Biblical Mission is Grounded in Biblical Churches

This is the first of four posts from Peter Schild (translated by Michael T. Schmid) which together constitute his booklet The Church and Missions.

‘Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, having fasted and prayed, and laid hands on them, they sent them away.’ — Acts 13:1–3

This Bible passage briefly summarizes four basic principles for biblical mission work that will be considered in this book.

Principle 1: Biblical Mission is Grounded in Biblical Churches

Let me state it plainly: Mission is a matter of the church. The church is the sole breeding ground and the true foundation for biblical missions.

We read nothing about mission agencies in Scripture. This does not mean that there should be no mission agencies in principle. They can, by all means, be a help and support for churches in fulfilling their missionary mandate. However, from a biblical perspective, it is the church of Jesus Christ that has the sole responsibility to fulfil the Great Commission. Mission agencies cannot take over this responsibility on behalf of the church.

A Young Church

The Bible passage under consideration shows us a biblical church: the church at Antioch. In verse 1 we read, ‘Now in the church that was at Antioch …’ What is remarkable is that this church at Antioch was a very young church – it was only a few years old. This church was really still in its infancy, but its feet were already ‘shod … with the preparation [to testify] of the gospel of peace’ (Eph. 6:15).

It was this young church at Antioch that initiated the first official missionary journey. A considerable time earlier, Jesus Christ had already given His famous Great Commission, which we find in Matthew 28:19-20: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.’ The church at Jerusalem, however, struggled to take the gospel beyond the immediate surroundings of their city. There first had to be a persecution before the Christians went out to other regions.

Here in Acts 13, in the city of Antioch, we read for the first time in the Holy Scriptures about missionaries being officially sent out from the church to make disciples in the Roman Empire and to plant churches. This is a historic moment. And how did it begin? With a church. Mission is a matter of the church. World missions originated here in a church that was still very young. This means that a church does not have to be old or large in size. What matters is that it is a biblical church. One of the main characteristics of a biblical church is biblical teaching and service to the Lord. This is what characterized the church at Antioch. It faithfully proclaimed the name of the Lord.

Blessed with God’s Voice

Consider how richly blessed this young church was with Bible teachers. Verse 1 says, ‘Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.’ So the church had prophets and teachers. Prophets were men who had God’s word directly placed in their mouth, who spoke God’s word in a way that is no longer available for us today. And teachers were men who proclaimed and explained God’s written Word. These men simply passed on what God told them – not their own thoughts and ideas. This church faithfully proclaimed God’s Word. And it was blessed with five such men. It is a blessing to have just one such man who really proclaims God’s Word, but they even had five of them. What a gift! What a reason to thank God! This cannot be taken for granted. Such men still exist today, but they have become very rare – men who preach God’s Word faithfully, boldly and plainly. They do not proclaim their own ideas, but are simply a mouthpiece of God.

What a great need we have for such men in our country today! How many people lament the fact that they cannot find such a preacher or a church where God’s Word is faithfully preached, where it is said, ‘Thus says the Lord!’

What a blessing to have not just one, but five such men! Here is a church that is nourished, led, convicted, corrected, encouraged, edified, comforted and strengthened only by the Word of God! What a blessing! Having men who faithfully proclaim God’s Word is one of the main indicators that a church is blessed. There are many apostate churches that amass false teachers for themselves, countless false teachers. God’s Word tells us in 2 Timothy 4:3, ‘For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers…’ The reason they amass such teachers for themselves is that their words tickle their ears, ‘and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables’ (v. 4). They procured false teachers for themselves who tell stories instead of proclaiming God’s Word. What a blessing it is therefore if God gives us truthful preachers – those of whom we read in Jeremiah 3:15, where the Lord says: ‘And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.’ What a blessing! If the church had only one such preacher who proclaims God’s Word in truth, it would have had sufficient reason to kneel down in prayer daily and thank God for this gift! The church at Antioch was richly blessed: it had five such preachers.

Blessed with Unity

And this is not the only blessing that this church had. It is also a blessing that these men formed one unit and did not argue among themselves over theological matters, which could easily have been the case. Consider how different these men were: Barnabas, a Levite, a Jew; Simeon, called Niger, a dark-skinned African; Lucius of Cyrene – most likely a Roman name belonging to a man with Roman background, probably from North Africa. And then there was Manaen, who had grown up together with Herod, probably a very wealthy man coming from high society, a man of rank and power. And Saul was also a part of this group, a devout Jew and a Pharisee, someone who used to persecute the churches, but who was now called as an apostle – and yet he is mentioned last in this list. They all come from very different places and have different backgrounds. It would therefore have been very easy for them to become involved in theological disputes or arguments about their rank, who was first among them. But there was a unity in faith, in doctrine and in confession. This is the blessing of God.

This blessing of unity among the brethren is the theme of Psalm 133. There we read, ‘For there’, regarding this unity among the brethren, ‘the Lord commanded the blessing— Life forevermore.’ This is the basis for true biblical missions, that a church faithfully teaches God’s Word and is one in its doctrine and its leadership. This is the breeding ground for everything else.

Ministering to God

A biblical church not only teaches biblically, it also ministers biblically, as we see in Acts 13:2: ‘As they ministered to the Lord …’ They served the Lord. The Greek word that is translated here as ‘ministered’ is a special word [leiturgeo] that has to do with public worship. It is about serving in the context of worship, as a priest would have done in the old covenant when performing his duties in the temple. These men served in worship, in leading biblical church services, so that the church members were guided to worship God in spirit and in truth and glorify Him alone. These men not only taught correctly, but also instructed all to serve correctly and give God the glory in all areas of life and worship. In other words: As leaders, they truly instructed the church to worship together in a biblical way – a pure worship service that truly glorifies the Lord. And they instructed the church members to serve Him completely also as a church in all areas. Right teaching must lead to true worship where God is glorified in a way that is pleasing to Him.

How sad it is to see that churches all over our country no longer teach rightly, and that they therefore no longer conduct worship in a right way, that their church service is basically nothing more than a smorgasbord of human ideas. They no longer serve to worship God, but rather they serve their own entertainment. How greatly things have changed over the years!

A biblical church is a church that faithfully proclaims God’s Word with a unity of sentiment, but also serves God with pure and holy worship, in the context of a church life that is characterized by serving God and giving the glory to Him alone in all areas. Why? Verse 2 tells us why: ‘As they ministered to the Lord…’ Why should one do this with all faithfulness? Because the church does not belong to us, but to the Lord.

A biblical church is characterized by faithfully serving the Lord. The church at Antioch was a church that completely submitted to Christ. It did not serve itself, but rather served the Lord. It is not about our ideas and conceptions and desires. It is solely about doing the will of the Lord and giving Him the glory that He is due. Such churches where the truth is taught and God is faithfully served in a way that pleases Him will be blessed. And this is the basis for biblical mission: a healthy, biblical church that proclaims God and serves Him faithfully. This is the breeding ground for missions. Therefore, before a church even begins to think about doing mission work and planting churches in certain places, it should first learn to be a biblical church itself. Otherwise everything else that it produces will be null and void. Therefore, we have to begin with ourselves. We must allow ourselves to be reformed. We must become more biblical in all areas. Now when this is the case, when a church lives in such a way, then something grows out from this. And this leads us to the second principle of mission…

Peter Schild is a pastor of the Evangelical Reformed Baptist Church of Frankfurt. Three more instalments of Peter’s booklet will appear here on the Banner of Truth website in the coming two weeks. 

Featured image (visible when article shared on social media) by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash

First German edition, 2022. Original German title: Gemeinde und Mission. Translated by Michael T. Schmid. All Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.