The Story of Lutheran Missions

by Elsie Singmaster

Before beginning the actual history of Lutheran missions we will review briefly Christian missions before the establishment of the Protestant Church, so that the student may connect the present with the past.

|Salvation Intended for the Whole World.| Christ did not present to the Jews the first intimation of salvation for the whole world. Just as all spiritual truths which He elaborated and fulfilled were shadowed forth in the Old Testament, so was the missionary idea. Here we find the hidden seeds, the promises and prophecies which were to mature and to be fulfilled in the New Testament. God is revealed as the Creator of the whole world. It was all mankind which sinned in Adam, the mankind which God had made “of one blood”. Saint Paul makes clear to the Ephesians the fact that the Gentiles are “fellow heirs and fellow members of the body”. God said to Abraham that in him should “all the families of the earth be blessed.”

|Israel’s Conception of God’s Purpose.| Gradually in the nation of Israel there developed the idea of a new covenant of grace. With the growth of this it became more and more clear to Israel’s prophets and seers that Israel was the center of a great kingdom which God should gather from all nations. Many testimonies may be found to this new consciousness. “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” “For from the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles.” In the Prophet Jonah we have an Old Testament missionary, proud and unwilling, but a witness, nevertheless, to the fact that God’s mercy extended not alone to Israel but to all His works.

|The Jew as a Missionary.| Unconsciously to themselves the Jews were engaged in missionary work. Trained in seclusion, then carried into captivity or trading in all known quarters of the world, they continued to worship the living God. They worshipped Him in private and in public, their synagogues rising plain and austere among the impure temples of the heathen deities. Long-suffering, devout, faithful, they did God’s great task.

|The Septuagint.| About two hundred years before the birth of Christ the Jews accomplished an important missionary work. They were now no longer in Judea alone, but lived all over the Roman Empire. For this scattered host the rabbis translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, the common speech. The translation is called the Septuagint because it was made by seventy men. Here is the first great spreading of the Living Word. The Septuagint was read not only by the Jews but by many learned Greeks, who, while they did not accept its teachings, yet admired its eloquence. One of the greatest factors in the success of the early Christian Church was this acquaintance of the Greeks with the Hebrew Scriptures.

|The Roman Empire.| For the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies the world was preparing in other ways. The Roman Empire was at the height of its power, its roads led everywhere, it had pushed back the boundaries of the world, it was adding to itself great barbarian nations, little dreaming that all its pride was to serve the will of the Hebrew’s God!

|The Supreme Missionary.| When the time was ripe, God sent His Son into the world, the Supreme Missionary. To convince a doubter of the divine authority for missions, one need go no farther than to point to Christ’s earthly life.

|The Disciples Sent Abroad.| Just as God had sent His Son into the world, so Christ sent abroad His disciples. Their appointment was made directly by Him. The command is positive. “All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer ... that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem.” “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea, and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”

|The Record of Their Missionary Work.| We have in the Acts of the Apostles a record of the work of the first missionaries appointed by Christ. It describes the disciples gathered together waiting for the promise of the Father. It describes the pentecostal visitation with its mighty wind, its tongues of fire, its strange speech, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans and Cappadocians, Asians, Egyptians, Cretans and Arabians speaking each in his own tongue “the mighty works of God”. It tells the history of the Church, of its early work in Jerusalem, of its miracles and persecutions, of the death of its first martyr. It tells of the missionary work of Peter among the Jews, the beginning of work among the Gentiles. It tells of the conversion of one Saul, a Jew, who had been laying waste the new Church.

|Saint Paul.| In the crises of history, great characters seem to be almost a special creation. Such a man was Lincoln, such a man was Luther, such a man was the apostle Paul. Paul was a Jew of the straitest sect of the Pharisees who had kept the most minute provision of the law and who had felt that the law was unable to solve the problem of sin. He was acquainted also with the wisdom of the Greeks. To him it became clear after his conversion that in Christ lay the fulfillment of the Jewish law and the way of salvation for mankind.