Mere Missions

192 • M ere M issions : M oving F orward to M ultiply

From Genesis to Revelation the Bible attributes one determination of God and that is to save humanity. In all of God’s dealings with human beings His objective is to populate His Kingdom in the world to come. He is throwing a banquet like none other, and He wants it filled to capacity (Luke 14.16-24). It is going to be the ultimate of celebrations. Until then, we have been called and enlisted to go and proclaim Good News of entry into God’s eternal Kingdom and Banquet celebration to all who would submit and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We must keep moving forward and not shrink back. We are it and we must not abandon the mission. Now is the time to heed the words of J. Oswald Sanders when he said, “A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the Kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.” Excess caution must be stricken from our vocabulary and bold experimentation must be highlighted and applauded in these challenging days in which we live. This was exactly how the Apostle Paul lived and what the early church expected. The first missionary journey was a bold step of the Antioch Church to advance the Kingdom of God into new frontiers. All caution was thrown into the wind as the send-off team of Paul and Barnabas were commissioned and released (Acts 13.5) to proclaim the Gospel leading them to establish new outposts of the Kingdom wherever the Spirit of the Lord would lead them. John Mark was part of this team but not long into their missions journey, Luke records this short comment in Acts 13.13b, “And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.” Luke does not tell us why John Mark left the missions team and returned to Jerusalem. What we do know is that it was of great importance to the Apostle Paul to the extent that it caused a severe confrontation and break between Paul and Barnabas as they made plans for their second missions journey. To Paul, John Mark’s withdrawal (Acts 15.38) was an abandonment, a