"Mom. Where do Missionaries come from?"

It often seems like we’ve fabricated an extra biblical vernacular. We commonly use words and phrases that are neither part of our culture, nor from scripture themselves. I’m okay with it. I really am. Please feel free to use words like eschatology, hermeneutics, cessationism, or imputation any time you like. There are descriptive purposes for these terms that few other words are able to capture.

Some words however, have evolved into the very fabric of our faith which have become commonplace, which at the same time, I believe serves to create a disconnect between the faith that we live and the faith that was lived out in scripture. This post might be challenging for some of you. In fact, some of you might want to bring my card carrying Christ-citizenship into question. Think about this word;

Missionary.

Where do we see the word used in the actual biblical text? We don’t. Do we? Well, kind of. In our English translations, the word only shows up in some of the subheadings that we have created to describe Paul’s ministry.

I’m fine with the use of the word, “missionary”. I really am. You will probably hear me use it from time to time myself. However, when did missionaries come to be? Is it a new spiritual gift that came to be after Biblical texts were canonized?

In the circles that I run, we talk about missionaries quite often. Yet when we read the Bible, we hear absolutely nothing about missionaries, in the sense that we speak of them in our day. The words that we use to describe the work of people such as Paul, aren’t the same words that they used to describe their own role within the world as part of the body of Christ. What word did Paul use to describe His calling in Christ?

I’m tempted to leave the post here, and force you to figure it out for yourself, because I know that some of you are lazy. You might also be set in your ways, and you will rage against what I say without actually looking at it for what it is. The truth of the matter, is that the very people who might rage against this the most, are the very people whom I desire to please. Yet, I’m not called to be a people pleaser. Am I?

So I ask the question again. What word does Paul use to describe his role in the body of Christ? Are you ready?

“Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God...”Ephesians 1:1

Paul describes himself as being an apostle of Christ Jesus. Just so you know that I’m not taking a small sound byte from scripture, check it out. That isn’t the only place in scripture where Paul’s role is described as an apostle.

Many of the people whom I like to please lean towards thinking that apostles don’t exist anymore. It’s a spiritual gifting that died somewhere around 70 AD. I don’t know what significant even happened to squash that specific work of the Spirit, but it must have been as great or greater than the accomplished work of Christ on Calvary’s hill. There were only 13 Apostles, (14 if you count Judas) and they all died.

When we think of apostles, what comes to mind? Do you think of the 12? Were they an elite bunch? We may think of the people who performed those freaky ultra super amazing spectacular miraculous things. We might think of the demons driven out. We often think of the dead being raised. We think of the healings. And why not? Those things tended to accompany the apostles.

However, if we look at the word, ‘apostle’ for what it is, the miracles and the works had little to do with the role itself, but merely accompanied the men who were called as such. The word apostle literally means, “one who is sent”. Hmm. Sounds a lot like what we might call a missionary. I wonder why that is.

As for me, I believe that God still gifts people by His Spirit in order to send them. I believe that the word apostle is still appropriate to describe those who are sent to lands and peoples unknown to them.

Do I need to find a new chuch?