Discussion from Contemporary Theological Issues Class at Baptist Bible Seminary- My Reply to Other Students Reply

Be sure to read the previous post before this one.

In short, I reject the reactionary position that the church is to be summarized solely as missional. Mission is an essential part of the church, but it is only one of many essential parts. God is love, but it is wrong to say that love is God. Similarly, the Church is to be missional, but mission is not to be the Church.

I want to add some thoughts and through out some questions.

I am still trying to wrap my mind around all of this and have made some harsh comments in other discussions. But if the church doesn't take the role as the primary means of "missions", who does? Matthew 28:18-20 says,

18And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

The main verb here is "make disciples." We are to go make disciples, baptize those disciples, and teach those disciples. Now I don't know what order the last two (baptize and teach) come but we have to go to those people in order to let them know about Jesus. Evangelism only happens when we go to them. Sure we can invite them to our church and our pastor can evangelize to them but I pray we have already been evangelizing before they get to church. The gospel has to connect to every aspect of our ministry. Everything we are about has to be evangelizing. Why do we do what we do? Because of the gospel. Why do we believe what we believe? Because of the gospel.

What are we training our people for? Ephesians 4:12 "...for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ." How does the body of Christ build? By first evangelizing. The building has to grow in order to remain healthy. Just like us. We have to keep growing. We can not grow if parts start to die. And I think alot of churches are doing this today. We are so inward focused. You made the comment, "but I would suggest that the Scriptures indicate that our first and primary focus is to be on loving and meeting the needs of other believers" but I ask...How do those believers become believers? Can we really say that the primary focus is to be on loving and meeting the needs of other believers if we aren't creating other believers. Eventually those believers are going to die and then what? So what becomes the primary focus then?

I want to continue challenging this with a thought on being too "Jewish" in our thoughts. We can't discredit the unsaved public because we were apart of them at one point. The comment we made "I am unable to think of a text that exhorts the church specifically to meet the needs of non-Christian widows in the surrounding community." Let me help you with a couple. Mark 7:24-30 talks of a Canaanite woman that begged Jesus to heal her demon possessed daughter. Jesus and His disciples both strugged her off but she persisted to the point of going into the house and getting on her stomach, prostrate before Jesus' feet under the table in which He was eating. He became amazed by her faith and healed her daughter. But here is the point. Why did He help her? She was a gentile "dog" (grk. "puppy"). Because she recognized Him as Lord. She wasn't apart of Israel which He says in Matthew 15:24 that He was here only for the lost sheep of Israel. Not Canaan. Jesus extends a "mini-blessing" to this woman.

The second comes in the garden of Gethsemane. In John 17 Jesus prays threefold; He prays for Himself, His disciples, His disciples disciples. In verses 17 and 18 it says; John 17:17-18 17 "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. 18 "As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Jesus here again places an importance on going into the world. He even says that He sends them (the apostles). Then in verses 20-26 Jesus prays for me and you and everybody that is going to "believe in Me throgh their [the apostles] message." He prays that the world may know! Know what? Jesus as the Son of God the Father!

Now my goal in this long post is not to sound like I am on board with the Emerging Church in anyway but draw attention to the fact that they may be right in this area. The book of Ephesians stresses the point on the building of the Church but the goal isn't to just fill eachother full of knowledge. It is to prepare everyone for the "work of the ministry." In Ephesians 3 Paul talks about how he proclaimed "the mystery." What is this mystery"? It's the gospel! So back to my earlier point. The gospel has to be connected to every aspect of our ministry and our Christian lives. I believe that we have created these really good clubs that talk about, learn about, and sing about Jesus. But we really can't call ourselves a New Testament church, one that is concerned for Christless souls and does something about it, if we really aren't making the gospel THE priority.