The commission is not given to private individuals or parachurch organizations but to the church. Even the believer’s personal witness to his neighbor is not an independent activity in isolation; he bears witness as a member of a specific body of Christ. Likewise missionaries labor only according to a calling of God under Christ, and that calling is through the church who calls and sends, in God’s name, men to labor in missions.

To the church, therefore, belongs the calling and sending of missionaries. The Lord of the harvest sends forth laborers into His field to labor in the gathering of His elect and in the building of His church. Jesus trained His apostles for that work and sent them out. An aspect of the training for the ministry is training for the work of missions. Paul and Barnabas were called by the Spirit to do mission work, through the church in Antioch (Acts 13:2). This included their being set apart and sent to that work by the laying on of hands (Acts 13:3), though both men were already ministers of the Word and Paul an apostle. This laying on of hands was a token not only of their calling and sending but of the qualifying work of the Spirit to equip them for their specific calling as missionaries.

Bert Mulder schreef:Laboring in the Consciousness of God's Sovereignty in Missions (1): The Commission, Calling, and Sending
By Thomas C Miersma

The commission is not given to private individuals or parachurch organizations but to the church. Even the believer’s personal witness to his neighbor is not an independent activity in isolation; he bears witness as a member of a specific body of Christ. Likewise missionaries labor only according to a calling of God under Christ, and that calling is through the church who calls and sends, in God’s name, men to labor in missions.

To the church, therefore, belongs the calling and sending of missionaries. The Lord of the harvest sends forth laborers into His field to labor in the gathering of His elect and in the building of His church. Jesus trained His apostles for that work and sent them out. An aspect of the training for the ministry is training for the work of missions. Paul and Barnabas were called by the Spirit to do mission work, through the church in Antioch (Acts 13:2). This included their being set apart and sent to that work by the laying on of hands (Acts 13:3), though both men were already ministers of the Word and Paul an apostle. This laying on of hands was a token not only of their calling and sending but of the qualifying work of the Spirit to equip them for their specific calling as missionaries.

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Bert Mulder schreef:Parsifal, this is referring to the Biblical principle of a local church sending missionaries, like the church at Antioch was the sending church for Paul and Barnabas.

memento schreef:

Bert Mulder schreef:Parsifal, this is referring to the Biblical principle of a local church sending missionaries, like the church at Antioch was the sending church for Paul and Barnabas.

I prefer the word 'congregation' instead of 'church', to make sure to understand that it is not the church in the sense of the dutch word 'kerkgenootschap'.

When I have to advise a non-churchgoer who wants to visit a chuch, and he lives nearer to a church that is not of my kerkgenootschap, but has a sound teaching, I rather send him to that church. A kerkgenootschap is in my opinion nothing but a cooperation between local congregations, for the good of all them. It is the local congregation that has autority, and that applies to sending missionaries too.