Spreading the Good News of Jesus

Mission is the reason the Church exists and the Church joins Jesus on His mission. And, this mission is from everywhere to everywhere.

Christians are to be both engaged in missions—the international pursuit to preach the gospel to all corners of the earth—and be missional each and every day. Being missional conveys the idea of living on a purposeful, biblical mission.

The Great Commission Points Us to Missions in the Nations

Many Christians embrace one particular commission of Jesus without considering the context of Jesus’ original audience or His other commissions. It’s helpful to understand the Great Commission (Matt 28:16–20) in light of the context in which the commission was given.

For example, many of us are familiar with what has traditionally been termed the Pauline approach to missions: go out and plant churches. It’s derived from the life of Paul, building upon Jesus’ command to be witnesses in “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). But it is also closely related to Matthew 28 and Jesus’ command to “Go and make disciples of all nations.” In a sense, Paul personified the Great Commission in his ministry. Jesus’ original hearers understood that, in giving the Great Commission, Jesus was making a paradigm shift in regard to missions.

The Old Testament depicts a clear God-given vision—that the nations would come to Jerusalem to worship with the one, true God. It was a very centripetal mission—from the edges (the nations) to the center (the temple in Jerusalem; e.g., Isa 2:1–5). Jesus is explaining that now His people need to go out and that He will go with them (compare John 14:15–31).

Jesus’ earliest followers understood that the Great Commission meant more than simply telling their neighbor about Christ because they went far beyond next door. The Great Commission includes your neighbor, but the context was much more than your neighbor.

Acts 1:8 is literally lived out in the book of Acts. It points out that something has changed—the mission is no longer centripetal but centrifugal. So, rather than bringing the nations up to Jerusalem, the people went out from Jerusalem. They went out from Jerusalem to Judaea, Samaria, and the ends of their earth.

The Great Commission is the backbone of the missions movement and expresses God’s expressed desire to be praised by everyone, all over the world. But God still desires us to reach our neighbor.

The Johannine Commission Points Us to Mission to Our Neighbor

When the Church’s focus is solely on international missions, it becomes easy to think of ways to reach remote areas of the world but not engage our own neighborhood. This is where Jesus’ commission in John 20:21 comes into play and a subsequent Johannine approach to mission: It points to living in a missional way wherever you are. Jesus speaks to His disciples, explaining that He is sending them as His Father has sent Him. Thus, the Bible teaches everyone is sent to continue Jesus’ mission (John 20:21) and that everyone is called to the ministry (1 Pet 4:10). The only questions are to where, among whom, and doing what.

Embracing the John 20:21 commission has ignited a revival for churches to embrace mission locally. For example, many American churches are now able to see North America as a mission field, which it is.

Mission and Missions

Mission and being missional need to be integrated into our lives. Missional churches—those focused on living in a missional way wherever we are—must remember that Jesus called us to reach people where the gospel is not. We need to be missional, living as agents of God’s mission in context, but we can’t take John 20:21 in isolation without also remembering Matthew 28:18–20 and Acts 1:8. Likewise, churches focused on international missions must also remember their mission to their neighborhood and own country. We need missional churches and to be engaged in global missions because both are clearly articulated in the teachings of Jesus and the actions of the disciples.1

Ed Stetzer