By Pastor Bruce Oyen
My theme is: "The local church's missionaries."
Every local church that follows the New Testament believes in supporting missionaries. Biblical missionaries are men and women who have been called by God to do what Jesus said in Matthew 28:18 - 20 should be done. Their emphasis is on carrying out the Lord's command to give the Gospel to others, and then baptize and teach those who first have become Christians by believing in Jesus Christ as their Savior. They might provide medical help, dig wells, teach English, do carpentry work, or do something else to get a hearing. But those activities will only be tools to open doors of opportunity to do what we read in Matthew 28:18 - 20.
A local church is not a building, but a body of believers organized as a church. They might meet in a building, on a lawn, or under a tree. But let the graphic above represent such a body of believers.
An important question about our missionaries.
Those persons who make up local churches are thrilled to hear that their money and prayers have enabled missionaries to go around the world on their behalf to carry out the Great Commission. But we need to ask ourselves an important question: do our missionaries teach their converts the doctrines believed by their supporting churches? We expect them to teach the right way to be saved. But we should also expect them to teach their converts the other doctrines of their supporting churches.
Are soul-winning and fundamental doctrines all that matters?
Sadly, though, many sincere Christians think that if their missionaries win souls to faith in Jesus Christ, it doesn't really matter what the new Christians are taught, so long as it is not major false doctrine. Their attitude is that if the converts are taught the fundamentals of the Christian faith, what they are taught about non-fundamentals is of no great importance.
Other doctrines are very important
I agree that winning souls to Christ and teaching them the fundamentals of the faith is of primary importance. But other doctrines are important, too. We should, in fact, consider the doctrines of our local churches so important that we want our missionaries to pass them on to their converts. Why would we pay men and women to go to the far corners of the earth and teach doctrines not believed by our churches? Why would we pay home missionaries to do this? Does that make sense? Don't we want to reproduce our churches and their fundamental and non-fundamental doctrines through our missionaries?
Some questions to think about.
Now, here are some more questions to make my point clear. The list of questions is not complete. The questions are intended to get us to think this matter through.
Do our missionaries believe what our churches believe about the inspiration of the Bible?
Do they believe what we do about the infallibility and authority of the Bible?
Do they believe what we do about Bible translations?
Do they believe what we do about how to become a Christian?
Do they believe what we do about baptism and the Lord's supper?
Do they believe what we do about female pastors?
Do they believe what we do about repentance and faith?
Do they believe what we do about the permanence of salvation?
Do they believe what we do about spiritual/charismatic gifts?
Do they believe what we do about the extent of the atonement?
Do they believe what we do about the rapture and the second coming of Christ?
Do they believe what we do about the millennium?
Do they believe what we do about the Antichrist?
Do they believe what we do about heaven and hell?
Do they believe what we do about the resurrection of the dead?
Do they believe what we do about life after death?
Do they believe what we do about the local church?
Do they believe what we do about the officers of the church?
Do they believe what we do about evolution versus creation?
In conclusion
I believe in the independence of the local church. This means the local church governs itself. This means it can support whatever missionaries it chooses to support. But, if a church says all that really matters is that their missionaries teach the right way to be saved, and that they teach the fundamentals of the faith, they are making a big mistake. Other doctrines are important, too.
We should expect our missionaries to teach their converts what their supporting churches believe. The only churches that do not expect this of their missionaries are inter-denominational (that is, inter-doctrinal) churches. Is this true of our churches? Let's hope not, for the churches of the New Testament were not inter-denominational/inter-doctrinal churches. They were non-denominational, but not inter-denominational. They did not believe non-fundamental doctrines were of little importance. As proof of this, read, for example, through Paul's letters to the Thessalonian Christians. In those two short letters, he said a lot about non-fundamental doctrines because of their great importance.