had formerly been a Pharisee and a
persecutor of the church. In the Bible, the book of Acts describes Christianity as spreading by the
preaching of it in public areas. It then describes the believers of Christianity as gathering together
regularly in homes and, at least in the beginning, at the Temple in Jerusalem. This period is known
as the Apostolic Period.
In a missiological context, church planting may be defined as "initiating reproductive fellowships
who reflect the kingdom of God in the world. When this happens with rapid growth, it is generally
known as a church planting movement or disciple making movement. Christianity has expanded
in a serial way, that is, when it lost ground in those regions where it was most strong and secure; it
won new followers from those people who seemed to threaten its existence. The survival of
Christianity has depended upon its ability to adapt to new and hostile cultures.

Mission exists because God is a missionary, God who sends His people to be a blessing to all of
human kind. There is a human side of mission that is perceived in the movement of people, in the
development of missionary organizations, in the planting and growing of new Churches crossing
geographical or Sociological borders. But mission begins in the heart of God and it is His initiative
to which we humans respond.

If Christian mission is first and foremost God’s mission, Christians must always carry on their
mission in an attitude of humility and dependence on God. The message that the missionary have
for the world is a message from God who sends His messengers to let the earth hear His voice.
The good news that the messengers bring is that God who created this universe loves His creation
and calls His creatures to be reconciled with Him. It is true that the gospel is the good news about
Jesus Christ and that apart from Jesus Christ there is no gospel.
The church is the body of Christ, which ministers the mind the Word of Christ and demonstrates
His concern and love for mankind in the World. The Church is structured institution, multi-
individual corporate group living in the world in a complex series of relationships with both
isolated individuals and other corporate groups.

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 A typical example for planting new church is founded in Acts Chapter 13. In Acts 13:1-3, we saw
that God had established one of His Churches in Antioch, then He gave gifts to a few individuals
including Saint Paul and Barnabas in that Church to equip them to minister there as prophets and
teachers so that the Church might be built up. These prophets and teachers constituted the ministry
in that Church. When in life and in gift these ministers had reached a certain stage of spiritual
maturity, God sent two of, namely Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas to evangelize in other places and
history repeated itself in the newly planted churches by these two Apostles.
We see here clearly the relationship between God’s involvements in the task of evangelization and
the role of the missionaries as follows:-
1. God establishes a church in a certain locality. For Example, Antioch
2. He rises up gifted men in the church for edification and evangelization.
3. He sends some of these specially equipped men out for evangelization to plat another new
church.
4. These men establish churches in different places.
5. God rises up again other gifted men among these churches for the ministry of building them up.
6. Some of these in turn are thrust forth to evangelize in other places to plant another new church.
Thus, the evangelization directly produces the churches, and the churches indirectly produce the
evangelization. So the evangelization and the churches progress, moving in an ever-recurring
cycle- the evangelization always result directly in the founding of churches, and the churches
always resulting indirectly in further evangelization.

Summary
The Mission of Church was/is founded on the Gospel message that everything we have is a gift
from God and should be used to help others. Mission of gospel facilitates spiritual reflection
groups and provides spiritual support, the Church of God’s Practical Commitments offer scriptural
guidelines for practical Christian living. The ministry of mission –the proclamation of the good
news for the salivation of the person’s soul; the ministry of service- the work of Christ meeting the
physical and material needs of people; the ministry of reconciliation- the restoration of broken
human relationships that people may live in peace together.

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The Chapter assessed all about preaching the gospel, preaching God’s people, medical ministry,
expansion of Church through way of Stewardship and generally the met aim of the great
commission throughout the entire world under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Chapter Four:

Mission in world circumstances

The challenges of Culture, World view and our understanding of scripture inMission

4.1.1. Culture and People’s understand of Scripture:

As we know culture is the expression of life and consists many components like language,
symbols, way of dressing, eating and others, but now our focus is to show the validity of knowing
one’s culture for Church mission.
The Church speaks of three types of situations in Church’s mission. The first is the mission. Here
the Church addresses peoples, groups, and socio-cultural contexts in which Christ and His Gospel
are not known. The second is of well-established Christian communities. The third is the re-
evangelization done mainly in countries with ancient Christian roots where entire groups of the
baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or perhaps no longer even consider them members of
the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and His Gospel. John Paul concludes by saying
that the responsibility for this mission belongs to the universal Church, to the particular churches

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and to the whole people of God. Being missionary by nature, the Church is both evangelized and
evangelizing.

The biblical view of mankind in context has not been scientifically disposed of and no better
hypothesis has been posited as basis for our thinking, because it is true that there have been
numerous interpretations of the Scripture, the basic biblical position is clear. God created the world
and brought forth humans as the object of His love and providences and made them beings capable
of spiritual fellowship. He made them to live together in communities and it is His will that they
should love each other .This love of creature to creature becomes real when the creature knows and
loves the creator.
The mission, Christ the redeemer entered to the Church is still very far from completion. The
urgency of missionary evangelization stems from the face that it is the primary service which the
Church can render to every individual and to all humanity in the modern world.

The traditional Christian belief is that they owe their existence of God, whom we speak of as the
creator. If we accept the position that God created mankind and gave them a context, we have a
practical working hypothesis on which to organize our life and behavior. The other fundamental
point is, if God is the creator of the creation it would seem logical that He has also the capacity to
reveal himself in terms of the limitations of His creation. This He does In the Incarnation. To be a
truly Incarnation, the Word had to be truly made flesh. It is not enough for incarnation to be
conceptualized abstractly but the man had to be set in the human context physically,
geographically, culturally, historically, and linguistically. Thus He was born within the Hebrew
tradition, in the land of palatine, in the days of Herod the king.

4.1.2. Mission and Cross communication

Jesus taught that the gospel of the kingdom would be preached among all nations before His return
(Mt 24:14; Mk 13:10). After His resurrection Jesus commanded His followers to preach in the
power of the Spirit repentance and forgiveness through Christ and to make disciples of all nations
(Mt 28:19; Mk 16:15; Lk. 24:46-47). In short, they are sent on mission into the world as Jesus
Himself was sent by the Father (Jn. 20:21).
After the death and resurrection of Christ and with the sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
God's mission to the nations bursts forth in a new way through His new people, the church. In Acts

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1:8 Jesus indicates that the Spirit would empower His people to become His witnesses “in
Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.
Ministry of the Church has the both inward and an outward dimension. In the Scripture it is
described as the body of Christ. The fellowship should be a complex of persons living in right
relationships with Christ and with each other, attending the ministry of the word and building each
other up in faith.
The idea of ministry of Christ in the world without the existence of the church, which is His body,
is not biblical. It was the lord’s specific intention to found a fellowship to leave in the world after
His departure. All individuals enjoy a set of relationships, both stimuli and responses. The Church
is a total complex a living organism, where the process of maturation is going on, where
individuals are growing in grace, aided by teaching, praying, worshipping, participating and
interacting.

4.1.3. Mission of God and Contextualization

In First Cor. 9:20-22, Paul imposes a missional carriage upon himself toward cultures and people
so he can communicate the gospel clearly by disarming objections to it and building bridges for
gospel engagement. We call this living a contextual life. Contextualization is adapting
communication of the gospel to the forms and expression of another culture so that mundane
obstacles to the gospel may be overcome. Contextualization must happen so the gospel is not seen
as foreign to a culture. However, the content of the gospel must not be changed in this process.
Once the gospel is communicated effectively in a host language, the power of the preacher both
increases and diminishes. It increases in their ability to articulate the truths of the gospel
effectively to their hearers. But their power to control disciple making and the development of the
church decreases, for God’s word and truth are unleashed from the controls of language. With
every new word the preacher learns and declares in the host language, God’s hammer strikes the
ruins of Babel, until one day those ruins are like gravel scattered at the gates of the New Jerusalem
A culture is a group of people with shared social and linguistic identity. This identity is shaped by
beliefs about what it means to be human, assessment of what is wrong in their world, possible
solutions, and views on how to appropriate the solutions. A culture's prevailing worldview affects
logic, prejudices what evidence one considers, and dictates what types of solutions are viable
options. The task of contextualization is to use what is good, just, and beautiful in a culture to

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establish a clear communication of the gospel, in order to overcome obstacles to understanding and
to confront idols that oppose the truth. By contextualizing our communication, the hope is to see
people and cultures redeemed and restored with the gospel, that they may "turn to God from idols
to serve the living and true God" (1Th 1:9).

We find in Acts numerous examples of Paul contextualizing the gospel. He communicates the
gospel in a synagogue to God-fearing Jews with the Scriptures and the words of John the Baptist
(Ac 13:23-25). He engages working class pagans with the gospel by appealing to general
revelation (14:16-17). In Acts 17, he enters another context where he provokes pagan philosophers
to consider their own claims against the story of the gospel. In these texts, Paul communicates the
gospel contextually and faithfully by accessing the native culture and emphasizing different
biblical doctrines surrounding the gospel. In all of it, he communicates a universal, monotheistic
God who is not served by human hands (17:24-29), but in fact reveals Himself (14:16-17).
Paul proclaims the sovereign goodness of God (Ac 13:16-22; 14:17), points to the work of God for
salvation over against the works of men (13:37-38; 14:15; 17:18, 30), and confronts human efforts
to save themselves through moralism (13:39) and idolatry (14:15; 17:23). All are called to
repentance (13:39-41; 14:14-18; 17:30).
Contextualization is consistent with the call of Christians to be a light in the world. The church is
called to love those who are living differing stories. The church is also called to persuade those
who are living differing stories of the truthfulness of the gospel. To pursue this calling, our
message must be understandable.

4.1.4. Culture Shock and Transition in the Mission:

Cultural differences affect the messengers, but they also affect the gospel message. Each society
looks at the world in its own way, and that way is encoded in its language and culture. No
language is unbiased, no culture theology call neutral. Consequently, the translation and
communication of the gospel in new cultures is no easy task. If we do not understand this, we are
in danger of being ineffective messengers at best, and, at worst, of communicating a gospel that is
misunderstood and distorted. Cultural differences affect the message in several ways. First
Communicate in the language the people understand. This means learning new languages and
translating the Bible into these languages. This involves not only using local words that have
similar meanings to the original, but also checking that the meanings of those words in the broader

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context of that culture do not introduce distortion. Second, new believers must learn how to deal
with their old cultural ways.
4.1.4.1. Christ’s way of preaching and understanding of the hearers:
It is clear that God is beyond any human perception, knows not only the solely external human
culture, knowledge, and rather knows the internal sprit of our individual’s way of life. He preached
His people in accordance with habit of individuals or group life styles. God is going to be
eternally magnified in His glorious fulfillment of all of His promises, and then He must ransom a
people for Himself from every tribe, tongue and people. And for His elect people to be ransomed,
they must “call on the name of the Lord [Jesus]” (Rom. 10:13). To “call on the name of the Lord
[Jesus],” they must hear and understand the “word of Christ” (Ro. 10:17). And for them to “hear,”
they must have someone tell them/“preach” (Rom. 10:14) in the language they understand.

Is the claim that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of the world relevant to a world in which so
many cultures coexist in such close proximity, a world weary of conflict between peoples and
nations of disparate cultures? Not only should Christians not be embarrassed to make this claim,
we should see in the cry for a multicultural ideal a tremendous opportunity to present the claim of
Christ to all people.
Jesus often spoke about how the course of His own life- His suffering, death, and resurrection-was
governed by the scripture. Here He is extending that to the ongoing mission of the Church as well.
It is all part of the same great story that the scripture planned out.
Jesus was in crucial respects a religious and cultural revolutionary. He taught that although God
had revealed himself uniquely to the Jews (John 4:22), Jewishness alone was no guarantee of favor
with God (Matt. 8:10-12). He taught that the temple would be destroyed (Matt. 24; Mark 13) and
that worship of God would be centered in the heart, not in Jerusalem (John 4:21-24). He taught that
a kind Samaritan or a repentant tax-collector was better than a pious but proud or heartless
Pharisee (Luke 10:29-37; 18:9-14). He invited women to be His disciples (Luke 10:38-42). He
granted healing to Gentiles (Matt. 15:21-28) and ate in the homes of outcasts (Luke 19:1-10).
Jesus was remarkable in everything He said and did. He taught like no man ever had or has since
an evaluation that has been voiced by Christians and non-Christians alike who have read the
Gospels. Jesus spoke with absolute authority “but I say to you” yet few find His words arrogant.
He spoke to the sick and the sinner with compassion yet without sentimentality. He spoke in terms

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that challenged the factions of Judaism of His day that might be loosely described as the
“fundamentalists” and “liberals” of that culture. His own position was theologically closest to the
Pharisees, yet His teaching defied simple categorization. Jesus usually healed people in relative
privacy and discouraged people from looking to Him merely for miracles. His miracles were
profound signs of God’s love and mercy that were remembered by His disciples as proof, not
merely that he was a wonder worker, but that he was God’s beloved Son.
4.1.4.2 Apostolic ways of preaching:
In the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus claims all authority. He commands His
disciples to make disciples of all nations, and He promises to be with them always, to the end of
the age. At Pentecost, the power and authority of God are bestowed upon the disciples in the
coming of the Holy Spirit. His presence, through the Spirit, is assured until this age is past. Will
receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
We see that our Lord promised power through the coming of the Holy Spirit, with the result that
the gospel would be proclaimed to all the earth, beginning at Jerusalem. Is it not striking that our
Lord has orchestrated Pentecost in such a way that (so to speak) all the nations of the earth are
present and represented by those who were dwelling in Jerusalem when the Spirit was bestowed on
the church? God has seen to it that the first fruits of His sovereign purposes are harvested on the
very day that the Spirit is given to the church (Acts 2:1-3).

Language learning is one of the most strategic investments we can make in our ministry to our
congregation peoples. In Romans 10:14-15, the apostle Paul explains the role of
speaking/“preaching” in God’s redemptive work among the nations. Obviously, language learning
is not the topic at hand in Romans 10. But the text says those who are sent actually preach the
gospel, and, as a result, people “hear” and believe in Christ. Somewhere between being sent and
preaching is language learning.
Language learning is an act of love for our host people. If we love them, then we will desire that
they be saved (Rom. 10:1). But all too often, we pray and plead with the Lord for the salvation of
our host peoples, and yet struggle to do the very thing (learn their language) that would best enable
us to tell our host people that this salvation is available to them in Christ. If you pray for more love
for your host people, that is way before for language builds apathy and understanding, both of
which are like fast-burning kindling for the fire of love.

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According to writings in the New Testament, prior to his conversion, Paul was dedicated to
persecuting the early disciples of Jesus in the area of Jerusalem. In the narrative of the Acts of the
Apostles (often referred to simply as Acts), Paul was traveling on the road from Jerusalem to
Damascus on a mission to "arrest them and bring them back to Jerusalem" when the resurrected
Jesus appeared to him in a great light. He was struck blind but, after three days, his sight was
restored by Ananias of Damascus, and Paul began to preach that Jesus of Nazareth is the Jewish
Messiah and the Son of God.Approximately half of the book of Acts deals with Paul's life and
works.

4.1.4.5 Christian Mission and Socio-Cultural Transformation:

The notion of Christian discipleship has two elements. The first is a call to conversion (in Greek
metanoia, μετάνοια) that is, to turn away from previously flawed ways of behaving in response to a
call from God. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in
the good news” (Mark 1:15). The second element is actively to follow the way of Jesus. This
involves both a new way of life and joining in building the Kingdom of God- that is, continuing
Jesus’ mission. “And Jesus said to them [Simon and his brother Andrew], ‘Follow me and I will
make you fishers for people’” (Mark 1:17). The same dual call to repentance and to following the
way of Jesus is present at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 4:17 &
19) and, although expressed differently, is implicit also in the Gospels of Luke and John.

In terms of the word mission, the concept is both rich and ambiguous. For some traditionalists, it
implies proselytizing that is, converting people to Christianity. However, for others, Christianity is
mission-focused in a quite different, outward-looking way. That is, a key part of the Christian life
is to share in God’s own mission to make a better world by proclaiming God’s work of creativity,
active goodness, reconciliation, healing, and love, directed towards enabling humanity to arrive at
its ultimate destiny. This outward-looking approach seeks to respond to the lives and needs of
others. This expands the notion of “mission” beyond purely religious preoccupations to embrace
broader social transformation. The message of Jesus Christ demands that disciples attend to the
needs of the poor and marginalized, and enable their voices to be heard.

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 Section two: Ecumenical Movement in the Religious pluralistic Context

Introduction:
This section deals with the universal movement of Churches to settle peace among human kind and
the Common element to spread gospel throughout the universe.
Objectives:
At the end of this section, learners will able to:
 Determine various types of mission of World council Church
 Describe the merit of World Council Church
 Validate mission of World Council Church

4.2.1. The Ecumenical movement of Mission and the Disciples:

The period of early Christianity during the lifetimes of the apostles is called the Apostolic Age.
During the 1st century AD, the apostles established churches throughout the territories of the
Roman Empire and, according to tradition, through the Middle East, Africa, and India. The
commissioning of the Twelve Apostles during the ministry of Jesus is recorded in the Synoptic
Gospels. After His resurrection, Jesus sent 11 of them (minus Judas Iscariot, who by then had died)
by the Great Commission to spread His teachings to all nations. This event is commonly called the
Dispersion of the Apostles, for the one Lord, one faith and one Baptism to bring in the body of
Christ (Eph.4:5).
During the time of the Apostles of Jesus Christ and the post-apostolic father’s era the living
Church of Christ was faced many problems such as persecution in one hand and heretical teaching
on the other hand. Though the mission of the Church was hindered by the then persecutors because
the persecution was not ceased the mission of evangelization but the saver temptation was heretical
movement. Gentiles and Jews were the main challenges of the Disciples of Jesus Christ, Gnostics
and Judo –Christians were also the common trouble makers for the apostolic fathers.
The Ecumenical mission of the Church become dangerous when Arius was deny the eternal
divinity Son of God and excommunicated at the Council of Nicea A.D 325, then other Council was
held such as Council of Constantinople to condemned Macedonians A.D381 and Council of
Ephesus to condemned Nestorius A.D 431. After this the mission for the one Church, which was/is
founded by Jesus Christ become officially divided at the Council of Chalcedon A.D 451 as

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Chalcedonians (those who accepted Christ has two natures) and non-Chalcedonians (those who
believed Christ is one Incarnate nature of God the Word).
4.2.1.1. Mission of World Council Church
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is the broadest and most inclusive among the many
organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian
unity. It is a community of churches on the way to visible unity in one faith and one Eucharistic
fellowship, expressed in worship and in common life in Christ. It seeks to advance towards this
unity, as Jesus prayed for His followers, "so that the world may believe." (John17:21). The World
Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and
Savior according to the scriptures, and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the
glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The WCC brings together churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 110
countries and territories throughout the world, representing over Millions Christians and including
most of the world's Orthodox churches, as well as many United and Independent churches. While
the bulk of the WCC's founding churches were European and North American, today most
member churches are in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the
Pacific. There are now 348 member churches.
For its member churches, the WCC (World council Church) is a unique space: one in which they
can reflect, speak, act, worship and work together, challenge and support each other, share and
debate with each other. As members of this fellowship, WCC member churches:
• Are called to the goal of visible unity in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship;
• Promote their common witness in work for mission and evangelism;
• engage in Christian service by serving human need, breaking down barriers between people,
seeking justice and peace, and upholding the integrity of creation; and
• Foster renewal in unity, worship, mission and service.
4.2.1.2. Achievements of World Council Church
WCC has supported and inspired church participation in struggles for justice, peace and creation.
One example is the highly-valued support given by the churches, through the WCC's Programme
to Combat Racism, to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Support to efforts to bring
about an end to the two decades-long civil conflict in Sudan, or to reunification of North and South

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Korea, or to the defense of human rights in Latin America during the decades of brutal military
dictatorships in that region are three among many other examples.
Recognition of the importance of inter-religious dialogue and relations with other faiths, as well as
of the churches' responsibility for the integrity of creation, has been particular hallmarks of the
ecumenical movement.
Today, both the ecumenical movement and the WCC are changing. New forms of ecumenical
commitment are emerging; young people are finding their own expressions (and thus assuming
ownership of) ecumenism and church; amidst the multiplicity of ecumenical bodies, the WCC is
redirecting its energies to doing what it does best and is uniquely equipped to do.
The WCC shares the legacy of the one ecumenical movement and the responsibility to keep it
alive. As the most comprehensive body among the many organized expressions of the ecumenical
movement, the Council's role is to address global ecumenical issues and act as a trustee for the
inner coherence of the movement.

4.2.1.3. Six Characteristic of the Mission of WCC

1. Church-Centered Mission: Church does mission and mission is for the sake of planting and
building the church.
A focusing biblical text: Matt 28: 19-20 “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, and teaching them to obey
everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the
age.”
2. Missio Dei (God’s Mission)
God is a missionary God, people therefore are missionary; church is sent by God.
A focusing biblical text: John 17: 20-21 “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of
those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in
me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent
me.”emphasisis on God as a missionary God - mission from the nature of God, attribute of God –

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Trinity is a model of mission. Emphasis on unity of the church - because it is God’s mission we all
participate with God.
3. The Church for Others
The Missionary Nature of the Church, OT in general is missionary – evangelization is “the
presence of the people of God in the midst of humanity, the presence of God among His people”
emphasis on God’s work in the world Church is only intermezzo between God and world -World
is locus of continuing encounter between God and humanity. Mission emphasis on new missionary
frontier which runs around world, became line between belief and unbelief in every country new
understanding of geography and of interfaith relations “Every Christian congregation in the entire
world is called to show the love of God in Christ, in witness and service to the world at its doors”
4. Kenosis (Self-Emptying) of Incarnation
A focusing biblical text: Phil 2: 5-8 “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who,
though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in
human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a
cross.”
5. Mission in the Concrete Realities of Life:
A focusing biblical text: Luke 4: 16-21 “When He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought
up, He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was His custom. He stood up to read, and the
scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to Him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it
was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to
the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to
let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” And He rolled up the scroll,
gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
Then He began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”
6. Mission as the Fullness of Life:
A focusing biblical text: Revelation 21: 1, 5: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the
first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more….And the one who was
seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.” the following ecumenical convictions
for mission: conversion; gospel to all realms of life; church and its unity in God’s mission;
mission in Christ’s way; good news to the poor; and witness among people of living faiths

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“through our acceptance of the ministry of reconciliation, we become a missionary people, not in
that sense of dominating over peoples and nations which has all too often characterized mission
work, but in the sense of sharing God’s own mission of brining all humanity into communion with
God through Christ in the power of the Spirit, sharing our faith and our resources with all people”.

4.2.2. Mission in the religious Pluralistic context

The Church by its very nature is missionary according to the plan of the Father, it has origin in the
mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The church received this task from the mission mandate of
Jesus, when He said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. “As we all know that the
countries like India, Ethiopia, Nigeria and others are a multi- religious and multi- cultural nations
where the Christians constitute just less followers mainly in India, in this context the Church
mission that is to proclaim Christ means a lot. India as cradle of all the major religions in the
world; Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism, Islam, Christianity and tribal religions is having a
lot of problems among the religions.
The Church is in its nature missionary, ‘It exists by mission, as fire by burning.’ Moreover,
mission creates the Church. Apostles and their followers were martyred for the continuity God’s
Mission. Mission bridges the gap between the Church and the kingdom of God. The goal of the
church is not its own good but the Rule of God; the Church was founded for a future in the
kingdom of God and so it is for all humankind. ! Mission is an attitude of mind which should be at
the heart of the Church’s life and work, just as it is at the heart of God, both as He is in Himself
and in all He does.
The Church considers with great respect all other religions. The proclamation of Jesus as the only
Savior in the multi-religious context of world has brought serious challenges. He goes on saying
that, today the Church Asia like St. Paul in aeropause. (Acts 17:22-31).
4.2.2.1. The Church with Other Religion
The Church attitude was apologetic and missionary; she defended her uniqueness and invited other
to join her, co-existence, collaboration and solidarity in the common struggle against atheism and
evil materialism in an effort to build a better world were not within her scope. The Church as well
as the other religions is pilgrims towards this future consummation. This vision has been spelt out
in terms of universal harmony.
Our approach to their religions has so far been a priori. Our starting point has been that we have
the truth about God and the appropriate means to reach God and be saved. Salvation is the context

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in which we have looked at other religions. The new starting point is the affirmation that in virtue
of creation , especially of the humans as images of God, God is in contact with the humans, as
individuals and as groups, as befits the social nature of the humans. Our quest for the Kingdom of
God therefore calls us to collaborate with the believers of other religions and all people of good
will. As a matter of a fact, the Church does affirm the need for such collaboration in the pursuit of
a just society on this earth.
As followers of different religions we should join together in promoting and defending common
ideals in the spheres of religious liberty, human brotherhood, education, culture, social welfare and
civic order. Since Kingdom is the goal of mission, then collaboration with the other religions and
with all people of good will is the way of mission.
4.2.2.2. The Role of the Church towards Mission

The primary task is to contribute to the building up of a human community of freedom and
fellowship, equality and justice. This has economic, political and religious dimensions. Love,
justice and care for the poor characterize this universal fellowship. The church itself is a group of
people sent into the world to be the symbol and the servant of God’s Kingdom, in this task the
church is collaborating with the spirit who is already present and active in the world carrying on
God’s cosmic scheme.
The mission of the Church then is universal reconciliation. But there are forces in the world that
keep hindering such reconciliation: exclusivist, egoism, quest for power and domination, injustice,
exploitation of the other for one’s own benefit. The disciples of Jesus are called to struggle against
these forces and the oppressive structures they have created Phase’s enculturation as an effective
means of evangelization.

4.2.3 Biblical Strategy of Church Mission

Every book of the Bible and every stage of God’s saving history could be examined, but below are
some important themes:
• The Scriptures reveal that God has plans, purposes and outcomes which He works to achieve.
This is so fundamental to His revealed character that we cannot imagine a God who exists and acts
with no ultimate purpose in mind. In creation and the new creation God is working to a plan that is
fixed for all eternity and His creatures are caught up in that plan. The whole Bible with its
promise-fulfillment structure reveals a God who works to a grand cosmic plan.

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Ephesians chapters 1-3 are one crucial passage that applies the language of planning and purpose
to the character and activity of God. God exercises His will, chooses, predestines, acts in
accordance with His pleasure, makes known His will, has purposes in Christ, and brings the times
to fulfillment. He has a plan and works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will.
His ‘end game’ is to sum up all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. He is ultimately
seeking the praise of His glory through the exaltation of His Son and the good works of His
people. God’s mystery revealed to Paul is that the Gentiles with Israel will be united in one body in
Christ. Therefore it is important our local plans and strategies reflect God’s over-arching plan of
glorifying Christ and the over-riding mission of making disciples.
• It is not surprising then that the wisdom literature commends planning as built into the fabric of
creation. It is God who establishes the plans of men (Prov. 16:1, 3, 9; 19:21). Men cannot out-plan
God (21:30). Our plans issue from our character (12:5; 14:22). It is wise to seek advice in making
plans (15:22, 20:18). Diligence is required for plans to profit (21:5; cf. 6:6-11).
• Jesus lived and made decisions according to a divine plan and timetable. A quick glance through
John’s gospel confirms this. The prologue highlights Jesus purpose to reveal the one true God. He
is the true light (1:9) and became flesh, dwelling among us, so that mankind can see the glory of
the Father, making Him known (1:14-18). John the Baptist introduces Jesus’ purpose as taking
away the sin of the world (1:29). The theme of the ‘hour’ or ‘time’ points to the divine purpose to
which Jesus submitted. The time of true worship in spirit and truth has come with Jesus (4:21-23).
There is an end time of judgment for all which has now arrived in Jesus (5:25-30). Jesus’ hour of
glorification will be in His death and resurrection (12:23, 27; 17:1) and so any pre-emptive seizure
of Jesus outside of this plan is prevented because His hour had not yet come (7:30, 8:20). His
mother’s expectation that Jesus would involve Himself in the wine shortage in Cana is met with
this same statement that his time has not yet come (2:4). Even the revelation of the Father to the
disciples is according to a timetable (16:25, 32).
• The parables of Jesus in one sense are dealing with continuity of His own ministry, a pattern
which is to be anticipated in the future expansion of His kingdom. The seed of the Word is sown
with a variety of responses from rejection to faith. Understanding and faith are a gift from God and
faithlessness is the judgment of God. The parables themselves are instruments of this salvation and
judgment (Matt 13:1-23). His parables unveil the surprising nature of His kingdom, unlike any
other human empire, the children of the kingdom will only be revealed at the end, it appears to be

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weak and insignificant and yet is worth every effort to enter (Matt 13:24-52). Such teaching keeps
us from measuring success in worldly terms of popularity and power.
The parables of ‘the lost’ in Luke 15 teach that ‘numbers’ can be important in our planning. Lost
people matter to God and like Jesus we are to seek and to save each one. We should not be
embarrassed to speak of numbers, because each numerical target represents individuals who need
to know the Savior.
• The apostles are given a plan to fulfill by Christ on behalf of the Father. The commission
statements set out this plan to preach Christ and so disciple the nations. There is to be a movement
out geographically and ethnically from Judea to the world (Mt 28:16-20; Lk.24:45-49; John 20:21-
23; Acts 1:8).
• Paul’s missionary strategy is a huge subject which we can only touch upon here. For Paul his
conversion and commission to the ministry could not be separated. The gospel had been entrusted
to him (1 Tim 1:11-14; 2 Tim 1:11-12; Tit 1:3). His particular mission fulfills the prophetic word
that salvation should come to the gentiles (Acts 13:46-48). Paul too is the suffering servant of the
Messiah who affects his plan of saving the nations through the apostle. On several occasions Luke
reveals the process and rationale for Paul’s planning (Acts 13:1-3, 51; 14:1-3; 26-28; 16:6-10;
18:5-6;19:21-22; 20:22-24). Paul has a deliberate strategy but God’s sovereign intervention
through His Spirit meant that his plans had to change. It is often opposition which shapes his plans.
Paul’s strategy is ultimately subordinate to his Lord’s strategy.
Paul himself writes about his ministry plans. In 2Corinthians 1-2 Paul is dealing with issues raised
by his change of plans in visiting Corinth. Here he makes clear that his plans are governed by
God’s plan to fulfill all the prophetic promises in Christ, for His own glory (2 Cor. 1:12-22). He is
not making his plans ‘according to the flesh’ insincerely. In this case faithfulness involved a
change of plans.
•Disciples of Christ in all generations are under the same commission and plan of God to preach
Christ to the nations. Timothy, Titus and the overseers were entrusted with the same gospel and
mission to speak this word. The overall plan and purpose of the minister is set out clearly. They are
agents of God in fulfilling His plan (1 Tim 1:18-20; 3:2; 4:11-16; 6:20-21; 2 Tim 1:13-14; 2; 1-2;
4:1-2; Titus 1:7). The soldier, athlete and farmer are of necessity planners and diligent in
implementing their goals.

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• The description of the minister as a steward or manager implies the necessity of careful planning
and implementation. Jesus uses the image of the manager to train His disciples in their mission.
Not all disciples have the same responsibility, but to whom much is given, much is required (Luke
12:41-48). Similarly the dishonest manager is surprisingly a model of faithfulness and reward
(Luke 16:1-13). Ministers then are stewards of the mysteries of God in the gospel and so are
required to be faithful (1 Cor. 4:1-2; 9:17). God has a plan which he is managing through the
stewardship given to the apostle (Eph. 1:10, 3:2, 9; Col 1:25). All ministers, as overseers and
shepherds, are stewards of God’s grace in the word of the gospel (Tit 1:7; 1 Pet
4:10).
• The language of ‘building’ used for Christian ministry and building Christ’s church implies
Initiative and planning (1 Cor. 12, Rom 12, Eph. 4)
• The language of ‘maturity’ also indicates Paul has a ‘growth’ for the Church and individuals (Col
1:28-29; Eph. 4:13-16).
This brief survey of the Scriptures certainly provides a theological basis for working toward an
over-all purpose and mission. Also, Paul’s mission strategy and planning is a model for more
specific planning at the local ministry level.
4.2.3.1 Is Faithfulness Sufficient?
Evaluating Christian ministry is tricky. What is ‘successes? Faithfulness to Jesus Christ and His
word by living and preaching the gospel is fundamental, as seen from the image of being a
‘steward’. Paul’s letters to Corinth are often dealing with judgments made about his ministry in the
context of other ‘apostles’ who are competing for the hearts and minds of the believers. His basic
claim is that, although he is outwardly unimpressive, he has been faithful, building only on the
foundation of Jesus Christ and that God will give the growth. Ultimately it is God’s assessment
that matters (1 Cor. 1-4; 2 Cor. 10-12). This faithfulness entailed preserving both true doctrine and
pure motives. However the apostle has clear goals in his ministry. He is very clear minded about
what he is trying to accomplish and his basic strategy is to teach and apply the Word of God. From
1Corinthians, these outcomes included:
• The unifying of the church in Corinth (1:10)
• The preaching of Jesus Christ crucified (2:2)
• The imitation of Paul himself and so of Christ (4:16; 11:1)
• The expulsion of the wicked from among them (5:13)

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As we prayerfully minister the Word of God we will be seeking the progress of individuals and the
congregation in particular aspects of doctrine and godly living. These are effectively qualitative
goals.
Faithfulness includes Seeking to Achieve Ministry Expansion Goals. ‘Faithfulness’ can be misused
as an evaluation of ministry if it ‘lets us off the hook’ in striving to see the gospel grow in its
effects. Faithfulness also includes working to expand our ministries to reach new people and new
territory. With appropriate humility in the light of God’s sovereign grace, it is appropriate to have
quantitative or territorial goals. We are called to work for gospel expansion, given the commission
of Christ to make disciples of all nations. Christ’s kingdom will include people from every nation,
tribe, language and people (Rev 5:9-10; 14:6). Although Paul’s case has unique features as the
apostle to the Gentiles, his expansionary approach is a general model for ministry.
The gospel itself had begun in Jerusalem when it was preached there by the first apostles. His
claim to have ‘fulfilled the gospel of Christ’ is probably a reference to the scope of his missionary
activity: it included primary evangelism, the nurture of Christians and the establishment of settled
congregations.
Paul is not suggesting that he has evangelized all the small towns and country districts of these
eastern regions, much less that he had preached the gospel to every person there …
Paul’s completing the gospel in key centers of the eastern Mediterranean was consistent with his
all consuming passion of proclaiming the gospel where Christ had not been acknowledged or
worshipped. Making it his aim to preach Christ in a pioneer situation was supported by the OT
Scriptures, Paul is conscious of the geographical limits of the mission given him by God. His
‘boasting’ to defend his ministry to the Corinthians recognized that God had assigned to Paul and
his colleagues a particular field that included them. He hoped that through them he would be able
expand their activity to the regions beyond them. But Paul refused to ‘boast’ about work done in
another man’s territory (2Cor 10:12-18).
In other places Paul refers to the expansionary nature of his ministry. He teaches everyone so that
all will be perfect in Christ (Col 1:28). His ministry in Ephesus resulted in ‘all the Jews and
Greeks in the province of Asia’ hearing the word of the Lord. His strategy was both public and
household proclamation (Acts 19:10; 20:20). He worked to reach more and more people.

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 4.2.3.2 Strategic Mission of People to reach with the Gospel
In this sense everyone is ‘strategic’ to reach with the gospel but some people or groups are
strategic because through them others can be reached. This is a matter of wisdom and priority. We
should reach parents because they are to teach children. Communities have cultural gatekeepers
who shape the community’s view of reality and values, so it might be a priority to reach them.
Reaching immigrants in their adopted country might open up fields in their home country. Perhaps
we should expend resources on groups more open to the gospel, but this cannot be an absolute
strategy, for we do not know in whom God may be working for salvation. Some practical missions
done by our Lord Jesus Christ and ordered to His Disciples to follow are stated below:
I. Demonstration
Jesus demonstrated how the disciples should live the Christ centered life. One reason Jesus had
such a lasting impact on His disciples is that He lived the message before them daily. He was the
message and the method. By walking with Jesus, they saw how He lived His faith in the real
world. He prayed before them. He fed the poor. He had compassion on the multitude. He healed
the sick. In other words, He lived the life that He wanted to reproduce in His disciples. After Jesus’
death and resurrection, He expected His disciples to say and do what He said and did.
It is important that we practice what we preach, because the people we are training will follow our
life and example. It is not enough to preach the gospel; we have to practice it daily. Our personal
walk with God is one of the most important factors in developing godly leaders. We will reproduce
what we are. The most powerful message is a life lived for God. Make sure that the life you live is
worthy for others to follow.
II. Delegation
Jesus assigned His disciples work. He developed His disciples by delegating ministry
responsibilities to them. He sent His disciples out and gave them real ministry. Hands on
experience were a vital part of Jesus’ discipleship curriculum. It’s funny that churches make
people do things even Jesus did not do. Some churches make people go through a yearlong process
before they can serve in any capacity in the church. Likewise, some people spend years in college
and seminary with little if any real ministry involvement. Churches need to rethink delegating
spiritual responsibility to people, especially new believers. Is it any wonder our discipleship is
often anemic? Sadly, most people think the priests are supposed to do everything in the church.
We must not forget the power of involving people in ministry.

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III. Supervision
Supervision is important. Jesus supervised His disciples. Whenever they returned from a ministry
trip, they would report to Him. This allowed a time for the disciples to reflect, review, and to
receive instruction from Jesus. Supervision is an important part of leadership development,
especially when dealing with new believers. We want to delegate and empower people to act, but
we also need to help supervise them to make sure they stay on track. Many times people will get
into trouble without proper supervision. Supervision is an art. On the one hand, if we are not
careful, we can micro-manage people. On the other hand, we can be so loose that we don’t
supervise people at all.
IV. Reproduction
Jesus expected His disciples to reproduce His likeness in others. He imparted His message and
mission to His disciples so that they would reproduce themselves in others and make disciples of
all nations. The Great Commission implies that the followers of Jesus will reproduce themselves
and “Make disciples.” Reproduction is how the Christian movement was born.
We want to return to the analogy of the Vine in John 15:1-17. The purpose of the Vine (Jesus) and
the branches (us) is to bear fruit. Christians are to work for and expect a harvest (Matthew 9:37-38;
Luke 10:2). Let us commit our lives and our churches to reproducing ourselves in others in order
to make disciples of our communities and our world.
We need to rediscover the reproductive nature of the church. We are called to select, train, and
send missional Disciples of Christ out into the world who will be able repeat the process of
discipleship. What we need in our day is an organic disciple making movement that will train and
send men and women to be reproducing Disciples of Christ.
V. Consecration
Jesus expected His followers to obey Him. He sought to create in His disciples a lifestyle of
consecrated obedience. Discipleship is about a total consecration to the Lord. As disciples, we
need to submit and obey God’s word and plan for our lives. However, many of us have trouble
submitting. We live in an individualistic culture where people do not want anyone else telling us
what to do. That is why submission and obedience to God is so hard as well as important. When
we become obedient to God in every area of our lives, we will experience victorious Christian
living. God can only use men and women who are willing to obey Him.
VI. Impartation

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Jesus gave himself away to His disciples by imparting to them everything that was necessary to
His disciples. He gave Himself freely. He imparted not only Himself, but also spiritual truth about
life and ministry. He taught them about the scriptures and the Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus imparted
Himself to His disciples, we must seek to give ourselves to the men and women that we are called
to serve. There is a transfer of godly wisdom and character when true discipleship takes place. As
leaders, it is important for us to grasp that we have a spiritual responsibility to impart ourselves in
others if we are going to make disciples.

IV.2.3 What are the Dangers of Strategic Planning in Mission?

• Arrogance: Only by God’s will do we execute any plan or business (James 4:13-17)
• Triumphalism: It is right to make plans to preach Christ to all but the outcome is God’s. He may
choose to judge the hearers for their rebellion and harden their hearts. His Ministers and the church
may be seen as powerless and foolish rather than attractive and victorious. God reverses all human
notions of establishing a kingdom. This is epitomized in the cross (1 Cor. 1-4; 2 Cor. 10-12).
• Loss of individual worth: We must never lose sight of the individual, the little one who is
welcomed by Christ (Mt 18:1-14). Thinking strategically about ministry never discounts the value
of each person. However some ministries are strategic in the sense of training others who can reach
more individuals.
• Pragmatism: We must not distort the gospel, making it more palatable, to achieve our goals.
This is the essence of unfaithfulness (2Cor 4; 2 Tim 4:3-5)
• Activism: We easily slip into thinking that by developing the right strategy and programmes and
‘turning the handle’, the results will come.
• Ungodly motives: Motives are important to God because He requires a pure heart. He knows our
true motives and they will be exposed in the end (1Cor 4:1-5). Goal setting can exacerbate the
problem of ministering to please others. So we become some Combination of proud, dishonest, and
depressed.
Prayerlessness: reveals that we have succumbed to these dangers. We stop praying regularly and
earnestly for people and our ministries, tending to rely on our activity rather than God’s and not
dealing with ungodly motives. Paul’s pattern of calling upon the churches to help him in his work
by prayer, is a model for us (Rom 15:30; 2 Cor. 11:1; Philip 1:19).

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