Forged for the Frontlines: More Than Zeal

Criteria #3: Biblical Skills

‍A missionary candidate should be able to interpret the scriptures accurately, teach clearly in group settings, and apply the scriptures 1-on-1, to their own life as well as to others’.

 I know what you’re thinking: isn’t it the responsibility and authority of a missionary’s local church to evaluate their skill with the scripture? The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Churches should be evaluating a missionary’s ability to accurately interpret and apply the Bible to life and for instruction. However, due to the nature of teaching in a cross-cultural setting, it is imperative that missionary candidates be trained to acquire skill in handling and interpreting the word of God in order to apply it to the complexities of foreign worldviews, some of which cannot be fully understood until the missionary has reached the field. 

It is one thing to be able to repeat teaching that has been heard for years in one’s local context and setting, but an entirely different thing to apply the truths of scripture and sound doctrine in a foreign setting to a worldview that is not your own.

Perhaps an illustration will help.

Zeal vs. Ability

I became a Christian at a Christian camp when I was 18. After my conversion I had the incredible privilege of joining the summer staff and subsequently worked and lived at that camp for most of the next three years. A couple of years after my conversion I met the woman who would become my wife. We married 12 short months later. While I lived at camp I learned a lot of scripture and sat under preaching at least four or five days a week. If someone came to me and asked, “What must I do to be saved?” I had a list of verses that I could take them to and show them how to become a Christian. If a person came to me and wanted help with combating pornography or rock n’ roll music (it was an old school fundamentalist Baptist camp by the way) I had verses memorized that applied to their situation. What I didn’t know was the whole of scripture and how it applied to my own worldview and sin. I learned this in a devastating way after my wife and I left the camp and began normal lives in the “real world.”

For all of the benefits I experienced while living at that camp (trust me when I say that these were some of the best years of my life), what I didn’t experience was learning what the whole of Scripture taught (theology), how to interpret it (hermeneutics), and how to apply it to my life (doctrine). Perhaps the most dangerous thing that came out of my time at the camp is that, when I left, I felt prepared to face life and lead my family. If someone came to me and asked me to steal something – check, I had a verse. If I was invited to a party where there would be alcohol and/or drugs – check, I had verses. But when faced with the complexities of real life and my own worldview – I had nothing. This led me down a dark path of doubt and questioning God because, away from camp, I was suffering and had no framework for how to deal with that. There was no one verse or sermon I could recall and apply to my questions and sufferings. Consequently, I came to many bad conclusions that affected my family for many years.

The same danger exists for all of us. Church leaders must not mistake a zeal for the Lord with an ability to teach His word or counsel others. You may be shocked to find out that the majority of missionary candidates who arrive at Radius for training have not yet taught a Bible study or preached a sermon.

True Preaching

Knowing how to repeat what was said from the pulpit, to a particular context and a particular situation, is not the same as knowing how to preach and teach faithfully. Much more than recitation goes into preparing a sermon. More importantly, much more goes into understanding life in a new country and language. Our missionary candidates must understand what their hermeneutic is and how it informs the way they understand scripture, and how the world works. Sending our young people to the field without this basic understanding of interpreting scripture will be frustrating for them and downright confusing for the people they minister to. Yet, increasingly, missionary candidates report never having heard the word “hermeneutic” and consequently don’t know how they are interpreting Scripture. They are going to the field equipped only with something they heard that sounds good.

We would not allow this in our churches and should not allow this to go overseas. In each missionary we send resides the hope that, by their going, they will be “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20a). This is the crux of the Great Commission. Disciples are made not merely by missionaries going, but through the missionaries’ teaching and preaching. This is how we fulfill God’s mandate and bring dominion to all the earth – sound preaching by godly men who understand, as Alex Kocman and Chad Vegas put it, “that sacred writ teaches us to repudiate worldly methods.” Preaching the word of God must be the priority of the missionary. And preaching it in a contextually faithful way requires time, skill, and intimacy with the scriptures.

Perhaps there is no better example than Paul’s preaching on Mars Hill. He is able to take his masterful understanding of God's word and apply it as a polemic and answer to the Athenian worldview. As Kocman and Vegas point out, what Paul could not do was simply apply Jesus to their problem since they had no understanding of God, man, and their own sin.  This is the task of the missionary: to bring their audience’s worldview into direct conflict with scripture so that they can understand the salvation offered to them in Christ. If we don’t we run the risk, as my friend and colleague Brooks Buser often says, of “contributing to the world’s fastest growing religion, syncretism."

Team Considerations

The same problems present at home in our churches are present on the mission field. Just as our churches are filled with people that need to be reminded of the gospel and how it applies to the issues in their lives, so do the members of a missionary team need this reminder. One’s geography doesn’t eliminate the need for sound biblical counsel. Each member of a missionary team must be able to handle the word in a way that guides each other into a right understanding of God, the world, and themselves.

We often think of this in the context of someone going through a “rough time,” or in their battle with sin or suffering, but the same is true for missionaries trying to navigate intense cultural situations. A well-developed understanding of scripture serves as the means by which it may be used profitably for teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).

It is the biblically robust missionary that is best able to speak into culturally complicated situations for their teammates. Not us back home.

A Sword in Battle

Satan thrives on twisting truth into things that resemble truth but are in fact utterly false. This is precisely why Paul speaks so harshly to the Galatians about those that are spreading a false gospel in Galatians 1:8. The Judaizers had not “changed” the entire gospel message, they merely added the works of the law as being necessary. Paul’s statement for them is that they are to be “accursed” (Galatians 1:8). This has been the tactic of Satan since the garden. It has been effective and will continue to be effective against those who are not saturated with Scripture and able to recall it and use it as a sword in battle.

When Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to face Satan, His defense and armor was the Word of God. As He battled Satan, He repeated “It is written” or “It is said” . The missionary is not better than Jesus. He will be accused and tempted with the twisting and subtle perversions of Scripture. He must know it well to wield it in battle.

Methodology

It is worth mentioning here that, in the missions world, there is no shortage of strategies and methods for “spreading the gospel” that are unbiblical at best and  downright heretical at worst. Faithful Christians do not intend to leave their jobs, families, and the comforts of home to spread a false gospel or become a negative influence on the Church. Yet the reality is that, without a strong understanding of the scriptures and what it is they teach about gospel proclamation, we are all subject to falling victim to plausible arguments, methods, and schemes (2 Corinthians 10:5).

Sadly, this is the case for much of the missions landscape today. Church Planting Movements are rife with well-meaning practitioners because of their pragmatic methods and attractiveness (for a more in-depth treatment of these movements, download a copy of A Brief Guide to Disciple Making Movements). Suffice to say that many missionaries, when faced with the time demanded by learning language, the complexities of culture, the sufferings of their families, and longing for home, succumb to the lure of these plausible arguments.

True Confidence

During my first years in the military I was a 95B (or Military Police) in the Army. Those first few years were relatively fun and safe. I enjoyed the Army, I liked carrying guns, and I thought I knew how to use them because I had successfully completed Basic Training, Advanced Individual Training, and participated in our annual range training with our unit. It wasn’t until I first found myself in harm’s way that I realized my training had only made me familiar with my weapons, it hadn’t made me useful with them.

I can recall drawing my sidearm, extending it out with both hands, squeezing the trigger and, to my shock, nothing happening. Thanks be to God that I mentally recovered and immediately dove into a ditch on the side of the road. After everything was said and done, I examined my pistol to see what had happened. I wish I could say that the pistol had malfunctioned or the ammunition was bad but I cannot. The reality is that, in the heat of battle, I had failed to take the safety off before firing. I learned that night that, while I was familiar with my pistol, I had not spent enough time with it for it to be useful to me. In fact, it was more dangerous to me than if I didn’t have one because of the false sense of confidence it gave me. All of the good intentions and even basic level trainings didn’t help me that night.

Pastors and missions leaders, please hear me. A missionary has nothing to offer than the grace of Christ found in the word of God. This necessitates that the missionary must know the word of God intimately. He cannot merely be familiar with it. It must be useful to him to wield in proclamation, and to rest in during times of trouble. We best serve those whom we send by ensuring that they know the word of God, and test them in their use of it, before we send them into battle.