Missionaries: A Prophet is Not a Missionary

Another title to this post was, The Method is Not the Message.

This post is some of my comments on this week's Sabbath School lesson, Lesson 3, John the Baptist: Preparing the Way for Jesus.

How far would John the Baptist, operating and giving the message in the way he did, have gone with, oh, let's just say, 21st century Japanese people in Japan? Probably about as far as the end of his tongue, I suspect. Bluntness, directness, and boldness are very negative attributes to express in Japanese culture. To do so would get one blacklisted in a hurry.

How far would John the Baptist have gone with most of 21st century North America? Again, I suspect not very far, though perhaps a little more inroads than in Japan. Talking about sin and spirituality without first establishing a close relationship is more and more taken as hate behaviors in this culture. To do so easily causes barriers to go up and can negatively affect any future interest in even considering the message.

Why do I think so? Because John the Baptist was a prophet to his own people (primarily) at the early part of the 1st century AD. His calling wasn't to be a missionary to the Gentiles (though many apparently did seek him out, for whatever reason), nor to 21st century Japan or North America.

And that, I think, is the weakness of this week's lesson in the Study Guide. The reader can easily take away the idea that because John the Baptist had a special calling to be a prophet to his people, we too, should mimic the behaviors, the precise message, and the delivery of the message. The reader can get the impression that because the Seventh-day Adventist church was formed in response to the belief that the end was near, the church should embrace the methods of John the Baptist because Jesus spoke so highly of him.

John the Baptist didn't go into the city to preach. People came to him. There's no evidence he did any sort of advertising or marketing. It was all word-of-mouth. I might even give John the Baptist as an anti-pattern of an effective missionary.

When a person is sought out, that inherently gives that person a certain measure of privilege to speak out. When a person is part of the people group seeking him out, and in the case of John, he also came from a priestly family (held in high regard already), I believe that gave him quite a degree of credibility and authority from the start. When he spoke out against civil and religious abuses, that only added to the sense of authority granted to him. John was a prophet, sent to his own people. He was sent to break down and level obstacles that the Jewish religious regulations (mostly) had placed in the way of recognizing their Messiah.

Missionaries don't enjoy the same sort of rights, privileges and authority. They are foreigners (even if they're simply going from an inherently religious world to a secular one -- down the street, for example) where they must first earn the right to speak. Missionaries who act like prophets in today's world, I believe, more often than not create a negative impression of the gospel.

There are still parts of the world where prophet-like missionaries are still effective. But in much research I've seen, this is not going to last much longer. The whole world is quickly moving towards attitudes regarding religion and spirituality that resemble North America and Western Europe.

The Study Guide also dwells on the Three Angels' Message of Revelation 14:6-13. I spoke on this passage earlier this year. In it I observed that Revelation was written with believers as its primary audience. So the Three Angels' Message is primarily for those who claim to be Christians. As far as the "eternal gospel," I find it interesting that it specifically applies to just the first angel's message, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water" (Rev. 14:7 NIV).

In the sermon, I noted that we need to apply this message in order to render it relevant for today's people. In it I suggested that the Three Angels' Message, translated for today might look something like this:

For us (Seventh-day Adventist Christians) to...

• Show and tell to the world that there is a loving and trustworthy God.
• Show and tell to the world that only God offers real rest and peace.
• Show and tell to the world that God accepts and loves us as we are, and he will accomplish our desires to change for the better.
• Show and tell to the world that God is just and works through us to promote it.
• Show and tell to the world that God is already with us today and wants us to be with him forever.

The church may need prophets, but the world needs missionaries. We should not confuse the two. Both should ultimately proclaim the gospel, but the methods and audiences are vastly different. We must learn our audience and employ appropriate methods to accomplish the greatest good. We must never excuse negative methods for the sake of expediency.