By Rollin Grams, Bible and Mission.
Scripture—Old and New Testaments–offers many passages on ‘mission’. It is a major theme in the Bible even though the word does not appear in the Hebrew and Greek and only four times in the English Standard Version. (The English word comes from the Latin, mittere, to send.) One important text for the Church’s understanding of mission is Acts 13.1-3, which gives a very abbreviated narrative of a particular group of Christians in the city of Antioch (today in Turkey). They are part of the Antioch Christian Community but seem to form a special Antioch Mission, and they send two of their members on a new sort of Christian mission.
Thinking about this mission, we might also draw out some lessons for ongoing mission today. Barnabas and Paul are sent out on a mission to the Gentiles in distant lands, reaching beyond the Hebrew and Hellenistic Jews. Luke writes:
Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a lifelong friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” 3 Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the mission is God’s. This is not the ‘missio Dei‘ theology that has been touted by those uncomfortable with the exclusive message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and with the exclusivity of the Church. Quite the opposite. By this point in Acts ,we know what the mission is all about: a proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ for the whole world. This message is not formulated as an aid agency or any good works promulgated internationally. It is message-centric. What can the delivery of the Good News that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead mean to each person in every culture? The answer is that it creates communities of believers who, like exclusive Israel in the Old Testament, give exclusive devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. These communities or assemblies, churches, become communities of faith, love, and hope. The mission is Jesus, the ministry is the church’s. When people broaden the ‘mission’ beyond activities like Bible translation, evangelism, church planting, and teaching for the church, it is not ‘holistic’ but diluted. The church has many ministries, but there is one mission, and Luke offers many illustrations of this in Acts.