What is Missionary Apologetics?

—Rick Laib

For a long stretch of time, if the word “apologetics” was tossed around within the church, it was often used by the uniquely informed, leaving the rest to ponder what it meant. Fortunately, today church culture receives the term with a little more familiarity. But what do we mean by “Missionary Apologetics”?

Let us break it down a little: “Apologetics” simply means “defense of” or “the defense of.” Within a church context, the word is typically used to refer to the discipline of thought and argument that defends the claims of Scripture. Neither God nor His Word needs defending from us, but the culture resists Jesus and can be antagonistic to those who follow Him. What we are defending are the ideas and reasoning one would use to arrive at a saving faith. This discipline of defense is what we refer to as “Christian Apologetics.”

A “mission” is a special assignment. For it to be accomplished, it typically involves moving from where you are to some other point on the planet. It involves literal travel, as the finish line is not within your immediate reach. No one is on a mission to sit down, although you might go on a mission to find a place to sit. In a mission, you are typically going somewhere, moving somewhere, approaching somewhere, to accomplish a specific task.

When we use the word “missionary” within the church, we are referring to someone on a special assignment that most likely involves travel and includes two specific points of focus: the assignment is focused, and the travel is focused. A missionary’s assignment is centered on promoting Christianity, and the travel destination is often set on an inhabited location where the population may not have knowledge of the gospel.

Sending missionaries to foreign locations to advance the gospel is not a new practice within the church, nor should it be viewed as a casual nicety. Followers of Christ are under specific direction—that is, a mission—to be part of missions. There are many biblical arguments that can be used to affirm missions; a classic and succinct directive can be found in Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”*

With this one verse, there are several points to note: first, the command to “go.” To be part of the fulfillment of this verse, we ought not wait for people to knock on our door, cross our path, or approach us. Rather, we initiate a move from our comfort zone to a new location. We get up and go, presumably, to fulfill, second, the geographic scope of this mission: “all nations.” There are no exemptions among people groups that should be left untouched by the good news of scripture. Third, we do this to make disciples, or followers of Jesus.

Our task for missionaries who serve internationally now has some clarity: missionaries go anywhere, to any and all nations, to make disciples of Jesus Christ. The whole point in missionaries going to other nations is that they have something that others presumably do not. As a missionary, one would be taking something that he or she has—knowledge of the gospel—to a people group that does not have it.

Suppose I had something considered saving in nature—perhaps a new medicine for a specific illness. If I knew about it, my family would know about it. People in my circle would know about it. Extended acquaintances of mine would probably know about it. But how far is my reach? At some point, news of a medicinal cure could slow down, because news can only travel so far. Additionally, there are things that get in the way of spreading news: people groups get in the way, language barriers get in the way, finances get in the way, consistency of messaging can get in the way. What other would benefit from would be sending a representative to deal with these knots. Similarly, missionaries benefit from going and being in these locations where they can more efficiently engage with obstacles logistically, soundly, persuasively, and maybe even tactically to spread the gospel.

Let’s return to Missionary Apologetics. The work of modern missions focuses on spreading the good news of Scripture. What a missionary knows, and wants others to know, is that your sin can be forgiven and that you were created by God to know Him fully. However, you cannot know God and will never have a relationship with Him while sin remains in your life. God’s holiness will not permit any sin in His presence. The good news, then, is that you can know Him, but only through the saving work of Jesus Christ.

But there are problems here. How do we communicate this truth? Some are ready to receive it, but what about arguments to the contrary? And how do we communicate this to people who do not believe in the authenticity of Scripture? Why would this matter at all to a people group that does not believe in the existence of God? These may not be strong contrary arguments, but they are arguments that persist. Unfortunately, the sophisticated training that would handily dismantle these obstacles is often absent in most of the world. If only there were someone who would take this academic rigor into all parts of the world with the goal of making disciples, then he would also be better suited to address the challenges and questions that often accompany discipleship-making.

There is. And that is the work of the Missionary Apologist.

*English Standard Version  

Rick Laib holds an MA in Christian Apologetics from Biola University and a ThM in Systematic Theology from Trinity International University. He serves Apologetics on Mission from his home in Joliet, Illinois.