Why missions concern us

🎯 Objectives

By the end of this lesson you will be able to:

• explain why mission in difficult settings concerns every believer and every church, not just a few specialists;
• recognize that the missionary mandate runs through all the Gospels and Acts;
• describe the path of this course: God’s mission, suffering, cultures, calling.

📖 Receive

Read slowly this passage, which closes the Gospel of Matthew:

“Go ye therefore, and 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: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” — Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV)

Then read Romans 10:13-15. Pause on Paul’s questions: how shall they call, how shall they believe, how shall they hear? These are the questions this course starts from.

🔍 Examine

A hard letter to write

In the early nineteenth century a young American, Adoniram Judson, learned that in Burma, today’s Myanmar, there was practically no Christian witness. It was a closed country, hostile to foreigners. Adoniram wanted to marry Ann and go there with her. So he wrote her father a letter that has become famous: he asked whether he could consent to let his daughter leave, knowing he might never see her again, exposed to the dangers of the sea, to disease, to persecution and perhaps to a violent death. And he added: for the sake of the One who left heaven to die for her and for you.

With sorrow, the father replied that he would not stand in the way. The Judsons sailed in 1812. What could move two young people to such a radical choice? This question will stay with us until the last lesson.

A mandate that runs through all the Gospels

Sometimes we think of the “Great Commission” as a single verse at the end of Matthew. In fact every Gospel, and Acts too, closes with a sending:

• Matthew 28:18-20: go and make disciples of all nations;
• Mark 16:15: preach the Gospel to every creature;
• Luke 24:46-48: repentance should be preached in his name among all nations, and you are witnesses of these things;
• John 20:21: as the Father has sent me, so I send you;
• Acts 1:8: you shall be my witnesses to the uttermost part of the earth.

Five different books, five angles, one message: the risen Christ sends his people. Mission is not an appendix to the Gospel; it is the way the Gospel has reached us and goes beyond us.

Box: the chain of Romans 10

Paul builds a chain backwards: to be saved one must call on the Lord; to call on him one must believe; to believe one must hear; to hear someone must preach; to preach someone must be sent (Romans 10:13-15). If one link is missing, the chain breaks.

Where the church grows

One fact surprises many Western believers: in several regions of the world the church grows precisely where it is under pressure. Not because suffering is good in itself, but because God is faithful and his children learn to depend on him without human supports. Already in the early centuries people said that the blood of the martyrs was the seed of new Christians.

The persecuted church has much to teach the church that lives in freedom: patience, prayer, fellowship, humble courage. Studying missions “in hard places” also means letting these brothers and sisters teach us.

An imbalance worth knowing

Mission scholars have long pointed out an imbalance: the vast majority of missionaries and financial resources remain among peoples where the Gospel is already known or has been present for centuries. Only a very small share reaches the so-called unreached peoples, that is, groups among whom there is not yet a church able to evangelize its own people.

This is not about setting “here” against “there”: the need is real close to home too. But if we only say “there is so much to do here”, we risk forgetting those who have never heard the name of Jesus.

Who are the “unreached peoples”?

The expression may sound technical, but it describes a simple reality. A people is “unreached” when there is not yet within it a community of believers large and mature enough to proclaim the Gospel to the rest of its own people without outside help. It does not mean there are no Christians at all; it means that, without someone coming from outside, most people might live and die without ever hearing about Jesus in a way they can understand.

These peoples often live in regions where Christian witness is limited by law or by social pressure. That is why we speak of “hard places”: places where proclaiming Christ is costly, and where patience, wisdom and a praying, supporting church are needed.

Our own lands are changing too

Finally, a reason very close to us. In the West, too, there is growing impatience with Christian convictions. This is not persecution in the sense that many brothers and sisters around the world experience it, and it is good not to confuse the two. But it reminds us that our own lands can also become “hard”. Learning from believers who live under pressure prepares us to be faithful in any setting.

The path of the course

In this course we will go through four stages:

1. God’s mission in the Scriptures: the great story in which God sends and gives us a role.
2. A theology of suffering: why a church that does not know how to suffer also struggles to persevere.
3. The Gospel in every culture: guilt, shame and fear, and a Gospel proclaimed in all its dimensions.
4. The calling: myths and truths about who goes, who sends and how we discern together.

Mission in a diagram

To hold together the reasons we have seen so far, you can picture mission as a movement that starts from God and returns to God. The diagram below summarizes the path: God loves the world and sends the Son; the Son sends the church with the Spirit; the church crosses geographical, cultural and language barriers; new communities are born which, in turn, become able to send.

flowchart LR
  A["God loves the world"] --> B["He sends the Son"]
  B --> C["The Son sends the church"]
  C --> D["The church crosses barriers"]
  D --> E["New churches are born"]
  E --> F["They in turn send"]
  F --> G["Praise from every people"]

Notice the last box: the final goal is not an efficient organization, but the praise of God from every people (Revelation 7:9-10). When mission loses this horizon, it risks becoming activism or propaganda. When it keeps it, even the most hidden service finds meaning.

This diagram will also help you read the following lessons. In the first module we will see where mission comes from (the first boxes); in the second, what it costs to cross barriers; in the third, how the Gospel speaks to different cultures; in the fourth, what place you have in this movement.

Question	Where we will address it
Why does mission exist?	Module 1
What does it cost?	Module 2
How does it speak to every culture?	Module 3
What is my role?	Module 4

🔗 Connect

Mission does not begin in the New Testament. Already to Abraham God promises: “in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 12:3, KJV). And Revelation shows us the end of the story: a great multitude of all nations, kindreds, peoples and tongues before the throne of the Lamb (Revelation 7:9).

From the first book to the last, the Bible tells of a God who wants to be known and worshiped by all peoples. With the BereaWay Method you receive the text, examine it in its context and connect it to the whole of Scripture: in this course you will see that mission is one of the threads that hold the entire Bible together.

🙏 Apply

Take a few minutes to answer, on your own or with your group:

1. Before this lesson, did you think of mission as something that concerns “others”? What has changed?
2. Do you know a missionary or a believer who lives in a difficult setting? How can you pray for them concretely this week?
3. What place does mission have in your church: in prayer, in teaching, in the budget?
4. Read Romans 10:14-15 again. In which link of the chain do you sense God asking you to be present today: praying, sending, going, proclaiming?

📚 Go Deeper

• Read the five “commissions” one after another (Matthew 28:18-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:46-48; John 20:21; Acts 1:8) and note what each one emphasizes.
• Read Acts 13:1-3: how the church in Antioch becomes a sending church.
• Learn about a people or region where Christians live under pressure, using reliable Christian sources, and begin to pray for them regularly.

In the next lesson we will open the Old Testament to discover the “divine drama”: the great story in which God is director and protagonist, yet also gives us a part.