Exciting! Remarkable! Thrilling! Breath-taking! I’ll even use the much-overused exclamation, Awesome!

These, and so many other vivid words, just begin to capture the excitement of God’s work in the world that we call (rather blandly): Missions (or sometimes Home Missions and Foreign Missions).

In all of our very legitimate concerns for both the Church and the world, we lose sight of the fact that over less than two millennia we have witnessed the most remarkable growth of the Kingdom of God in the world. Beginning with 3,000 converted to Jesus the Messiah on the day of Pentecost, we have come to a day in which about 1/3 of the approximately 7 billion people who inhabit the six of our inhabited continents are, in one way or another, identified with the true Jesus Movement: Christian faith and the Christian Church.

From the missionary tours of the Apostle Paul and his associates in the Bible book of Acts, through the evangelistic efforts of the early Christians who were “scattered abroad” bringing the message of the good
news of Christ’s victory over sin and death, into the centuries of what has been called The Spreading Flame– Christian missionary labors of all sorts, and to our present day when “Foreign Missions” and “Home Missions” unite through media (like this radio program) that can reach locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally simultaneously – you can’t escape seeing the outworking of King Jesus’ command to “Go, and make disciples of all of the nations.”  Like the tiny mustard seed that grows into a large tree, or the
smidgen of leaven that eventually leavens a whole lump of dough, so – just as Jesus predicted – the Kingdom of God is expanding year by year, century by century – and is filling the earth with its influence on the hearts
of men, women, children, families, extended families, tribes, and nations.

This is not to say that the picture of God’s missionary work in the world was (or is) always a rosy one:

  • For centuries (and up to the present), the purity of the Christian faith has often been compromised by blending it with anti-Christian religions, philosophies, customs, and mindsets.
  • Formal identification with Christ by Christian baptism was (and is today) too often separated from the lifelong discipleship process of teaching the baptized to keep “all that (Christ) commanded” as
    both the fulfillment of the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the substance and cornerstone of the New Testament.
  • And when such teaching IS done, the teaching has been (and still is) all too often doctrinally deficient or blatantly incorrect.
  • Then, add to all of this, the challenges of non-Christian religions and antagonistic governments and other power structures that – humanly speaking – pose either formidable competition or fearful opposition to the growth of the Christian church in the world. As Jesus Himself taught us, Gospel- wheat will always be in the midst of anti-Gospel weeds. And weeds constantly threaten the growth of healthy plants.

Particularly since the time of the Protestant Reformation of the 16 th century, Christian leaders have given much thought to missions (both home and foreign missions) – both in principle and in practice. Convinced that “God’s grace is growing” in the world, some of the greatest minds and hearts of Christendom in the past five hundred years have analyzed – through the lens of Holy Scripture – how God (the great Missionary), by His Word and Spirit, is saving people, establishing churches, kindling the fires of the revival of true religion, and gathering together the Church universal.

And some of the greatest laborers during that same time period have put into practice missionary efforts to preach the Gospel, to teach the whole counsel of God given in Holy Scripture, to harness the gifts the reigning Jesus gives to His people, and to unleash the gifts and those who possess them for innumerable “mission fields” that further the eternal well-being of all classes of people in, literally, every nation on earth.

Exciting! Remarkable! Thrilling! Breath-taking! Awesome! Those are the words to describe God’s missionary work in the world – particularly the work of seeing that the Gospel is brought to people of every tongue, tribe, and nation.

But how do we do God’s work in God’s way? What are the basic biblical principles that form a framework for thinking about missions – especially foreign missions? And how do we fill in the picture, so that the way we look at the enterprise of bringing the good news of the Kingdom of God to all the earth is the way God Himself wants us to see the picture? That’s what we’ll begin to explore on today’s edition of A Visit to the Pastor’s Study: Missions: Doing God’s Work in God’s Way.

There’s no doubt that my guest today is well qualified to talk with us about this subject – a theme that goes right to the heart of God Himself. Mark Bube was trained and served as a lawyer for many years before – over a quarter of a century ago – he was called to serve as General Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Missions for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In this capacity (and as one of the official representatives of the foreign missions delegations of groups like the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council and the International Conference of Reformed Churches), Mark has traveled throughout the world investigating, encouraging, facilitating, and promoting the work of biblically faithful foreign missions. I don’t know of anyone more steeped in the fascinating history of foreign missions, and more articulate in explaining how foreign missions – in fact, all mission work – is to be done according to God’s Word both in principle and in practice.

Today he joins us to help us think through Missions: Doing God’s Work in God’s Way. Mark Bube, welcome to A Visit to the Pastor’s Study…

Here’s a link to the full program:

Yours in the King of Kings,
Pastor Bill