Biblical Basis of Missions - Tim

I have not been keeping up with this blog very well, but here is something I wrote back in the early weeks of the Mission Training School:

In the Bible, if we pay attention we see that God always intended for Israel to be a blessing to all nations. We can see the basis of missions from the very beginning and all the way through the Bible and not just the New Testament. Many times we treat Israel in a way that is untrue to scripture; we act like God loved Israel more than the other nations. This viewpoint is simply not correct and it requires ignoring hundreds of verses. Israel was chosen, but not special. God chose Israel and blessed Israel, but then he commanded Israel to be a blessing to other nations. Israel did not bless the other nations. God was forced to disperse them throughout the known world. In Diaspora, Jews again obeyed God and as a result they again became salt and light to the nations in which they lived.

We do the same thing with our faith and our blessings. We like to see the top-line blessing in the Bible, but it is easy to ignore the bottom line command to be a blessing to others.

The Biblical basis of Missions is that God is above all things; what I mean is, is that he is the only thing in the universe worthy of worship. This is not arrogant or cocky because God is not only worthy of all worship, but for Him to desire the worship or the greatest good of anything other than himself would be false. How could we worship or rely on a God who thought higher of something other than himself? What should God worship? Us. The earth. Satan. None of these are good options. The glory and worship of God is more important than all things.

Of course, it is important to note that when we say He desires His Name to be worshipped, we are synonymously also saying that he desires for all people to be happy and to live in joy. This is a result of the fact that God is love. These two statements may not seem to be the same thing, but they are. This has significantly simplified my explanation on the purpose of my life. At its most basic explanation, my purpose in life is to reflect God’s glory back to Him. It’s as simple as that.

God not only desires his Name to be proclaimed above all things, but also it is clear in the Bible that God wants His Name to proclaimed above all else, by all nations, all ethnae, or people groups. His name is not being worshipped by all nations and because of this fact we have the temporary thing called missions. “Worship is the beginning and ending of missions.” (John Piper) Missions or Evangelism is always on the heart of God and should always be on our heart as well. His purpose was clear in the Old Testament and the purpose remains the same in the New Testament.

Finally in the New Testament, we have a method or more accurately a God-man by which man can be reconciled to God and the entire point of scripture fulfilled, but the Great Commission is not a last-minute thought or just an add-on command from Jesus. Rather the Great Commission is the culmination of the entire point of the Bible: For all peoples, nations, tribes, and tongues to worship God.