The next installment on Schnabel’s study of Paul’s self-understanding as a pioneer missionary.
6. Paul knows himself to be called by God to work as a pioneer missionary who “plants” who lays the foundation as an “expert master builder”–that is, one who establishes new communities of believers (1 Cor 3:6, 10; 9:10).
The metaphors of building and planting and the military metaphors indicate that missionary work is hard work (Col 1:29): he does not spare himself, for as “servant” and “slave” he has not right to “take it easy.”
7. The central process of missionary work is the oral proclamation of the good news about Jesus the Messiah and Savior (1 Cor 15:1-2, 11; Rom 10:14-17; Col 1:28).
Faith comes from hearing the word of God that missionaries preached and that people heard and accepted.
8. The foundational rule of missionary work is consistent attention to the listeners.
Jews have to be reached with the gospel as Jews, and Gentiles as Gentiles (1 Cor 9:19).All people without distinction need to hear the gospel: both the elites of the Greco-Roman cities and the foreigners and barbarians, both the educated and uneducated (Rom 1:14).
9. The behavior of the missionaries is subject to the proclamation of the gospel.
The missionary is willing to become “all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22), with the proviso that the integrity of the gospel is the normative criterion for missionary accommodation (1 Cor 9:23).
10 Paul is not satisfied with the success of his mission: he wants to reach ever more people with the gospel in the entire world (1 Cor 9:19; Rom 10:18).
This is true even though sometimes few people come to faith, as was the case in Jewish communities in which he preached (Rom 10:16).
11. Paul does not work alone; his is connected with other missionaries and coworkers.
The loyalty to the Lord establishes the unity of the ministry of all those who serve the church.
The pioneer missionary who “plants” and the preacher and teacher in the church who “waters” are engaged in one and the same work, and they are dependent upon one and the same Lord: they are “one” (1 Cor 3:8a).
12. All missionaries, preachers and teachers engaged in building up the church are responsible to God for their actions and their motivations.
The reality of this responsibility will become evident and have consequences on the day of judgment. There is missionary work and there is church ministry that will be rejected by God if the gospel was compromised in the course of such activity (1 Cor 3:12-15).
Because God alone is the Lord of missionary outreach, the missionaries are responsible to God directly: each will receive his or her own reward “according to the labor of each” (1 Cor 3:8).
As God is their master, their “employer,” they are primarily and fully accountable to him. God alone, not the church or other workers, decides whether the work of the missionary, the pastor and the teacher is successful or unsuccessful.
“Early Christian Mission (2 Volume Set)” (Eckhard J. Schnabel)
