Is it legitimate to use Jesus and the accounts of His ministry as a pattern for cross-cultural missions? If a missionary understands that following Jesus includes using His ministry methods as a paradigm for fulfilling the Great Commission, that choice will lead to certain conclusions. Conversely, if we see Paul and his apostolic co-laborers as our primary example, we will arrive at a different set of applications for missions today. How we answer this question matters—a lot!
Should We Use the Ministry of Jesus as Our Paradigm?
It is important that we consider the limits that are inherent in using the Lord Himself as our example for how we do gospel ministry. Jesus was the incarnate Son of God, the Messiah. His task was to fulfill Old Testament prophecy and the Law and to give His life as a ransom for many. The Church of the new covenant did not yet exist, nor had the Great Commission been given, when Jesus and His disciples walked through what we call the Holy Land.
In His earthly ministry, Jesus was voluntarily homeless. He always traveled with a group of disciples, spending much time in the Temple and in Jewish synagogues. Jesus worked countless miracles of incredible proportion, taught in parables and mysteries, and ministered almost solely to the Jews. He displayed His deity, His power over death, the curse, demons, and man. After His death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus gave His disciples, those who would lay the foundation of His Church, the Great Commission before ascending into heaven.
Christ did not commission us to duplicate his miracles or come up with doable substitutes. He did not teach us to take a vow of poverty, cast out demons, or remain unmarried. If our ambition as followers of our Lord is to be like Him, what does that mean?
Jesus was and is the perfect Man. To be like Christ refers to reflecting His character, His righteousness, His godliness in our own lives. This is not to be confused with imitation of His ministry lifestyle or the methods He used, even if we can learn about Him from them.
Should We Use the Ministry of Paul as Our Paradigm?
After the Holy Spirit was given to God’s people in Acts 2, from that point forward we see what the fulfilment of the Great Commission meant. This makes the ministry of the Apostles, and particularly that of Paul as the missionary to the Gentiles, our primary example for cross-cultural ministry.1
While the Apostles also did miracles at times and exercised spiritual gifts no longer in regular use today, their ministries did not depend on these signs. We are not even given the impression that miracles and signs were frequently part of their ministries. Even so, Paul was conscious of the fact that he exemplified Jesus Christ in the context of cross-cultural missions. This is why he could so boldly ask God’s people to imitate him.2 He said, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
Erasing the “Tension” Between Jesus and Paul
Those who assume that Jesus is our primary example for how to fulfill the Great Commission are tempted to largely ignore the teaching and model of the Apostles about missions. In their minds, Jesus’ example is far more important and binding.
Those who think this way tend to form certain conclusions. One of these is that missions must be holistic, healing for both the body and soul. It must include poverty relief alongside preaching the Gospel. They read that Jesus continually healed the sick, fed the thousands, and cast out demons. This means that holistic missions must be the norm.
In a discussion about why it is that Christians ignore Paul’s apostolic methods, a believer once said to me, “Because we are obeying Jesus, not Paul.” These words convey a tension in that person’s mind between the example of Jesus and that of Paul and the Apostles. Paul’s example is then considered to be inferior.
Kevin DeYoung has written an excellent book that provides needed clarity about the ministry of Jesus and how it relates to our fulfillment of the Great Commission today: What Is the Mission of the Church? Making Sense of Social Justice, Shalom, and the Great Commission.
Different than Jesus is OK
We must not allow ourselves to think that there is a conflict between what Jesus did in His earthly ministry and what Paul exemplified for us. The ministries of Jesus and of Paul were accomplishing different things. Paul was commissioned by Christ, enabled, and led by God’s Holy Spirit as a gospel foundation builder for the Gentile church. Paul obeyed Jesus’ teachings, but his ministry looked much different than that of Jesus. We must understand this difference.
Was Paul rebelling against God’s paradigm of kingdom ministry? Were he and all the other Apostles and colaborers just ignorant of Jesus’ methods? No, these men and women were exemplifying for the Church what it meant to obey Jesus Christ and fulfill the Great Commission. There were no inconsistencies between their methods and Christ’s teachings.
Paul’s Example as Missionary
His one purpose: making disciples
Notice how neither the Apostle Paul nor any of his colaborers ever mentioned that they were anything other than preachers of the Gospel. The most thorough search through Acts and the New Testament Epistles reveals that their missionary plans and purposes were one: make disciples by going and proclaiming the Gospel. Paul said he knew nothing other than the message of the cross among the people he sought to win.3
His personal generosity
The Apostles (under inspiration) regularly exhorted God’s people to be full of good works toward those around them. Paul helped others with his own earnings so as to be like Christ and to provide an example of how normal Christian should respond to those in need.4 He taught that generosity and hospitality are non-negotiable qualities for preachers of the Gospel.5 But beyond providing an example of Christian giving, nothing is said.
The absence of holistic agenda
Paul’s example is reflected in Peter, John, Timothy, Titus, Silas, John Mark, Luke, and all others named in the New Testament as leaders in fulfilling the Great Commission. What these men did and did not do in the sixty or so years of early church history is vitally important for guiding the limits of our focus today.
Paul’s Example as Corrective
Obviously, the apostles did not believe it was their burden to mobilize the Church to relieve poverty, transform communities, advance human flourishing, and solve social ills. Nor do they anywhere communicate that God has given this task to the Church. Missionaries today are not any more responsible to solve societal ills in their fields of labor than the Apostles were.
Gospel laborers today are called to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and be examples of Christianity as individual believers in their community. If a significant believing community rises up in a given place, the culture there will indeed be changed.
Compassion-oriented ministries are certainly commendable. However, disaster relief, medical missions, and other projects in themselves are not fulfilling Christ’s primary command for His Church. It is when these ministries become genuine avenues for making disciples and supporting church planting that they help fulfill the Great Commission.
No Great Commission passages communicate anything other than the necessity of making disciples. The pattern we see in the Apostles’ lives shows that disciple-making is our primary calling and gives the principles for how to do it.
If you would like to consider this topic further, consider reading Pioneer Missions: Meet the Challenges, Share the Blessings.
1 Eckhard Schnabel’s work Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies, and Methods (InterVarsity Press, 2009) is a thorough treatment of Paul’s life as missionary to the Gentiles. He seeks to make applications of Paul’s example for believers pursuing the fulfillment of the Great Commission today.
2 1Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; Philippians 3:17.
3 Acts 20:17-35; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12.
4 Acts 20:35.
5 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:8.