Day Sixteen: What is a Missionary?

I am a missionary, and so understandably, missions is important to me. So for the next few days, we are going to look at missions and some of what the Bible says about missionaries, who is a missionary, and how a person knows if they are called as a world missionary.

Starting with the basics, what is a missionary?           

            The Bible never uses the word missionary; it is a modern invention, but the Bible is saturated with the idea of missionaries and world missions. To me, a missionary is someone with a “mission.” And I don’t think the word mission is any different than how we would use it today when we talk about someone “being on a mission,” “having a mission,” or “his mission in life.” It is a specific purpose, exclusive to that person, given from a higher authority (God, in this case). In this sense, all Christians are missionaries in one way or another (Psalms 139, I Corinthians 6:19, Ephesians 2:10, 2 Timothy 1:6, Ephesians 4:1).

            This mission may be for only a certain phase of a person’s life; for example, Noah was a preacher of righteousness and testimony against the people for about one hundred and twenty years of his life, which was only about one ninth of his life (Genesis 6-9, Hebrews 11:7, 2 Peter 2:5). Often, a person does not even realize what this mission is until he or she is already in the middle of it (examples include: Gideon, Judges 6-7; Moses, Exodus 3; Mary, Luke 1; and the apostles, Acts 1-2) or until after the fact (examples include Joseph, Genesis37-45; Job, book of Job; and Cyrus, Isaiah 45).

 If someone is told what his or her mission will be early in life, he or she normally has a waiting period that must be endured before they live that mission out. (Examples: David, Jesus, Paul--- each started his “big” mission more than fifteen years after he was given it.)

            The word mission can be synonymous with “calling,” and it is vital that the church recognize that we all have these missions and callings, not just a select few. When the church projects this idea of missions onto a select few, we project the responsibility that comes with it on those few as well, when the calling and the responsibility is for the whole church.

We put those few that we think have special callings on a platform and try to put the burdens that should be borne by the whole church on them (I Corinthians 12:12-31; Galatians 6:2).  Also, because we have believed the lie (and it is a lie) that only a few people have these special callings, the church is full of purposeless, aimless people who are saved, but lack direction in life. We are all missionaries because we all have a mission from God!

Ironically enough, the two people who wrote most of the New Testament, Paul and Luke, would not be considered missionaries or even in full-time ministry by the church because they both supported themselves: Paul through tent-making and Luke through being a doctor.