Read Genesis 1:28 and Revelation 7:9-10
Are you ready for some really bad puns? Prepare for an eggs-amination. It’s time to get egg‐ucated. If you look in the hen-cyclopedia, you may find the answer to the perennial philosophical question of the causality‐dilemma regarding the chicken and the egg. This perplexing question about the proto-chicken has vexed people throughout history back to Aristotle! So what came first? The same cause‐and‐effect challenge applies to the mission of our Bible.
What came first: God’s mission or the Bible? This may seem like an unnecessary distinction, but it is of critical importance for your world view and how you live your life. God told people to multiply throughout the earth at its genesis: “be fruitful and multiply.” Jesus applied this biological imperative to a spiritual Commission: “Go make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18‐20). And the Bible describes God’s ‘happily ever after’ with a multitude from “every nation, tribe, people, and language” gathered before His throne. Therefore, international missions is not just one Bible teaching among others, but it is the Christian Church’s raison d'etre (i.e., the Church’s most important reason for existence).
“As burning is to fire, so is mission to the church” (Emil Brunner). Any church not striving to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world has missed the point of Scripture. The Bible was given not just to help us gain insight for living, do ‘business by the Book’, have better marriages and raise well-adjusted children (though it certainly speaks to these matters). The Bible is God’s mission manifesto: God’s declaration of intentions and motives for a world gone wrong. If this is new information to you, now you know it’s time to get fired‐up!
Are you ready for some really bad puns? Prepare for an eggs-amination. It’s time to get egg‐ucated. If you look in the hen-cyclopedia, you may find the answer to the perennial philosophical question of the causality‐dilemma regarding the chicken and the egg. This perplexing question about the proto-chicken has vexed people throughout history back to Aristotle! So what came first? The same cause‐and‐effect challenge applies to the mission of our Bible.
What came first: God’s mission or the Bible? This may seem like an unnecessary distinction, but it is of critical importance for your world view and how you live your life. God told people to multiply throughout the earth at its genesis: “be fruitful and multiply.” Jesus applied this biological imperative to a spiritual Commission: “Go make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18‐20). And the Bible describes God’s ‘happily ever after’ with a multitude from “every nation, tribe, people, and language” gathered before His throne. Therefore, international missions is not just one Bible teaching among others, but it is the Christian Church’s raison d'etre (i.e., the Church’s most important reason for existence).
“As burning is to fire, so is mission to the church” (Emil Brunner). Any church not striving to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world has missed the point of Scripture. The Bible was given not just to help us gain insight for living, do ‘business by the Book’, have better marriages and raise well-adjusted children (though it certainly speaks to these matters). The Bible is God’s mission manifesto: God’s declaration of intentions and motives for a world gone wrong. If this is new information to you, now you know it’s time to get fired‐up!