Let's Reform Christian Missions

Let’s reform Christian missions.  

One day, our family was together in the car and my father happened to mention a problem with one of the missionaries serving in our mission.  My older brother commented, ‘It seems that the only requirement to be a missionary is to be able to crawl across the border!’  After many years of missionary work on different continents, that once humourous comment from one little boy to his family has continued to ring in my ears.  Crawling across the border seems, at times, a higher requirement for missions when the requirements seem to be: (1) are you a Christian?, (2) do you ‘feel’ called?, and (3) have you raised your support?  I would like to focus on reforming missions with respect to theological education and mission training--one of several topics for reforming missions in our day.  (And I know there are exceptions to comments made here, with some great examples of good practice.)

I think, for example, of the Cambridge seven—missionaries at the end of the 1800s who, with an advanced level of education, committed themselves to mission work in China.  Preceding them was a skilled doctor already on the mission field.  You can read about them in J. C. Pollock’s biography, The Cambridge Seven.  Imagine if the mission force we fielded today were made up of highly trained, well-educated, and skilled missionaries.  One of the challenges the mission agency my parents worked with decades ago was that the understanding of ‘calling’ was so spiritualised that there was some pressure to accept people into ministry not because they were skilled but despite their lack of skills.  ‘God calls the meek and the lowly.’  Yes, He does.  But that does not stop them from getting the best training around.  Jesus turned fishermen into world-class apostles.

A number of mission agencies require some theological training.  It is very minimal, and nothing like what would be obtained through seminary training.  There are a few reasons for this under-educated mission force today.  First, seminary education is far too expensive—for anyone.  The Church needs to reform theological education in radical ways, and this should have happened twenty years ago already.  The expense of seminary education is especially challenging for missionaries, who are not paid large salaries by any means. 

Second, the notion of ‘missions’ has expanded greatly as ‘Evangelical’ mission theology and practice has emphasized holistic missions—that is, the notion that missions is not limited to evangelism, church planting, theological and ministry training, and Bible translation.  A holistic mission will have teachers, well-diggers, and, well, anything that can be framed as a service to others.  The plethora of mission ‘jobs’ has, to a large extent, reduced the pressure for some Bible school level of education, let alone seminary training.  Relatedly, we are forever being told things like, ‘Everyone is a missionary,’ or ‘Missions does not have to be over there, it is also right here.’  This is like saying, ‘We are a priesthood of believers, therefore nobody is a priest/pastor.’  Nor is ‘next-door ministry’ the same as foreign missions—if you think so, give it a try!  (Or don’t—please don’t!)

Third, missionaries are eager to get to the field, and education can stand in the way.  In fact, in my parents’ day, their mission board required both a basic, Bible school education and ministry experience before being sent to the field.  While missionaries can easily be sent early and then educated on the field today (such as through online studies), many missionaries find themselves overwhelmed with life and ministry once on the field and hard-pressed to add a programme of study on top of this (but they could—and this is one possible solution to the problem). 

Fourth, the trend in the West, at least (including in countries like South Africa), is towards non-denominational churches.  This is a result, in part, of mainline denominations giving up orthodoxy and, in part, frustration with the alternative denominational structures and definitions.  That is a discussion for another time.  The result of this, though, is that these non-denominational churches themselves are under no pressure to educate their ministers, let alone value education for their missionaries.  They might more likely appoint someone to minister and then suggest some theological education afterwards.  But the sending ‘group’ is not greatly committed to theological education for ministry preparation. 

Fifth, a number of large mission agencies (and there are some great exceptions) that are non-denominational—and therefore lack denominational standards—do not want to scare off recruits with too high standards.  The agencies may be dependent on a constant flow of new recruits contributing a percentage of their fund-raising to the mission as missionaries come off the field and leave the mission.  Standards cannot easily be elevated in the non-denominational world of church and missions. 

Sixth, undertrained missionaries might not be able to get away with being poorly trained if they are, say, pilots, but they often can get away with it if they are involved in lay theological education—study groups, discipleship training, and the like.  One reason for this is that only about 5% of all those in ministry in the world have had any formal theological education.  The problem of people without any ministerial training—let alone theological education—is so bad in South Africa that the government is threatening to require churches to have ministers with some education.  (There can be nothing good about government control of the Church, but the Church needs to wake up and set its own standards.)  In such a climate, how much more education does a missionary need? 

It is thought that Jesus’ ministry lasted three years (the reasoning does not make sense to me, but I’ll go with the idea it lasted awhile).  Was it because he wanted to heal one more person in another village?  Certainly, he wanted his kingdom message and ministry to reach the villages and towns of Israel—but this is accomplished by Matthew 10.  I appreciate that the Gospels are not chronologically arranged, but there was still more to Jesus’ ministry.  It is captured in the fact that those whom he called were called ‘disciples’—students.  Jesus’ public ministry took place around his teaching of his disciples.  When this training was completed, Jesus ended his earthly ministry by going to his death in Jerusalem.  Whether they could read or not, could speak Greek or not, knew the Scriptures or not, understood the plan of God or not (they didn’t) at the beginning of their calling as disciples, they were educated by Jesus in all this by the end of their in-service training.  This same approach to training for ministry—and missions—today could easily be replicated.

So, let’s reform missions.  Let’s send our ‘Navy Seals’ team, not our ‘Crawl Across the Border’ team.  Let the best of the best be recruited and sent by the united churches.  This starts with having a clearer understanding of ‘mission’ than the blurry concept of ‘holistic missions’ that we have had. 

It also involves sending-churches networking together (the independent church is the death of missions.)  These networks must define, articulate, and fund the mission.  They are the ones to send missionaries, support them, encourage them, and enable them.  Right now, most of Evangelical missions is turned upside down, with missionaries having to run around to independent churches and try to get funding.  Where this is the case, it is a fundamental dereliction of duty on the part of the Church/the churches. 

We can solve the problem of theological education/ministry training mentioned above, but it will require radical changes.  The first ‘error’ in theological education is to understand it as academic education, mirroring tertiary education of the colleges and universities.  What made this work in the past was lower costs in education, a still-Christian ethos in the culture that meant that higher educational institutions were Church-friendly, and denominations that practiced internships or curacy as they received and further-trained graduates for ministry.  Today, the Church must take back theological education entirely.  This is not in the least a suggestion to lower academic standards.  In fact, the cultural changes in the West are so undermining the academic integrity of the universities that the Church needs to own the educational process, not turn it over to institutions.  There is a lot to be said here, but one benefit of doing so will be to reduce the costs of education radically.  Another benefit will be that training may last as long as desired—it might even be life-long learning (why not?).  A third is that people will be trained for the work needed—and missionaries would get the theological training they need without trying to involve costly seminaries.  Most importantly, such education would have nothing to do with government loans for education—an albatross around the neck of Christian education that will ultimately (I am surprised it has not already) bring about its downfall. 

Also, the need for missions is too great to have so many missionaries.  I must admit that I love the irony of that statement.  Imagine, however, a military campaign against a formidable foe that enlisted a rag-tag army of farmers and persons without the greatest commitment to the cause.  They are there because they can be and not much more.  This was Gideon’s situation as God told him to cut back his forces for the fight (Judges 7).  God’s reasoning was that a large force would claim glory for any victory.  The point, however, is that there is such a thing as having too large a force, for whatever reason.  As long as the Evangelical churches replace support for long-term missionaries with mission exposure trips for their youth in the summer (as valuable as this can be for those participating), and as long as they send anyone who wants to go for whatever they want to do, the mission force will be made up out of the untrained, uncommitted ‘too many’ with no clarity of the mission rather than the highly trained, committed few who know exactly what the mission is.

If we focus on the mission, the Church, and the best mission force, we will also move away from ‘the West to the rest’ version of missions of the 19^th and 20^th century.  We can involve the Church in its global reality in our day, recruiting from wherever and sending to wherever to accomplish the mission (not whatever).

Finally, we can now reform theological education from being the residency-based, highly expensive education that it has become to online, tutorial education wherever one lives.  (This is what we are developing at the Ridley Institute, a ministry of St. Andrews Church in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina that reaches from South Carolina to South Africa.)  A Church-based, tutorial educational model can train missionaries already on the field at low costs.

So, let’s reform missions. 

Ministry, Not Leadership: The Call to Renunciation

One of the differences between understanding Christian ministry as ministry versus leadership is that ministry in Scripture is thought of in terms of renunciation.  Since the 1980s, the language of ‘leadership’ has largely replaced the language of ‘ministry’, at least in Protestant, Evangelical circles.  My purpose here is to explore one way in which a call to ministry is not a call to leadership.  It involves renunciation, not the acquisition of authority.

When Jesus called his first disciples, Luke tells us that they ‘left everything and followed him’ (5.11).  Later, as a follow-up after Jesus’ challenging words to the rich man who sought eternal life, Peter said to Jesus that he and the other disciples had ‘left everything and followed’ him (Mark 10.28; Matthew 19.27).  Similarly, Jesus affirms a model for ministry that involves renunciation.  In fact, all who would be disciples of Jesus were called to a radical renunciation, even of natural relationships if they encumbered one’s following of Jesus.  Jesus said, ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple’ (Luke 14.26-27).  When one person pledged to follow Jesus wherever he would go, Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head’ (Luke 9.58).  Another would-be disciple asked to be allowed to bury his father first.  (While some suggest the request has to do with waiting a longer time, according to the Jewish practice later placing a deceased person’s bones in an ossuary, the passage does not open itself up to reasonable interpretation but to radical challenge.)  Jesus responds, ‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead’ (Luke 9.60).  A third, would-be disciple asks to be permitted first to say farewell to his family, but Jesus replies, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’ (Luke 9.62).

Traditionally, ministry in the Church was understood as renunciation.  Broadly speaking, ministry was thought of as a renunciation of the world.  Benedictine monks would take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  The trajectory of renunciation ran strongly through centuries of thinking about ministry, even to bizarre, extreme forms of asceticism not at all advocated here.  Asceticism mistakenly understands the value of renunciation to be in an embrace of suffering for its own merit, rather than suffering as a possible, at times probable, consequence of devotion and service.  Asceticism is not the point; the point is that ministry was conceived by Jesus as anything but leadership.  The origin of this trajectory was in Jesus’ own definition of discipleship.  For him, ‘leadership’ was the antithesis of ministry.  He told his disciples to pray for labourers, not leaders (Mt. 9.37-38).

The language of ‘ministry’ does not entail service out of positions of authority or means.  It includes terms such as (1) labourers (cf. Mt. 9.37f//Lk. 10.2; Mt. 10.10//Lk. 10.7; Mt. 20.1ff; 1 Cor. 16.16; 1 Tim. 5.18); (2) slaves (e.g., Mk. 10.43-45); (3) servants (e.g., Mt. 18.23ff; 23.22; 24.45ff; 25.14ff).  A slave might have oversight and responsibility, but not office and personal authority.  If he has authority, it is derived authority, as an ‘apostle’ or ambassador (one sent), and he serves God and delivers the true Gospel.  A slave is ‘under the power/authority of another’ (the Roman, legal definition of slavery).  The concept of leadership has to do with acquiring authority and means, and ‘servant leadership’ involves serving others out of such authority and means.  A leader does not renounce these but seeks to acquire these in order to lead others.  Jesus’ Messiahship, surprisingly, was not about taking the reins of power in order to serve; it was about renouncing equality with God, emptying himself, taking the form of a slave, humbling himself, and being obedient to death, even death on a cross (Phil. 2.6-8).  His ministry took place through renunciation.

None of what has been said implies a renunciation of learning or the acquisition of skills.  Studying the Scriptures, gaining basic business skills, learning how to facilitate group discussion or run a business meeting, becoming capable in guiding a service of worship, and so forth may well be necessary training for a minister.  In Roman society, a slave might be sent somewhere for training, and many households had a slave who taught the children.  The acquisition of skills and roles of oversight are not inconsistent with service.  The mistake of conceiving of ministry as ‘leadership’ is not the mistake of seeking adequate training to serve well.  The mistake comes in focusing on the office or personal power of the leader rather than the function or service of the minister.  The result is that, far too often, persons advance in levels of leadership, hold offices of authority, and do less and less actual ministry as they reach lofty levels of power in denominational headquarters or a senior ‘pastor’ position in a megachurch that removes them increasingly from serving people.  Advancement is defined in terms of increasing authority, pay, and privileges.

Perhaps this is why Jesus had no physical office, held no office hours, preferred the countryside to the town and the town to the city, wandered the hills of Galilee with his disciples, found quiet places to pray, and opposed all religious ‘leaders’ every time he met them.  If we have come to think that we need to train leaders for the Church in order to do the ministry of the Church, perhaps we have forgotten that the ministry of the Church is to people and not about office, power, and the running of programmes.  The servant fulfills his duty by caring for the undesirable, needy 'Samaritan' lying in the street; the leader requires a large following with a healthy budget to operate programmes of ministry and so reach his potential.

Understanding Romans 3.21-4.25, Part One: The ‘Faith of Christ’

In Romans 3.21-4.25, Paul presents two passages from the Old Testament as proof for his argument that God reckons righteousness to those who have faith in Jesus Christ.  I am well aware that this simple statement needs to be argued point by point, since alternative, scholarly views have been presented and because those using English translations will struggle to see some of the points.  Here I take up the first point in the phrase from above ‘to those who have faith in Jesus Christ.’

Does Paul argue that righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus Christ or through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ?  This issue has long been noted—before the so-called New Perspective on Paul.  The issue arises, first, because the syntax of the Greek could go either way: pistis Christou (or variations of this) could mean (1) faith in Christ (translating the Genitive as Objective) or (2) faith of Christ/faithfulness of Christ (translating the Genitive as Subjective). 

Since the issue will not be decided by Greek grammar, we have to look to other issues to make a decision.  One of these issues might be whether the theology works: Is this bad theology? or Is this good theology? or Is this theology that fits with other Scriptural teaching?  Well, it is not heresy.  The author of Hebrews depicts Christ as a high priest who was tested as we are and who can sympathize with us while remaining without sin (Heb. 4.15).  Paul commends the virtues of Christ to his readers: the humility of Christ (Phil. 2.1-11), the meekness and gentleness of Christ (2 Cor. 10.1), or the generosity of Christ (2 Cor. 8.9).  Indeed, a narrative and virtue interpretation of the Gospel of Christ is appropriate.  However, none of these texts locate the salvific work of Christ in his sinless virtues—key as these are to our understanding of Christ.  Hebrews locates salvation in the sacrificial work of Christ (chs. 8-10 explicate this in terms of the sacrifice of atonement).  Paul, as we shall see below, also locates the salvation Christ brings in his sacrificial work.  Put bluntly, we are not saved by Christ’s faithfulness to the covenant, as essential as that was, but by Christ’s sacrificial work—his dying for our sins.  In the words of 2 Cor. 5.21, we do not become the righteousness of God because Christ knew no sin but because He who knew no sin was made to be sin for us.  Being faithful to the covenant meant obeying the covenant law of God; faithfulness implies sinlessness, not becoming sin in an exchange that would allow sinners to become the righteousness of God.

A further argument that has been put forward in favour of seeing ‘faith of Christ’ as his faithfulness has to do with Rom. 3.22, which reads (in the ESV translation): ‘…the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.’  The words in italics comprise the contentious phrase: should it, alternatively, be translated, ‘faithfulness of Jesus Christ’?  Many think so in part because, they argue, the words ‘for all who believe’ would be redundant if Paul had already reference our faith in Jesus.  Why would Paul say that righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus Christ and then, immediately, add the same thing—‘for all who believe’?  This argument about redundancy, however, is not quite fair.  Switch the wording in the verse and one can see that this is not redundancy: ‘the righteousness of God for all who believe through faith in Jesus Christ.’  Righteousness comes (1) through believing (not through works) and (2) through believing (i.e., ‘faith’) in the righteousness of God that He provided through Jesus Christ (not any sort of believing/faith).

What clinches the argument that Paul is speaking of our faith in Jesus Christ, not the faithfulness of Jesus Christ, however, is that, when he elaborates on his point after Rom. 3.22, he does not elaborate on Christ’s faithfulness but on our faith in Christ.  This is so immediately after v. 22.  V. 24 says that we are saved through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, not his faithfulness.  V. 25 further explains that this redemption comes through Christ’s sacrifice of atonement by his blood.  V. 26 repeats the contested phrase, ‘from faith of Jesus,’ but by this point the emphasis has fallen on Jesus’ work, not his virtue of being faithful.  Indeed, it is God’s virtues of forbearance and righteousness that are in view: ‘in the forbearance of God, to show forth His righteousness at the present time, in order that He might be righteous and the one who makes righteous from faith of Jesus’ (my translation).  Paul is saying that God is righteous and that sinners are made righteous by Him as they put their trust in the righteousness that God puts forward, the redemptive, sacrificial work of Christ.  It is God’s righteousness that is in view, and it is a righteousness accomplished through Christ’s blood sacrifice for sinners.  Introducing the notion that Christ’s work was in some sense faithful, while not erroneous, is foreign to the context.

This argument continues in ch. 4.  Romans 4 is further proof of what has been argued about the meaning of Rom. 3.21-26.  Paul, as is typical of his theology, is concerned to anchor his teaching in what we find in the Old Testament.  Had Paul intended to speak of the faithfulness of Christ in Rom. 3.22, 26, he would have needed to introduce verses from the Psalms about the faithful, righteous sufferer who trusts in God—there are a number of possibilities.  He would then have had to argue that we sinners are righteous because we participate in this righteous sufferer’s faithfulness to God.  But this is not what Paul does.  Instead, his focus is on our faith, not the faithfulness of Christ.  He turns to two Scripture passages: Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32.1-2.  The first speaks of Abraham’s faith in God’s provision of salvation.  The second says that ‘the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered’ is blessed, and ‘the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity’ is blessed.  God’s work is His forgiveness, to which those forgiven respond in faith.

These two Old Testament texts are connected—as any Jewish interpreter of the 1^st century would have recognized—by their sharing a word: ‘reckoned/counted’.  This is one of those places where English translation gets in the way.  In Gen. 15.6 we have ‘reckoned,’ and in Ps. 32.2 we have ‘counts’.  The same word is present in the Hebrew (hshv) and in the Greek (logizomai) for both passages.  Moreover, Jewish interpretation accepted as a rule that interpretation of the Old Testament could be done by linking texts that share a common word.  This is what Paul is doing in Romans 4 by linking Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32.2.  Even so, the verses capture the related theological points that Paul is making: God reckons one righteous on account of faith in Him, and sinners have righteousness before God because He does not reckon their sin--not because someone else has been faithful.  Paul makes a lot of this word ‘reckons’ in Rom. 4, using it eleven times.  God’s reckoning sinners righteous occurs through their faith in His promises and His work, which is fulfilled in Christ’s blood sacrifice for our redemption.

Finally, where the question of ‘faith of Christ’ arises elsewhere in Paul, we have some clarification from him that he is thinking of our faith in Christ, not Christ’s faithfulness.  Where we first meet the issue in Paul is in his earlier letter in Gal. 2.15-21.  Once again, grammatically, the translation could go either way (Objective or Subjective Genitive).  However, Paul’s full statement in this paragraph comes in v. 20, where there can be no mistaking that he has in view our faith and that the object of our faith is Christ’s deliverance of himself for us.  He says, ‘I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 3.20).  Salvation comes through our faith in what God has done in Christ’s sacrificing himself for the sinner, not through his faithfulness as the one true, righteous Israelite who remained faithful to the covenant.

A corollary of this theology for Paul has to do with the location of boasting.  He makes the point in Galatians and in Romans.  Boasting has no place, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 6.14).  If salvation came through our own works, then we would have something to boast about.  But it does not.  It comes entirely through the work of Christ.  In Romans—in the context we have had in view in this exposition—Paul says that boasting is excluded because ‘one is justified by faith apart from works of the law’ (Rom. 3.27-28). 

As Paul unpacks his argument about boasting, works, and faith in this paragraph (Rom. 3.27-31)—which leads to his further exposition of this teaching in ch. 4’s interpretation of Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32.1-2—he focuses on ‘faith’ per se.  That is, he focusses on faith versus works, not on Christ’s faithfulness.  Paul might have said, ‘There is no boasting in our own works because we have been unfaithful to God’s covenant, His Law, whereas Christ is the one who was faithful to the covenant.’  But he does not say this.  Instead, he contrasts our actions with God’s action in Christ, which is the righteousness that God accomplishes through Christ’s sacrificial death.  Again, where boasting and Christ are presented together in Paul’s thought, the boast is in the cross of Christ, not in his faithfulness (Gal. 6.14).   We are talking about the work of Christ, not His character.

Or, as we read in Ephesians, salvation is not through works, which would allow boasting (2.9) but by faith as a gift of God (2.8).  Focus is on the gift, God’s grace, rather than on Christ’s faithfulness.  Moreover, elsewhere Paul does speak of divine faithfulness, but it is not phrased as the faithfulness of Christ; it is the faithfulness of God (1 Cor. 1.9; 10.13; 2 Cor. 1.18; 1 Thes. 5.24).  One possible exception is 2 Tim. 2.13, which speaks of Christ’s faithfulness, but it is His faithfulness to us: ‘if we are faithless, he remains faithful.’  A few verses earlier, Paul spoke of the salvation that is in Christ Jesus (v. 10).  He also spoke of the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (1.13).  What is it that Jesus has done?  He 'has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel' (1.10).  Only in Hebrews do we meet the theology of the faithful service of Christ (2.17; 3.2, 6; 10.23; 11.11; cf. Rev. 19.11).  That faithfulness is not His own obedient righteousness but is to His work.

So, while a theology of ‘the faithfulness of Christ’ is Biblical—as in Hebrews—it is apparently not a Pauline theology.  For Paul, ‘faith of Christ’ and related phrases is about our putting our trust in God’s salvation of sinners through the sacrificial death of Christ.  Our righteousness comes through Jesus’ shed blood.  To be sure, he was faithful, but this is not Paul’s understanding of soteriology.  Christ was also humble, gentle, meek, and generous, but this is not Paul’s understanding of soteriology.  Salvation comes through God’s gracious gift in the work of Christ, in His sacrificial death, in His shed blood.

We might conclude by noting that this theology is already present in Isaiah 59, which Paul uses in Romans.  He quotes Isaiah 59.7-8 in Romans 3.15-17 to affirm that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (which he states in Rom. 3.23).  He quotes from the same chapter of Isaiah, 59.20-21, in Romans 11.25-27 to affirm that all Israel will be saved.  However, as we read on from Romans 3.15-17 to Romans 3.21-26, we find that the theological argument of Isaiah 59 is still in view.  Isaiah, having established that there was no justice or righteousness due to the pervasiveness of sin, then says that God puts on righteousness and salvation (v.17), just as Paul says, ‘But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the Law’ (Rom. 3.21).  God is, of course, righteous, but the emphasis falls on His doing righteousness.  He brings judgement where judgement is due (Isaiah 59.15-19).  He also brings redemption.  Isaiah says that ‘a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression’ (v. 20), just as Paul says that, while ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom. 3.23), they are made righteous ‘through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith’ (Rom. 3.24b-25a, ESV).  The word 'redemption' appears in Isaiah and in Paul.  Paul interprets Isaiah: it is not Christ’s covenant faithfulness as the one righteous Israelite but His sacrificial death for our sins that Paul thinks of when he says, ‘the faith of Christ.’  While the Greek could be understood as either Subjective or Objective Genitive, Paul’s theology is surely focused on the Objective: our faith in the salvation God put forward for us in Zion when our Redeemer removed transgression from sinners and made us righteous.