Is Your Mission Philosophy based on The New Convenient Version?
Two thousand years have passed since Jesus gave his disciples his parting command recorded in Acts 1:8,
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, then in all Judea and Samaria, then to the end of the earth.”
Did you spot the deliberate mistake? Maybe not, as it is only a subtle change but one that for hundreds of years has influenced the thinking of churches to the present day. The change of one small word can radically alter our understanding and practice of mission…the substitution of the word ‘and’ for the word ‘then’.
An Empowering Little Word Whereas many churches may prefer a mission philosophy based on The New Convenient Version, Jesus actually never once mentioned the word, ‘then’, but used a connecting word – ‘AND’!
“…and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, AND in all Judea AND Samaria, AND to the end of the earth.”
Why is this subtlety so significant? Because a philosophy that adopts a ‘then’ mentality gives us permission to think that Jerusalem is more important than Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.1 ‘And’ brings them together as equally important. ‘Then’ allows us the luxury of forgetting those beyond our boundaries and comfort zones, while we focus on reaching those nearest and most similar to ourselves. ‘And’ demands that we be aware of both. ‘Then’ allows us to pass on responsibility to someone else. ‘And’ empowers us to do both at the same time.
Not Given the Choice The key point of Jesus’ commission is that, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are to be witnesses for Him in all the four ‘areas’, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth, at the same time. God does not give us the choice of home or abroad, our own people or those from another culture. He challenges us with the all-inclusive, all-embracing vision of home AND abroad, our own culture AND other cultures, bearing witness to him both at the local level AND to the ends of the earth simultaneously.
One philosophy often used to support the ‘then’ mentality is that we should focus on and reach our Jerusalem (locality) first before attempting to go to those beyond our borders. However, Jesus did not instruct his first disciples to wait around in Jerusalem until the people of that city had been reached before proceeding to the next group, akin to some kind of stage-by-stage business marketing strategy. This would be like a Christian who will only witness to his family and friends before being a witness for Christ to others. The task in Jerusalem will never be fully completed and we will certainly never progress to the fourth and final ‘stage’ of being a witness to the ends of the earth people if we wait until we have reached those closer to home. There will always be more to do ‘at home’ that will keep us occupied and too busy to reach out to those further a field. If we as a church wait until we are ‘ready’, until we have the resources, until ‘the time’ is right, we may well find the time never comes.
Another reason given to support the ‘then’ philosophy is that we shouldn’t try and reach those beyond our immediate borders if we are not being successful in reaching those on our own doorsteps. This sounds right but is another way the enemy would seek to keep us contained within our own locality. The purpose of missions is to plant indigenous churches that are self-propagating, self-governing, and self-supporting. If we are waiting until we are functioning successfully at home before we reach out to those unreached with the gospel, the danger will be that we will seek to transplant what has been successful in our own church to a new setting where it doesn’t fit and is culturally inappropriate. The truth is, the gospel of Jesus Christ will work wherever as it is “the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes”.2 Jesus never said prove yourselves as a witness at home before being a witness somewhere else. He said, wait until you receive the power of the Holy Spirit and then ‘Go!’
Like Jerusalem or Antioch? Sadly, for all the good things that were happening in the church at Jerusalem, it does not give us the right example to imitate in relation to the Great Commission mandate, as for years they were reluctant to break out of familiar territory and only reached people like themselves – the Jews (see Acts 11:19). As a result of their unwillingness to embrace fully the Great Commission, their influence waned.
In contrast, the church in Antioch simultaneously became a witness across cultural and geographical boundaries, becoming the first truly multi-cultural and multi-ethnic church, reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of the third largest city in the Roman Empire, and in so doing replaced the church in Jerusalem as the most significant church in the Book of Acts. In addition, the church was prepared to release two key men (perhaps 40%) of their senior leadership team into apostolic mission ministry (Acts 13:1-3). Antioch therefore became a model of a sending church taking the gospel to the unreached and fulfilling the mandate of Acts 1:8.
A God-size Vision? God is always challenging us to extend our boundaries, enlarge our thinking and expand our vision. A vision for our local community is good but it needs to go beyond that. A vision for our nation is great but this is still too small. If you have a vision to reach your neighbourhood, your town, or even all of the UK, you’re seeing God’s heart for less than 1% of the world’s population. Stand up with an expanded vision of God’s whole heart for the uttermost parts of the world, and get to know the rest of your God.3
Are you motivated by ‘then’ or ‘and’? Is your church motivated by ‘then’ or ‘and’?
Why not let ‘and’ become a BIG little word and get involved in God’s agenda of letting the whole world know how great our God is? 4
“And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” (Matthew 24:14)
1 Jerusalem relates to our strategic starting point, usually our local community; Judea to our own nation or ethnic people group; Samaria to a similar but different people; the ends of the earth to a people of different language and culture, those remote and unreached. 2 Romans 1:16 3 Adapted from a quotation by Bob Sjogren 4 Some material in this article comes from a chapter in John Andrew’s book, Missions is Like a Box of Chocolates, published by ESB Resources.
