Mission: we all know its importance but many of us also groan inwardly when we hear the word brought up in church meetings. While there are plenty of new and innovative ideas being used out there for church mission, we somehow still cringe at the images of tracts with curled-up corners and intense conversations on the door-step that the term ‘church mission’ conjures up in our mind. As with every other part of our spiritual life, the mission of the church can be affected by the dead hand of religion.

And just as Jesus had something to say about other aspects of religion in his time, he had something to say about religious motivated mission as well. They say that Margaret Thatcher defined herself by her enemies and that you could learn a lot about who she was and what she believed in by studying her opponents and how she interacted with them. The same could be said about Jesus and his interaction with the religious leaders of his time, especially the Pharisees.

Matthew 23 is one long discourse against these people and the effect they had on their followers. Jesus says they are hypocrites for calling on people to do one thing while doing another themselves; he criticises them for demanding the place of honour instead of seeking the place of humility; he accuses them of focussing on the minor things of the law while forgetting far weightier things like love and charity. And in amongst this long passage there is this sentence: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.’  Strong stuff; and not everyone is convinced that Jesus is having a go at general Jewish mission activity to the Gentile world here. But many scholars agree that, although Judaism was not a missionary religion, there was some mission activity going on at the time. Indeed some say that the period leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE was one of the most productive for proselytising.

So what concerns could Jesus be raising here about the mission he saw? Here are a few suggestions:

  • He is highlighting a concern about ‘hit-and-run’ evangelism, where the missionary travels from one place to the next with the sole purpose of gaining converts without investing him/herself in the community. Jesus himself travelled relatively little and his intentional incarnational mission is the model we should be following.
  • He is showing unease at a mission that is wholly engaged with individual souls rather than also being engaged with the wider community and creation. Jesus talks about entering a city and being received by it (Luke 10:8), about discipling nations (Matt 28:19) and preaching the good news to the whole of creation (Mark 16:15).
  • He is voicing disquiet about a mission that is focussed on making converts rather than his own emphasis on making disciples. Being a disciple is a lifelong commitment to learn how to follow Jesus and not a quick fix. It is worth noting how little the New Testament as a whole has to say about conversion. There is far more emphasis on beginning a new life as a follower of Christ.
  • And finally he is most concerned about the fact that these new converts are actually becoming disciples of the Pharisees rather than of Jesus and in doing so are picking up all the bad habits associated with this deeply religious set of people.

Could his criticism of 1st century missionary activity be applied today?


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