Completing the Body of Christ – Missing Peoples
Submitted by Victor John
How do we define ‘missing people’? Our world is predominantly Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and scores of people without access to the gospel. Since all human beings are created in the image of God and redemption is only through Jesus Christ where sin is forgiven and “image” is restored, the hope is that when “all” have come to Christ, the body will be complete. In John’s vision in Rev 7:9 “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb(NIV).How can John’s vision be fulfilled in our life time?
Today the missing people are hidden behind the walls of culture, politics and religious fanaticism. They are largely untouched by no personal interaction because of lack of intention on our part but also difficulty in penetrating their cultures from the outside.
Does it trouble us that many Christians seem willing to simply forget these groups? Primary among the images drawn for the Church is that of the body. St. Paul powerfully and vividly teaches us that “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body— Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. For the body does not consist of one member but of many.” (1 Corinthians 12, ESV)
Christ-followers across this world need to renew the vision – one that will cause us to begin a new prayer that will make us renew efforts born of renewed concern for all of those who have yet to come to the Savior. What is that vision? Seeing the Bride of Christ, the Church, His Body, as lacking wholeness! Yes, she is incomplete until there is an ingathering of those who are yet to hear of the One who loves them. This new vision, while disturbing, can be cast in terms of recovery of wholeness, a whole new Body that functions in ways not yet seen as the Spirit brings the unique gifts and functions of those newly added to the Church. What might be missing in the Body, the Church, if the missing people are not reached? What beauty might they add to His Body? What function might they fulfill?
There are beautiful people who accomplish amazing feats without the benefit of two hands, or two feet, or fingers, or toes, or limbs. Yet, in wholeness there is a symmetry, a grace designed by the Creator. The graceful feet of the runner rhythmically drumming the pathway, the dancing hands of the musician eliciting a melody from a flute; these are but a fraction of the pictures we could paint of the complete person. Yet, there is a Body that potentially exists without 40% of those who would complete it! Surprisingly 60% of them live in the 10/40 windows, not just missing but disappearing forever by each day.
To reach these ‘missing peoples’ we will have to be willing to set aside our cultural preferences. Any Christian group soon develops a syncretism between the culture in which the Gospel is planted and the message of Christ. Sometimes that syncretism is harmless, but often after the passing of just two or three generations, the Gospel of Christ is so intertwined with the culture that a person outside of the culture finds it incomprehensible, or worse, an offense. Christ is not captive of any culture but we as followers are. His Cross is efficacious for the whole world. Is this not the argument of Galatians 3:27-28 where we read that “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (NIV)
To reach these ‘missing peoples’ we will have to be liberated and challenge ourselves from our need to succeed, to validate our efforts by measuring a large influx into the Church. Jesus spoke of the Kingdom as being like a seed that is planted and grows, sometimes slowly; or like yeast that over time affects the whole lump of dough. (Matthew 13:31-32) Christians, especially those brought under Greco-Roman, often see numbers and success as one and the same. But, if we would see the missing people brought into the Body, we will need great patience, persistent prayer, and a willingness to let the process of the Spirit produce transformation of resistant cultures from the inside out.
Can you or I say to those who are unseen, or unheard, that the Body of Christ does not need them?
The good news is that it is possible today to see John’s vision will be fulfilled in our life time; “After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb”. Rev 7:9 (NIV) We will need to use technology (internet, communication systems) to create awareness and willingness on the larger part of the “Body” to obey Christ under all circumstances: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come”. Matthew 24:14 (NIV)
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