Biblicist Blog

                 This is a question we must ask ourselves. Is the mission field not far enough away? Could you imagine telling someone that you turned down a very good paying job because it was too close to home? Or would you not go to a grocery store because it was too near to your home? Or would you reject a church solely because it was not far enough away? These questions would, or rather should seem ridiculous. But in our day that is in essence what we say about stateside missions. We are living in a very unique period in time. We may be seeing God giving us here in America a unique opportunity for the last great harvest of souls. What we have happening is that God is sending the mission field to America. Never before have we seen such an influx of foreigners in both numbers and variety. Now it is sad enough that many churches do not feel “led” to help plant churches in America for “Americans”. That is a travesty in itself. Some pastors feel that “bless God if he wants to plant a church then he should just get a job and support himself”. Yet the same pastor would not consider getting a secular job to help support himself as he needs the time to be able to minister. He knows the time required for the ministry. Many pastors walked into a church with a salary, albeit low, and had the flexibility to minister. But the local home church planting story is a sad one all by itself. But we are now experiencing a new travesty. Souls are coming to America by the millions. It is estimated that there are around 20 million Mexican nationals in America. Let alone the millions of other Spanish speaking immigrants, European immigrants, Asian immigrants, Mid-Eastern immigrants, and many more.
                 These are the very people we are sending missionaries to reach in other countries. These immigrants seem to be the victims of bad timing. Had they been in their native country they would have been the object of video presentations, prayer cards, countless millions of dollars of missions money spent to reach them, and most important lives dedicated to reach them. But due to “bad timing” they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. You see, they are not far enough away. A pastor once said that one reason they wanted to support “foreign” missionaries is because his people enjoyed getting prayer letters from far away places. But is the issue a far away place or a far away people? They are all the same. It is not a matter of the geographical location of the man, woman, or child but the spiritual condition of the man, woman, or child.
                 These immigrants oftentimes do not speak the English language and must be reached by those who do speak their language. Some will say “bless God they are in America let them learn English”. That’s all well and fine in the aspect of assimilating into a culture, but is our first focus to make them Americans or to help them become Christians? When working with foreigners the topic of their legality often comes into play. The problem of illegal immigration is a legitimate issue. But so is the topic of any illegality. Any illegal activity is wrong. In my experience I have made a point to lead them to Christ first then teach them what God says about living an honest Christian life. It is hard to tell someone to live like a believer when they are not a believer. But let me pose the following question. When and if you witness to strangers do you do a background check first? I mean after all they may be a child molester, maybe a thief, perhaps even someone who just fudges a bit on their taxes. I would think we would want to win drunks, thieves, fornicators, etc. to Christ. After all God tells us in His Word that we ourselves were those.

I Cor. 6: 9-11 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

I think that we oftentimes forget from where God saved us. Some will say that “I never did those things”. Well the truth is you were still a sinner destined for hell. So will we now make comparisons as to who is worthy to hear the Gospel based on our view of severity of levels of sin? The Great Commission did not make a caveat to who we should reach. We are commanded to go and reach everyone we can.

Mt 22:9  Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.

The verse did say “as many as ye shall find” did it not?

Mt 28:19  Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

It also said to reach all nations. So is a nation a people or a place? Is there a limitation?

Ac 1:8  But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.

            We oftentimes hear the previous verse used to justify where we will send people. We often hear differing descriptions of what our Jerusalems, Judaeas, Samarias, and uttermost parts of the earth are. I have heard of pastors telling missionaries seeking support that they cannot have them in because they already have one missionary in that country. That was a country with tens if not hundreds of millions of inhabitants. So is one enough? Well then lets carry this thought over to the home and foreign mission field in America? How many are enough? We already know that we do not have enough fundamentally sound churches in America for “English” speaking people and we know that in many cases we do not feel a need to financially support those endeavors. Sadly this is also the case for reaching the foreign mission field that has come to us.

            We are now guilty of following the letter of the law versus the Spirit of the law. I chose to capitalize the word spirit in the previous use intentionally as we are not only dealing with the spirit of the law, but also with the Holy Spirit of the law. Or rather that Spirit that gave us the law to begin with. Historically we sent missionaries to reach foreigners in far away lands. We established Missions policies to reflect that. As a matter of fact many churches will not support a missionary unless he is ministering in a foreign field because of the policy. But the ground rules have changed. God has chosen, by His grace, to bring the mission field here to us. The problem lies in that God is not playing by the rules that we established. He has set before us a people that need to be reached and in many cases cannot be reached except by those who can speak their language and understand their culture. If you have not noticed they have also brought their language and culture to America. Just take a look for example at Hispanic immigrants. Wal-Mart now has bi-lingual signs throughout the stores. Many businesses are now seeking bi-lingual employees to meet the need, they are not sitting on their hands saying “bless God let them learn English”. Though their goal is different than ours they are being more productive in reaching foreigners in America than we are. For that matter the cults are doing a much better job in reaching the incoming mission field.

            We must ask ourselves a question. Do we reach the foreign field or not? Do we condemn a soul only because he came to the country from which a missionary was sent from to reach him?
Did he leave his country too soon and is no longer worthy to hear the Gospel? Will we be slaves to the letter of the law or will we be servants to the Spirit of the law? I can say without any hesitation that God would have us to reach the mission field wherever that may be. Whether they be Americans in America or whether they be foreigners in foreign lands or on American soil all of them are the mission field. God never said that a soul’s need for salvation was limited by international borders. The mission field is closer than you think. Hopefully it is not a case that it is not far enough away for you. The mission field is a people not a place. The mission field is here.

Women Missionaries

This may be one of the most controversial topics one can take on. It is not controversial because it is defendable Biblically, but because we have created new doctrine in order to provide for feminism in the local church. Before we delve into why it is wrong we must first establish what a missionary is. Once we do then the issue of women missionaries takes care of itself. I will leave the full issue of feminism in the church for another post. First we must realize that we do not have the word “missionary” in the Bible although we accept that Paul as well as others took what we now call missionary journeys. We can also accept the fact that Paul while being an apostle was a missionary.

We find in Acts 13:1 the beginning of Paul’s first missionary journey. In verse 5 of the same chapter we are told just what these missionaries did  “And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews: and they had also John to their minister”. This leads to the first issue. If a missionary is a preacher is a woman to preach to men? We will solely rely on the Bible for the answer. 1Ti 2:12  But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. Now does this mean she cannot witness? Of course she can, but keeping in mind her testimony and avoiding any improper appearance in regards to being alone with that man as we are to avoid any appearance of evil, but back to preaching .The Bible was quite clear so we see already that in the context of the first missionaries a woman could not be one in the truest sense of the word. Now without pulling up every passage we know that Paul also planted churches. Now to plant a church one must start it serving as a pastor and eventually Paul would pass the work on to another man. So let us look at the qualifications of the missionary/pastor. 

I Tim. 3 says:

Vs. 1 “This is a true saying, If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work”. The first key is that he is a “he”.

Vs. 2 “A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife,” Here is our next tip off or rather confirmation as “he” is a husband. “vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;” again this brings us back to I Tim. 2:12 in regards to a woman teacher. 

Vss. 3-4  Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous; One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; Here is another key “one that ruleth his own house”. As is the case the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible and we read regarding ruling the house that it requires that it be the man. Eph 5:23  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. This should be clear enough.

Vss. 5-7 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?) Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover he must have a good report of them which are without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil. The previous verse should be self explanatory as it refers to “his” house.

This is proof positive that the missionary can only be a man as he is to preach as well as pastor. For the sake of brevity these examples should suffice in establishing that a missionary is basically a pastor who is planting a church. Whether this is in a home or foreign field is of no consequence as all the world is a mission field.

Having established the definition of the missionary as well as his responsibility why is it then that we try to justify having women missionaries? Obviously as we mentioned already one reason is feminism in the church. Feminism has stomped into the church and has demanded equality in the church when in fact it is not an issue of equality, but of God’s order and that cannot be altered, at least not if one wishes to remain Biblical. We can see good and well that there is no such thing as a woman missionary in the literal sense. But what of women missionaries in history? These women were obviously out of God’s will as they clearly violated Scripture. Just because it is being done or even if it has shown fruit does not make it right.

In our fundamental circles we are seeing women in missions evolve into “teams” where the husband and wife are co-missionaries. I have heard of women that go to the mission field and put their children in Christian School so they can tend to “their” ministry when in fact they are forsaking “their” ministry which is “their family”. Being a keeper at home doesn’t change because your husband was called to the ministry. There are endless numbers of missionaries fighting daily to raise support to fulfill a Biblical ministry when mission’s money is already consumed by women who are establishing un-Biblical works. We have young ladies going off to Bible Colleges to train for their mission ministries in order to be able to teach the women and children. Needless to say this is also something that I disagree with in the local church as well. So why then did Paul teach the men, women, and children? He did not have a lady teacher to teach the ladies. He did not have to give special classes for special classes of people. So why do we? Obviously because we have created a new doctrine in order to accommodate the desires of people rather than the will of God.

In our self induced condemnation of following the footsteps of the ecumenical movement we should only be a few years away from women pastors. Who knows perhaps we will digress to homosexual pastors as well at this rate and based on the pattern we are following. Am I being a chauvinist? No actually a Biblicist. If this article offends then I would suggest searching the Scriptures and justify what you do based solely on God’s Word as well as Biblically correct examples found in the same Bible.

So what is the bottom line? A woman cannot be a missionary in the truest sense of the word. We need to get back to basics and forsake ministries modeled after the ecumenical movement. We can choose to be progressive to the world and fulfill our lusts or choose to obey God and receive His blessing. What then do we do with all these women in the ministry? Send them back to the home where they were made to minister. Let them minister as only they can to the family. Their mission field is “their” family.