On October 7, 2023, during a Sabbath celebration for an elderly couple in a village on the borders of Israel, an alarm went out from the local authorities of an attack. The elderly couple’s two caregivers from India rushed to close the doors and windows of the house. The attackers came to the front door, knocking and spraying bullets at the doors and windows. To protect the elderly, the two caregivers held their ground behind the door for four and a half hours. After constant vigilance of five to six hours, the caregivers were able to rescue the elderly couple. The rescue operation was praised by the Indian embassy. The officials praised the two caregivers as “superwomen.”1
Have you ever been rescued from disaster or destruction? God initiated the ultimate rescue plan from before the beginning of human history—God’s great mission plan to rescue humans from the clutches of sin, a divine rescue operation wherein the kingdom of heaven works to defeat Satan’s kingdom of sin, suffering, and death.
Personal Assumptions Regarding Mission
I once had a number of wrong conceptions about mission. In 1998 I joined the mission work. In the initial stages of my pastoral work, I thought of mission in terms of the conference, union, and division offices because these entities plan and execute mission work, often utilizing such terms as mission compound, mission school, and mission building. Later I came to believe that the local church was in charge of the mission work. And still later I thought as a church pastor that I was responsible for mission. My understanding of the mission was progressive but wrong. What, then, is the mission, and where is it located?
The Mission of God
The mission of God is rooted in the Scriptures.2 Several biblical narratives confirm that the mission began in the mind of God. He is the alpha and omega of the mission. Indeed, according to Christopher J. H. Wright, Scripture is all about the mission of God. This does not mean, Wright explains, that we must find something directly about mission in every single verse of the Bible, but that God’s mission is a primary theme throughout Scripture.3 The Bible describes the origin, purpose, channels, and arena of God’s mission.
This understanding has relieved my previous doubts and confusion about the nature of the mission. The moment Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:8, 9), our amazingly merciful God came in search of them. This is the first missionary journey of God described in Scripture, undertaken to rescue humans from the snares of sin. As many scholars have noted, the God of the Bible is a missionary God.4 The mission of God has several dimensions, including relative to the calling, context, challenges, and identity of the missions. My own study on God’s mission has greatly helped me to see mission from new perspectives.
Mission and Calling
God’s mission and calling are interwoven together. God often initiates mission by calling humans. While Abraham was enjoying a peaceful and prosperous life in Haran, God called him to leave all that he knew. To leave his property, his people, and his homeland involved great risk and sacrifice (Gen. 12:1-3). Abraham obeyed the calling, took the risk, and faced the hardships of taking his family and becoming a stranger in the land of Canaan. He lived as a sojourner in tents and faced famine (Heb. 11:8-12). This “call of Abraham in Genesis 12 marks a turning point in God’s dealings with the world.”5
Later God’s call of Moses to mission also involved great risks and sacrifices. Moses could have enjoyed the pleasures of Egypt in his high position. But God called him to a mission that involved great sacrifices, and he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward” (verses 24-26). Regarding this, Ellen G. White comments, “Moses had been instructed in regard to the final reward to be given to the humble and obedient servants of God, and worldly gain sank to its proper insignificance in comparison.” Moses “looked beyond the gorgeous palace, beyond a monarch’s crown, to the high honors that will be bestowed on the saints of the Most High in a kingdom untainted by sin” and “faith led him to turn away from the lordly ones of earth and join the humble, poor, despised nation that had chosen to obey God rather than to serve sin.”6 Moses was called for a unique purpose of great responsibility. He was called to lead a group of people out of bondage to establish Israel in the Promised Land.
In these stories and elsewhere in Scripture, calling is an indispensable factor in God’s mission, in which those called face difficult personal choices. Each calling, however, is unique, setting forth distinct responsibilities to advance God’s mission in specific contexts.
Mission and Context
God’s calls to mission take place in various contexts linked to the distinct purposes, needs, and demands of specific situations. Joseph, for example, was called to a unique mission in a foreign land, filled with dangers and hardships and twists and turns, but ultimately making God known in Egypt and beyond as a forerunner of Christ. Ellen White comments, “Not to the people of Egypt alone, but to all the nations connected with that powerful kingdom, God manifested Himself through Joseph. He desired to make him a light bearer to all peoples, and He placed him next the throne of the world’s greatest empire, that the heavenly illumination might extend far and near. By his wisdom and justice, by the purity and benevolence of his daily life, by his devotion to the interests of the people—and that people a nation of idolaters—Joseph was a representative of Christ” and through him Egypt and others “were to behold the love of their Creator and Redeemer.”7 In this and other instances of God’s mission, the specific context of the mission determines the role of the missionary.
Daniel was called in a different context than that of Joseph. Though both were placed in a strange land, Daniel was placed in Babylon and witnessed of God through his integrity and lifestyle. David was called in the context of political leadership as king whereas prophets were called to, among other things, the task of exhorting and rebuking the people, including rulers. Each narration of God’s call to the mission has to be understood in the broader context of God’s mission and the specific context in which each call takes place. Then and today, the call and context determine the role of the mission and task of the missionary.
God set forth His great rescue plan knowing full well the costs involved.
Mission and Challenges
Every call to the mission is associated with significant challenges, many of which are unforeseen. A call to mission without challenges would be unheard of. The father of modern missions, William Carey, was sent to India to preach the gospel. To do so, he had to face the challenge of learning the language and understanding the cultures of the land. He learned the Bengali, Sanskrit, and Urdu languages to translate the Scriptures into Indian languages.
In Carey’s case and others, the God of mission who called the missionaries to the task of carrying on His mission work enables and equips them to face the challenges of the mission. God not only chooses and calls, but He always equips those whom He calls. As Jesus Himself proclaimed to His disciples: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (John 15:16). Every missionary has the privilege of facing unique challenges in the missionary work to which he or she is called. But the missionary is never alone in this task of facing the challenges of the mission.
The specific challenges faced in mission are different for each individual. Some missionaries, such as William Axling (to Japan) and Stanley Jones (to India), were asked to spend 60 years of their service in a foreign land. Others, such as John and Betty Stam (to China), had to return to their homeland in the middle of the term they expected to serve.8 Each of these and many others faced great challenges, and yet, through it all, God was with them—as He is with everyone who responds to His call to serve in the great mission of God.
Scripture provides ample examples of the challenges of the mission. Stephen became the first Christian martyr. His fellow deacon, Philip, however, served Christ for a whole generation (Acts 21:8). The apostle James was beheaded by King Herod, while around the same time apostle Peter, slated for the same fate, was miraculously delivered (Acts 12:6-10). Through it all Scripture assures us that every challenge faced by missionaries is within the bounds of God’s providence. The missionary God knows the challenges of the mission. The God who has called the missionaries to carry out the mission will enable the missionaries to face the challenges of the missions to which they are called.
Mission and Identity
God’s mission provides a unique identity to each missionary God calls to carry His message. For example, God called the entire nation of Israel with a special identity. “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession” (Deut. 7:6, NIV). The first identity given to the nation of Israel here was to be the chosen people among all the peoples on the face of the earth. The second identity given here was that they were a treasured possession of God. These identities were not given merely for their sake, but for the special task of accomplishing the mission of God to bless the entire world (cf. Gen. 12:3).
The New Testament provides another example of identity granted to those involved in God’s mission. Jesus called His disciples to follow His commandments and commission. He called them to a new identity in Him. And He called them to be friends, saying, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
The identity of everyone called by God is inseparably linked with the special responsibility of contributing to completing the mission of God—the great rescue plan of God to save the world. As Ellen White puts it: “Whatever one’s calling in life, his first interest should be to win souls for Christ.”9
Conclusion
God set forth His great rescue plan knowing full well the costs involved. The mission of God involves immense costs, including the sacrifice of the Son of God Himself. God calls chosen people to serve in His great mission, each in a specific context, each facing distinct challenges, and each given an identity as His missionary. But the missionary is never alone, and has the privilege of working with God in His great rescue plan. In these and so many other ways, the mission of God is a miracle indeed. God calls each of His followers to play a part in His mission. Have you answered His call?
1 Hindustan Times, Oct. 28, 2023, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/israel-hamas-war-kerala-woman-in-israel-recounts-hor ror-says-held-on-to-door-they- destroyed-everything-101697594273248.html.
2 See Herbert J. Kane, Christian Missions in Biblical Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976), p. 15. 3 Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2006), p. 31.
4 See “Our God Is a Missionary God,” in John Stott, The Contemporary Christian (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), pp. 321-336. 5 Kane, p. 23. 6 Ellen G White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1890, 1908), p. 246. 7 Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), vol. 6, pp. 219, 220.
8 Kane, p. 101.
9 Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1898, 1940), p. 822.