How should Christians with families think about overseas missions work when many of the places they want to go are dangerous? What are the guiding principles that inform our consciences when we feel this call to radical obedience? What does the Bible teach us about service to God and risk?
All of these are pressing questions for men with families who want to answer the call to be overseas missionaries. Thankfully, the Bible is full of teaching about suffering, sacrifice, and service. We also have examples from church history that help us see biblical principles applied in the lives of the saints.
If a Christian is willing to answer the call for missionary work, there must be a balance between two equally important graces. On the one hand, keeping the commandments of Christ is essential (John 14:15), even though our own obedience does not save us. Every Christian follows Christ, heeding His words, answering His calls, obeying His commands (John 10:27, 1 John 2:4-6). A Christian must heed Jesus when He calls him to work overseas! However, obedience is tempered and balanced with the second essential grace: wisdom. Wisdom is a kingly attribute, and Jesus is the King who provides our wisdom (1 Cor. 1:30). The New Testament has no shortage of wise yet unconventional prescriptions about ministry (e.g. Luke 9:5, Matt. 7:6). This wisdom does not overrule the need to do dangerous ministry but rather gives guidelines within which that ministry should be pursued.
With regard to bringing a family to a dangerous place to live, there are many extremes that need to be avoided. For example, the path of obedience and wisdom cuts between two equal and opposite fallacies. One fallacy is that the family is god; the other fallacy is that family is less important than the ‘mission’ at hand. Both are wrong. So how should a considerate Christian steer between the two options? On the one hand, we cannot be family-centered instead of Christ-centered. We do not ultimately answer to our families about how we have lived our lives, but to the Lord. We are called to advance His kingdom and to hasten His coming (2 Peter 3:12). This requires a life and ministry that will necessarily lead to suffering (2 Tim. 3:12, Acts 14:22). When a Christian with a family suffers, he will not always be able to shelter them from harm. So Jesus must remain the Lord of the Christian household, even when that means that the whole family suffers persecution or deprivation as a result. On the other hand, it is not true that a Christian’s family is less important than his ‘mission.’ In fact, a man’s family is his primary mission, so to neglect his flesh and blood for another calling is to misunderstand biblical priorities and dishonor the Lord (1 Tim. 3:4-5, 1 Tim. 5:8). No one can lead a church—overseas or at home—who does not first lead his family. The family must take it’s God-given place in the life of every Christian.
The balance is this: when a family is being shepherded and provided for, then opportunities abroad can be pursued. Shepherding and providing for a family, however, are ongoing concerns of a Christian, so provision must be made for the continued maintenance of these things even in the context of overseas ministry. The Christian missionary as father and husband must still serve his family before he can seek to lead others—it would be absurd to forsake the basic service to Christ in order to pursue secondary (though important) service. Only once these things (and others) are provided for is it legitimate to prepare for foreign service in a dangerous country.
The question that must be asked next is, “What kind of father and husband intentionally leads his family into circumstances of guaranteed hardship?” The answer is: a godly one. This is true because every type of Christian life involves suffering. There is no Christian life without suffering of some kind (again, 2 Tim. 3:12). The difference will be the type and degree of suffering. Well then, “What kind of father and husband intentionally leads his family into circumstances of guaranteed, increased hardship?” The answer is the same, for the same reason. The onward call of the Christian life is “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Tim. 2:3-4). Every Christian leader should be leading his family into greater conformity to Christ, standing firm against the forces of darkness, preaching and living the gospel before those family members who are not Christians. Ministry always costs.
Yet there are special challenges to overseas missions. There are unique physical challenges and dangers that accompany foreign work, and we would be naïve to deny it. So how can a loving Christian father and husband knowingly choose to plunge his family into these circumstances? Would that be consistent with love?
We must answer that question biblically, not just emotionally. We must submit our emotions to the Word of God—and God says that suffering is gain (Phil. 1:21, 2 Cor. 4:17, Phil. 1:19). In fact, we are told that it is God’s will that we suffer (1 Thes. 3:3, 1 Pet. 4:19). A loving father might steer a course toward suffering for the same reasons that the loving Father does. God gives us suffering so that we are sanctified (Rom. 5:3-5, James 1:2-4, 1 Pet. 4:12), so that others may be justified (1 Cor. 9:12, 1 Cor. 9:23, 2 Tim. 2:10), and so that He is magnified (2 Cor. 12:9-10).
In God’s economy, the glory of saving sinners is worth the cost of His children’s suffering. We know this because the glory of saving sinners was worth the cost of His Child’s suffering.
Since the love of God was displayed in sending His Son to die (Rom. 5:8), we have the wonderful opportunity to mirror that love in our own willingness to die. A father and husband, then, can righteously lead his family into grave danger, so long as he does so wisely and in conformity to Christ. This is not a decision to be made rashly or alone, but it is a decision that some must make. Remember that suffering for Christ is a glorious blessing. To suffer, and to lead others to do so, presses against the inclination of the flesh—but so does the gospel (1 Cor. 1:23-24, 1 Cor. 2:14).
--Dean of Admissions
--Dean of Admissions
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