WE MUST SEND MISSIONARIES

ROMANS 10:9–15

How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them

(Romans 10:14)?

As we rejoin Paul in Romans 10 he tells us that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” This brings him to the subject of the Christian mission. First, he asks how anyone can call on the Lord if he does not trust Him. I don’t ask my barber to save me, because I don’t believe he can do that job. In the same way, before I can call on Jesus to save me, I have to know about Him and trust in His ability to do what I am asking.

The Missionary Task

Second, Paul asks how anyone can trust Jesus if he has never heard of Him. Obviously, before someone can trust in Jesus, he has to have heard of Him. Sadly, this message of Paul escapes a great many people in certain churches today. They complain every time there is a fundraising drive for missions. They view missionaries as imperialists who are destroying perfectly worthwhile pagan cultures. “Just let them keep worshiping ‘God’ their own way,” they say.

Not so, says historic Christianity. Not so, says the apostle Paul. In order to be saved one must “confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9). It is to save the pagan from the wrath to come that we must send out missionaries.

Third, Paul asks how anyone can hear without someone preaching to them. Preaching the Gospel to the unbelieving world is surely the foremost task of the Christian church. There is no other way people can be saved. Fourth and finally, Paul asks, “And how can they preach unless they are sent?” (v. 15). It is our duty, yours and mine, to see to it that the preachers are sent out. You may not be called to teach or preach or be a missionary, but you are called to use your money, your tithe, to help send out the preachers into a lost world.

CORAM DEO

In too many churches the great omission is the Great Commission. Very often Christians have relegated the work of evangelism and missions to professionally trained believers overseas. Do you recognize that God has deployed you to the mission field within your community, work place, and family? Recount your last opportunity to share the Gospel.

For further study: Acts 15:22–35; 2 Corinthians 9:10–15

thursday

september