The Ambassador Group

Biblical Missionaries

0. Biblical Missionaries: The Great Commission

Welcome to an in-depth exploration of biblical missionaries, written by Borge Shentz, edited for audio and produced by The Ambassador Group.

Introduction, The Great Commission And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

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 How much plainer could it be?

Here is Jesus, the resurrected Jesus, the Jesus whom they worshipped, giving his people in even the earliest days of the church the calling and mission, make disciples of every nation of the world, period.

It's not hard either to see the link between these words spoken to the 11 in Galilee and the words spoken to John on the island of Patmos years later.

Revelation chapter 14, Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, "'Fear God and give glory to him, "'for the hour of his judgment has come, "'and worship him who made heaven and earth, "'the sea and springs of water.'" Then another angel, a second, followed, declaring, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, She who made all nations drink of the maddening wine of her passionate unchastity, idolatry.

Then another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a mighty voice, Whoever pays homage to the beast and his statue and permits the beast's stamp, mark, and inscription to be put on his forehead or on his hand, he too shall have to drink of the wine of God's indignation and wrath, poured undiluted into the cup of his anger, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.

And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, and they have no respite, No pause, no intermission, no rest, no peace, day or night.

These who pay homage to the beast and to his image, and whoever receives the stamp of his name upon him, here comes in a call for the steadfastness of the saints, the patience, the endurance of the people of God, those who habitually keep God's commandments, and their faith in Jesus.

1 could say that the 3 angels' messages of Revelation 14 are the Great Commission contextualized for the last days of Earth's history.

God has told his church, his people, to reach out and spread the gospel to the entire world.

Listen to 3 verses from the Amplified Bible.

They help us understand the 3 components of the gospel.

I will say the component, followed by its scripture verse.

We start by spreading the truth about Jesus and what he has done for us.

For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world, that He even gave up His only begotten, unique Son, so that whoever believes in, trusts in, clings to, relies on him shall not perish or come to destruction or be lost but have eternal or everlasting life.

Component number 2, What he is doing now for us?

Will Christ Jesus, the Messiah, who died, or rather who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, actually pleading as he intercedes for us.

Component number 3, and what he will do for us in the future.

1 Thessalonians 4, 16, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a loud cry of summons, with the shout of an archangel, and with the blast of the trumpet of God.

And those who have departed this life in Christ will rise first." Spreading this gospel is truly our mission.

The word mission itself means ascending or being sent to perform a service.

That is, people go away in order to do something.

In the case of the Great Commission, what they do is to spread the gospel to the world.

In these 13 explorations, We will look at mission first and foremost as God's means for communicating the gospel to those who don't know it.

Mission is a core part of God's sovereign activity in the process of redeeming humanity.

So, we will explore how God's eternal purpose has been accomplished in the lives of individuals in the Bible whom he has used to be missionaries to the lost.

In the end, the Christian mission is God's mission, not ours.

It is based on the love of God, and it is accomplished by the will of God.

To better understand God's mission commitment and involvement, our explorations are based on the following model of salvation history.

Number 1, God created men and women and gave them free will.

Number 2, the first man and woman abused their free will by disobeying God and they had to leave paradise.

Number 3, God could not use force to bring them back to paradise.

Number 4, God sent his son on a mission to die in their place and reconcile them to him.

God's mission is to make the offer of salvation known to all people and thus open the way for them to have redemption.

At its most basic level, mission is letting the whole world know about Jesus and about what He has done for each of us and about what He promises to do for us now and for eternity.

In short, we who know about those promises have been called to tell people about them as well.

Our explorations were co-written by Borge Shantz, Ph.D., and Stephen Wayne Thompson.

Borge Shantz, PhD from Fuller University, was a professor at Loma Linda University.

He and his wife Iris served for 14 years as missionaries in Africa and the Middle East.

Co-contributor Stephen Wayne Thompson, before retiring, was president from 1984 to 1990 at Newbold College in England, and then Dean of Theology Faculty and a lecturer at Avondale College in Australia from 1991 to 2008.

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01. Biblical Missionaries: The Missionary Nature of God

Welcome to an in-depth exploration of biblical missionaries written by Borge Shentz.

Edited for audio and produced by The Ambassador Group.

See, I have made him a witness to the people's, a leader and commander of the people's.

Isaiah 55 verse 4 New International Version.

Our world is a mess and as humans we are the big reason it is such a mess.

And that's because we are sinners, fallen creatures whose nature at the core is evil.

However much we like to think of ourselves as advancing, as improving, the history of the past century isn't too encouraging.

And here we are, not even a quarter of the way into this century, and things don't look that bright from here either.

If the past is precursor to the future, all we can expect to quote a former British politician is blood, toil, tears and sweat.

On the contrary, Jesus Christ has died for our sins, and through his death, we have the promise of salvation, of restoration, of all things being made new.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.

Revelation chapter 21 verse 1, the New King James Version.

Abandoned in the infinite expanse of a cold and apparently uncaring cosmos to fend for ourselves.

The forces arrayed against us are so much greater than we are.

That's why God had the plan of salvation in order to do for us what we could never do for ourselves.

God Created Man and Woman 1 of the perennial questions humans have asked is, where do I come from?

In the first 2 chapters of the Bible, in fact, all through the Bible, we have been given the answer to what many would consider the most important question a person can ask.

After all, only by knowing where we came from are we off to a good start in knowing who we are, why we exist, how we are to live, and where we are ultimately going.

Let's listen to Genesis chapters 1 and 2 from the Amplified Bible, but focus especially on Genesis 1 verses 26 to 28.

I will let you know when we come to those verses.

What great differences appear in the creation of humanity as opposed to everything else in the texts?

What is it about humans that stands out from other parts of this creation?

Let's Listen to Genesis chapters 1 and 2.

In the beginning, God prepared, formed, fashioned, and created the heavens and the earth.

The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep.

The Spirit of God was moving, hovering, brooding over the face of the waters.

And God saw that the light was good, suitable, pleasant, and he approved it.

And God separated the light from the darkness.

And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

And there was evening, and there was morning 1 day.

And God said, Let there be a firmament, the expanse of the sky, in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters below from the waters above.

And God made the firmament, the expanse, and separated the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse.

And there was evening and there was morning a second day.

And God said, let the waters under the heavens be collected into 1 place of standing and let the dry land appear.

God called the dry land earth and the accumulated waters he called seas.

And God saw that this was good, fitting, admirable, and he approved it.

And God said, Let the earth put forth tender vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees yielding fruit, whose seed is in itself, each according to its kind, upon the earth.

The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds and bearing fruit in which was their seed, each according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good, suitable, admirable, and he approved it.

And there was evening and there was morning, a third day.

And God said, let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light upon the earth.

And God made the 2 great lights, the greater light, the sun, to rule the day, and the lesser light, the moon, to rule the night.

He also made the stars and God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.

And God saw that it was good, fitting, pleasant, and He approved it.

And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

And God said, let the waters bring forth abundantly and swarm with living creatures, and let birds fly over the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.

God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves which the waters brought forth abundantly according to their kinds and every winged bird according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good, suitable, admirable, and He approved it.

And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the waters in the seas and elect the foul multiply in the earth And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

And God said, Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds, livestock, creeping things, and wild beasts of the earth according to their kinds.

And God made the wild beasts of the earth according to their kinds, and domestic animals according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the earth according to its kind.

And God saw that it was good, fitting, pleasant, and he approved it.

Okay, the next 3 verses will help you answer the 2 questions.

God said, Let us, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, make mankind in our image, after our likeness, and let them have complete authority over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame beasts, and over all of the earth, and over everything that creeps upon the earth.

In the image and likeness of God, he created him.

Verse 28, And God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, using all its vast resources in the service of God and man.

And have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves upon the earth.

And now I will continue reading the last 3 verses of Genesis 1 and then Genesis chapter 2.

And God said, See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the land, and every tree with seed in its fruit.

And to all the animals on the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the ground, to everything in which there is the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.

And God saw everything that he had made and to behold it was very good suitable pleasant and he approved it completely And there was evening and there was morning, a sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done.

And God blessed, spoke good of the seventh day, set it apart as his own, and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all his work which he had created and done.

This is the history of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.

When no plant of the field was yet in the earth, And no herb of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not yet caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground.

But there went up a mist, fog, vapor, from the land, and watered the whole surface of the ground.

Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.

And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east in Eden, delight.

And there he put the man whom he had formed, framed, constituted, and out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, or to be desired, good, suitable, pleasant, for food, the tree of life also in the center of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of the difference between good and evil, and blessing and calamity.

Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became 4 river heads.

02. Biblical Missionaries: Abraham- the First Missionary

Welcome to another in-depth exploration of biblical missionaries written by Borge Schentz, edited for audio and produced by the Ambassador Group.

So also Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.

Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham.

Galatians chapter 3 verses 6 to 8 New International Version.

It's no coincidence that 3 of the world's major faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are sometimes called the Abrahamic faiths.

That's because all 3, in 1 way or another, trace their roots back to this great man of God.

Though Abraham is admired as the defining example of faithfulness, this exploration will examine this faithfulness from a different angle.

That is, we want to view him as a missionary, as someone called by the Lord to go to another land and witness to the people about the true God, the Creator and Redeemer.

And if you belong to Christ, are in Him who is Abraham's seed, then you are Abraham's offspring and spiritual heirs according to promise.

God gave Abraham and his family after him a threefold purpose.

Purpose 1, to be recipients and guardians of the divine truth of God's kingdom that had been lost in the earlier history of humankind.

Purpose 2, to be the channel through which the Redeemer would enter history.

And purpose 3, to be as God's faithful servants a light to the nations, a light to those who needed to know the Lord.

The Call of Abraham The Lord had said to Abraham, Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you.

I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you.

I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3 New International Version.

Abram, whose name meant, the father is exalted, and whose name was changed to Abraham, the father of multitudes, grew up in Ur, in what is now Iraq.

God called him to separate himself from his familiar social and spiritual context and migrate to an unfamiliar country where God conducted a hundred-year spiritual makeover, turning him into the father of the faithful.

In the midst of personal and family struggles, Abraham became a prototype missionary to several people groups and a respected leader who witnessed to his faith in God.

Listen to Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 to 3.

What principles do you hear that you can apply to your own particular situation?

That is, what did Abraham experience that you might experience in your own way as well?

Now, in Haran, the Lord said to Abraham, Go for yourself, for your own advantage, away from your country, from your relatives and your father's house, to the land that I will show you.

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you with abundant increase of favors, and make your name famous and distinguished, and you will be a blessing, dispensing good to others.

And I will bless those who bless you who confer prosperity or happiness upon you and curse him who curses or uses insolent language toward you in you Will all the families and kindred of the earth be blessed and by you they will bless themselves?

Let's compare our listening observations.

He's speaking to you through the Holy Spirit.

Are you willing to leave your comfort zone?

Are you eager to be a blessing to other people?

Let's also compare those verses in Genesis to Hebrews 11 verses 8 to 10.

Urged on by faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed and went forth to a place which he was destined to receive as an inheritance.

And he went, although he did not know or trouble his mind about where he was to go.

Prompted by faith, he dwelt as a temporary resident in the land which was designated in the promise of God, though he was like a stranger in a strange country, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was waiting expectantly and confidently, looking forward to the city which has fixed and a firm foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

The patriarch was called to leave his past behind him, to step out in faith, to believe what seemed unbelievable, to do what God had called him to do.

And as a result of his faithfulness, all the nations of the world would be blessed.

Of course, you might not hear the voice of God speaking directly to you, but he calls us by the teachings of his word and the events of his providence.

We may be required to abandon a career that promises wealth and honor.

We might have to leave congenial and profitable associations and separate from family.

Indeed, we might have to enter upon what appears only to be a path of self-denial, hardship, and sacrifice.

But if God calls us to, how can we refuse?

In Genesis, the Hebrew reads literally, And God said to Abraham, Go for yourself from your land.

He was told to go for himself, that is, for his own sake.

Abraham's Testimony to the Kings Lot was a relative of Abraham, and accompanied him on some of his travels.

His choice of the well-watered Jordan Valley brought him into the company of the wicked men in Sodom.

He was then rescued first by Abraham, and later by 2 angels.

When Abraham heard that his relative Lot was in trouble, he decided to help him.

In rescuing Lot, Abraham headed a military force of more than 300 men of his own household.

Numerous kings were involved in the battle for Sodom, and Abraham came out to the victor.

Genesis 14, 8-24 says, Then the kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bilar, that is, Zoar, went out, and together they joined battle with those kings in the valley of Sidum.

With the kings Chedorlaomer of Elam, Tidal of Goim, Amrephel of Shinar, and Ariok of Elessar, 4 kings against 5.

Now the valley of Sidum was full of slime, or by Tuman pits, and as the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, they fell, were overthrown there, and the remainder of the kings fled to the mountain.

The victors took all the wealth of Sodom and Gomorrah and all the supply of provisions and departed.

And they also took Lot, Abram's brother's son, who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods away with them.

Then 1 who had escaped came and told Abram the Hebrew, 1 from the other side, who was living by the oaks or terrabinths of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshcol and of Anar.

When Abram heard that his nephew had been captured, he armed, led forth the 318 trained servants born in his own house and pursued the enemy as far as Dan.

He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and attacked and routed them, and pursued them as far as Hobah, which is north of Damascus.

And he brought forth all the goods, and also brought back his kinsmen lot, and his possessions, the women also, and the people.

After his return from the defeat and slaying of Chedor-Leomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom and went out to meet him at the valley of Shephe, that is, the king's valley.

Melchizedek, king of Salem, later called Jerusalem, brought out bread and wine for their nourishment, and he was the priest of God Most High.

And he blessed him and said, Blessed, favored with blessings, made blissful, joyful, be Abraham by God most high, possessor and maker of heaven and earth.

And blessed, praised, and glorified be God most high, who has given your foes into your hand.' And Abram gave him a tenth of all he had taken.

And the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give me the persons, and keep the goods for yourself.

But Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have lifted up my hand and sworn to the Lord, God most high, the possessor and maker of heaven and earth, that I would not take a thread or a shoelace or anything that is yours, lest you should say, I have made Abram rich.

Take all except only what my young men have eaten, and the share of the men, allies, who went with me, Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre.

Let them take their portion." What did Abraham's actions say about his character and as a result about his faith and his God?

To the kings he conquered, Abraham revealed the power of God.

Even during this rescue mission, the father of the faithful did not lose his divine call to be a blessing to the nations.

The worshiper of Jehovah had not only rendered a great service to the country, but had proved himself a man of valor.

It was seen that righteousness is not cowardice, and that Abraham's religion made him courageous in maintaining the right and defending the oppressed.

His heroic act gave him a widespread influence among the surrounding tribes.

On his return, The King of Sodom came out with his retinue to honor the conqueror.

He bade him take the goods, begging only that the prisoners should be restored.

By the usage of war, the spoils belonged to the conquerors.

But Abraham had undertaken this expedition with no purpose of gain, and he refused to take advantage of the unfortunate, only stipulating that his confederates should receive the portion to which they were entitled.

The book is entitled, Patriarchs and Prophets.

That extensive insight is found on page 135.

What kind of witness do they present to people about your faith?

Though hardly perfect, Abraham was a man of God, and time and again in the Bible, even in the New Testament, he is used as an example of faithfulness and of what it means to be saved by faith.

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