Missionaries

Missionaries

What is a missionary? “A person sent on a religious mission, esp. one sent to promote Christianity in a foreign country.” I like that definition – the word ‘especially’ means ‘but not exclusively’. If I use a little literary license, a missionary is one sent on a religious mission , especially one sent to promote Christianity anywhere. That, then, must also include ‘here’, wherever here is. If a missionary is sent to ‘promote Christianity’, then surely he is simply an evangelist.

You may wonder where all this may be leading? Well I think the word missionary is virtually redundant in the light of evangelism. Billy Graham was a missionary although he was better known as an evangelist. Reinhard Bonnke is a missionary, although he too is better known as an evangelist. So, I suppose, we should ask what exactly is a Christian evangelist. Again using a little literary license, an evangelist is one who bears witness to Jesus Christ by reason of preaching the Gospel to those who do not yet believe in Him.

So that’s why Jesus said, in Acts 1:8 “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Emphasis mine) !!!  With this definition, surely, we are ALL witnesses, or evangelists, or missionaries. This shines a whole new light on us as Christians. We are all called to witness – Jesus said so. He said that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us that we shall witness to Him “to the ends of the earth” – or in all the world. That was “when”, not “if”, by the way.

All of us receive power and become witnesses when the Holy Spirit comes upon us. That’s interesting. In the days of the first church, this would be when they were baptized. Repentance and conversion was followed almost immediately by baptism in water. Several records of the time witness to the fact that upon being baptised in water, new converts received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and came up out of the water speaking in tongues and prophesying!!

Now why doesn’t that happen these days? Why do we have to baptise, then teach all about these things, and then pray for them before anything like this happens?? Rhetorical question. We have lost something since the apostolic age. I think Peter, John, and all the rest of them would be amazed at the way we do things now. Amazed and probably appalled by our lack of faith and expectancy.

Missionaries weren’t trained then commissioned then sent out. They were simply sent out in the power of the Holy Spirit and they learnt on the fly as it were. As Paul said to the Corinthians, he came to them with no training, no wise and profound words, but simply with the power of the Holy Spirit and the signs and wonders accompanying.

We could do with some of this type of ‘missionary’ today – couldn’t we?