Is the Missionary Greater Than the Artist?
00:00:00.000 | A podcast listener named Greg writes in to talk about missions and the value of our vocations.
00:00:04.960 | He asks this, "Pastor John, it is obvious that you have a passion for missions.
00:00:08.480 | It is also obvious that you believe work and vocations are important aspects of the Christian
00:00:12.240 | life. What is puzzling to me is when you state in your book, 'Let the Nations Be Glad,' that
00:00:17.600 | missions is the second greatest human activity. Does this not posit a kind of hierarchy of human
00:00:23.040 | action which puts ordinary work lower on the rung of human activity? For example, being an artist or
00:00:28.960 | a janitor is not as great as being a missionary, and therefore not as great in God's eyes. Moreover,
00:00:36.160 | doesn't this statement about missions render most of humans and human activity as not engaging in
00:00:40.560 | the second greatest human activity? After all, most Christians are not missionaries and do not,
00:00:45.920 | cannot, spend most of their waking hours engaging in missions. What I'm concerned about is your
00:00:51.280 | statement concerning missions leading to a kind of spiritual hierarchy in which missionaries are
00:00:55.840 | engaged in the second greatest human activity while the rest of us are not. What would you say
00:01:01.280 | to Greg?" It might be helpful first to give the context for the quote in "Let the Nations Be Glad"
00:01:07.760 | and explain what I was getting at there. That might remove some of the stumbling block. But
00:01:12.320 | then I do want to raise the question of whether Greg means that no distinction
00:01:20.800 | should ever be made in the way various vocations or tasks are honored. So here's the quote from
00:01:29.360 | "Let the Nations Be Glad." William Carey and thousands like him have been moved and carried
00:01:36.080 | by the vision of a great and triumphant God. That vision must come first. Savoring it in worship
00:01:46.080 | precedes spreading it in missions. All of history is moving toward one great goal, the white,
00:01:53.600 | hot worship of God and his son among all the peoples of the world. Missions is not that goal.
00:02:01.840 | It is the means. For that reason, it is the second greatest human activity in the world, end quote.
00:02:10.400 | So the point was to distinguish the ultimate goal of life from the secondary means to attain it.
00:02:19.440 | The ultimate goal of human existence is authentic, heartfelt, white, hot worship of God among the
00:02:25.440 | nations. Missions is not that, and so is not the greatest activity. It is secondary. It is means.
00:02:35.200 | So calling it the second greatest activity wasn't aimed at ranking it above teaching algebra,
00:02:43.040 | but below worship. So now the question is whether preaching the gospel to an unreached people group
00:02:50.480 | at the risk of your life is in some sense a greater activity than teaching algebra or pastoring a
00:02:57.360 | local church like I did. That's still the question. My bias is to rank risk-taking missions among
00:03:06.480 | unreached peoples above my ministry, but let's think about it. Greg asked this,
00:03:12.080 | "Does this not posit a kind of hierarchy of human action which puts ordinary work lower on the rung
00:03:21.680 | of human activity? For example, being an artist or a janitor is not as great as being in mission
00:03:27.120 | work and therefore not as great in God's eyes." So the question in front of us is, should we ever
00:03:35.120 | ascribe a kind of greatness to one human activity over another? And if so, in what sense and why?
00:03:45.520 | So to answer that, let's put a couple of Bible verses in front of us. 1 Timothy 5, 17, "Let the
00:03:52.000 | elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in
00:03:59.760 | preaching and teaching." Another one, 1 Thessalonians 5, 12, "We ask you, brothers, to
00:04:06.880 | respect or honor, recognize those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you
00:04:17.440 | and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves."
00:04:27.440 | So it seems to me that at least in some sense it is fitting and right to describe some roles or
00:04:38.160 | activities or vocations as having a certain kind of honor or esteem that other roles or activities
00:04:47.280 | don't have. For example, if the President of the United States comes to visit you in your house,
00:04:55.840 | you will probably think of some ways of showing a special regard that you would not have thought of
00:05:05.200 | if one of your friends drops by or even say the city councilman who lives in the neighborhood.
00:05:11.280 | So I think what we need to do is start making some distinctions and ask, okay, in what sense
00:05:20.880 | is one vocation or one human activity greater than another? Because we know from the Bible
00:05:28.800 | that there is an evil way to make distinctions. There is an evil ranking of people. James 1:9,
00:05:36.240 | "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation and the rich in his humiliation,
00:05:47.440 | because like a flower of the grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat
00:05:53.520 | and withers the grass. Its flower falls, its beauty perishes. So will the rich man fade away
00:06:00.640 | in the midst of his pursuits." And Galatians 3:28, "There's neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither
00:06:08.320 | slave nor free." Those are pretty radical distinctions in role. "There is no male or
00:06:16.160 | female. You're all one in Christ." Now that's the truth that Greg has taken hold of and wants to
00:06:23.920 | make sure that we don't lose. And you add to the equality that we have in Christ, equally adopted,
00:06:32.320 | fellow heirs of God, which is astonishing. You add to that the truth that a task, nevertheless,
00:06:41.520 | can be measured in various ways. So example, "Compare the preparation and delivery of a sermon
00:06:50.080 | to unbelievers in a hostile missionary setting. Compare that with the preparation and delivery
00:06:57.280 | of an algebra lesson to a class of compliant teenagers in a Christian school." Now, how do
00:07:03.360 | we compare those two activities? The truth that Greg is fastening on, and it is exactly right,
00:07:11.200 | and crucial to grasp, is that the act of faithfulness in the preparation and delivery
00:07:19.120 | of the sermon and the algebra lesson may be exactly the same, the faithfulness. Or
00:07:27.200 | there may be more faithfulness, more trust, more devotion, more humility in the preparation and
00:07:34.560 | delivery of the algebra lesson than in the preparation and delivery of the sermon.
00:07:39.920 | There's the crucial truth that no activity in and of itself is a greater activity in the measure of
00:07:48.640 | its worship and devotion and faith than any other if you just consider that, the devotion,
00:07:58.480 | the worship, the faithfulness. And when God rewards any activity, it will be on the basis of our
00:08:06.160 | faithfulness in the activity, not the fruits, not the effect of it. So measured in that way,
00:08:12.400 | the algebra lesson might be the greater activity than the sermon to the hostile, unreached people,
00:08:20.880 | namely the algebra teacher did it with greater trust, greater humility, greater faithfulness.
00:08:26.560 | However, aren't there aspects about the preparation and delivery of the sermon in
00:08:34.960 | the pursuit of the salvation of sinners among a hostile audience, which are more significant,
00:08:41.920 | greater than the preparation and delivery of that algebra lesson? First, I think of the subject
00:08:49.760 | matter is more exalted, closer to ultimate reality. Algebra is good. Algebra is God's
00:08:56.160 | creation. Algebra is needed, but algebra is not the gospel and algebra does not save sinners.
00:09:03.040 | The gospel does. And the teaching of that algebra lesson may be done in greater faithfulness than
00:09:08.480 | the preaching of the sermon, but the likelihood of miracles of eternal significance happening
00:09:13.680 | are greater in the preaching of the sermon and the risking of life is also greater in that audience.
00:09:21.280 | So at least for myself, as a pastor for 33 years, who was basically surrounded by people who loved
00:09:29.440 | and approved me and who paid me well in a society that didn't put me in jail,
00:09:35.200 | in a city with ample medical care, central air conditioning, functioning infrastructures.
00:09:41.440 | In view of all of that, I have always felt that missionaries who have taken more risks,
00:09:48.000 | going to harder places, enduring greater trials with less affirmation are worthy of a kind of
00:09:56.240 | esteem and honor of which I am not worthy. I think that's true. And when I say that,
00:10:04.320 | I'm not belittling the value of my 33 years in ministry. I believe it was honorable. I believe
00:10:10.880 | it was a gift of God, but it did not have some of the aspects of worth and honor that some missionary
00:10:22.400 | activities have. And I hope all of us can make those kinds of distinctions. I hope we can
00:10:30.560 | happily recognize a double or a triple honor activity when it happens and give that greater
00:10:40.480 | honor and in no way feel like our life is being minimized.
00:10:45.760 | That's a good biblical balance. Thank you, Pastor John. You can check out Pastor John's book on this
00:10:50.720 | topic, Let the Nations Be Glad, The Supremacy of God in Missions. It's a book that has proven to be
00:10:56.880 | immensely valuable and life-defining for a number of missionaries now out in the field.
00:11:01.120 | And for more details about this podcast, you can go to our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:11:05.840 | Pastor John and I return on Wednesday to hear from a student who wants to be a missionary in
00:11:13.520 | his school. He wants to know some practical ways for beginning to approach his classmates with a
00:11:17.920 | missional purpose. What would Pastor John do and what would he suggest? We'll find out on Wednesday.
00:11:22.880 | I'm your host Tony Ranke. Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime
00:11:26.880 | author and pastor John Piper. We'll see you then.
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