Missionaries: Pushing Boundaries

Comments on Sabbath School Study Guide, Lesson 10, Women of Mission.

When cultural norms and accepted social customs are hindrances and stumbling blocks in the way of people coming to Christ, what is a missionary to do? When should missionaries prioritize preserving peace and unity over pressing for what is right? When does pressing for what is right become evil rather than good?

This week's lesson begins right off the bat with the topic of Jesus "Breaking the Rules" (Sunday) of traditions, culture, and religion. Some of my observations upon looking at the examples given are that:

• Jesus pushed boundaries, but never so far as to destroy his mission. In other words, Jesus understood the limits of what the culture was able to tolerate. For example, although Jesus allowed and encouraged women to participate as disciples, he did not (as far as is recorded) formally appoint or anoint them as such.
• Jesus demonstrated and taught, within his own spheres of responsibility and authority, moves towards God's ideals, those things that were contrary to accepted norms; but he usually did not impose his ways outside of his spheres, onto those who were opposed to his ways. For example, Jesus taught the higher principles of marriage (divorce is contrary to God's plan) and life (even hating is a form of murder), he demonstrated that laws regarding ritual impurity can be set aside (touching the dead and unclean individuals), but he did not campaign to have laws changed.
• Jesus acted and taught to bring glory to God's love. His deeds and words always sought to bring those who witnessed them liberation from man-made prisons of thought, so that they could see more clearly God's true character. Perhaps the one place where Jesus seemed to impose his way was in the cleansing of the temple. The way I see this incident is that what was happening at the temple was clearly misrepresenting God. Additionally, perhaps the temple was the one place on earth (at the time) where Jesus did have full authority.

The point of bringing up the above is because the church, for much of its history and even today, views women as inferior to men when it comes to their ability to serve as God's missionaries. I sense that too many take the Bible as the standard for religio-cultural practice rather than case-studies of religio-cultural progress. Too often churches take, say, the letters of Paul and make universal application of the practices, failing to understand, deliberately or by omission, that each letter was written to address specific problems in a local church, each with its own cultural, societal, and historical context.

After reflecting on this week's lesson, the conclusion I've come to is that churches function best in a local context. The church's mission is to show increasingly more clearly God's love. One of the ways is to do this is to bring relief and liberty to those who are oppressed and marginalized. Thus I believe churches have a responsibility to push the boundaries of accepted norms. This is best done within a local context. A worldwide church simply cannot dictate all things to all cultures, all the time. A worldwide church that seeks to minimize conflict and maximize uniformity will nearly always stay inside the lowest common denominators. I don't believe this is what Jesus intended for his church.

If the global church won't or can't push boundaries, then individual churches, wherever they are, should follow the example of Jesus. But in doing so, don't destroy and misrepresent God's purpose; don't impose your context onto others, but rather work within your context; and always seek to magnify God's glory and his love by removing obstacles that people have in seeing the true God.