By
Kennedy O Owiti1
I had the privilege of attending this year’s Reformed
Conference in Zambia’s beautiful capital, Lusaka. The theme of the conference
this time was “Missions- Not Beyond Our Reach”
In this series, I intend to recap, as simply as I can, some
of the lessons God was pleased to help me learn. Obviously, it is hard to put
it down word for word, yet I trust that with the enabling of the spirit of God,
those who read these summaries will be able to learn something of value for
their own walk with God as believers in Christ.
Inculcating mission mindedness in the
family- By Pastor Voddie Baucham
Introduction
It must be agreed that all christians have a part to play in
the mission work of the church. This is obviously for the reason that all of
the saved are priests with Christ, he being the chief high priest. Many
christians are obviously aware of the great commission that Christ
directed his followers to in Mathew 28:16-20 and so many christians think that
the work of missions is only a New Testament phenomenon. We rarely notice
missions in the Old Testament often because of:-
·
fixation on the great commission of Christ,
·
a general lack of familiarity with the Old
Testament;
Pastor Baucham argued that the
Dominion Mandate in Genesis 1:28 itself amounted to a mission to man to rule
and subdue the world in specific manner, to multiply and generally enhance
life, for God’s glory. Later as Moses is
sent to take out the Israelites out of Egypt, God uses the plagues in the
battle against Pharaoh so that men may
know that there is none like God in all the earth [Exodus 9:14-16]. Indeed
God’s intention is then that His name may be proclaimed in all the earth. Do
you not see mission in that? All the major and minor prophets in various
sections of the Old Testament also indicate that the missions of God to man
were variously given with the ultimate aim of the name of God being known and
therefore being glorified in all the earth.
The New Testament is replete with
missions given to men to declare the glory of the Lord God. In Mathew 6:9-13;
the Lord Jesus Christ teaches his disciples how to pray in what is famously
referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer” and there at verse 10 he says;
“your kingdom
come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…”
The foregoing means, in part,
that the rulership of God, his fame and glory in heaven, where he is obeyed
fully and most perfectly as the holy, majestic and most glorified God should be
replicated in all the earth. Now that can only happen if God is known in all
the earth! It goes without saying then that we have there, an implied mission
to make God known in all the earth.
Later in Mathew 10:18, Christ
tells the disciples that on his account, they “will be brought before governors
and kings as witnesses to them and to the gentiles”- a clear indication that
Christ’s followers are expect to be in mission work by virtue of the fact of
their being such followers!
A reading through various
passages in the other Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline literature as
well as Revelation, shows that God directs us to mission work. This is the only
way that the great multitude revealed to John in Revelation 7:9 gets to be
realized. There the word of God says;
“After this I
looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from
every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in
front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches
in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation
belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb”
Conclusion
We can say the following confidently;
·
God has always been on “mission”
·
God has always called/taught/expected his people
to be on mission
·
The whole of biblical revelation is mission
oriented in nature and scope
