Episode 262 - The Centrality of the Church in Missions - Ephesians 3

Released August 1, 2025

Welcome to Missions on Point, the Propempo perspective on church and missions.

Hello, thanks for joining us for episode 262 of Missions on Point. This is a series of the best of Missions on Point. Today, we're going to replay episode 2, The Centrality of the Church in Missions, Ephesians 3.

Episode 2 was first released in August 7, 2020. But the origin of my understanding Ephesians 3 in proper biblical interpretation goes back to 1974. In my regular personal Bible study in my dorm room at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, the words just leapt off the page to me. I understood proper biblical interpretation of Ephesians 3, and I could not get my eyes and heart off of the concept of the centrality of the church in missions. It came through the testimony of Paul as he explains in retrospect his calling as a missionary. It seemed to me that the Holy Spirit was applying Paul's calling to my life. It changed my direction. I saw this two-fold aspect of calling to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The point of this podcast is that the church is God's plan. It is the church that is the center of God's agency on earth to fulfill even the Great Commission. We'll see that in later episodes.

Fast forward to today, I am even more upset that even after all of these years, so many pastors and missions leaders and mission speakers miss the point of the church. They make excuses. They have all kinds of philosophical arguments to skip over the church's role and land it in the realm of the mission agency. Not just in Ephesians 3, but throughout the whole New Testament, Bible teachers and speakers are not doing proper biblical interpretation if they miss the church. It's all about the church. The vast majority of instances of the church in the New Testament are related to the local church, not the church universal. As you listen to episode two, let that sink in. It'll change your heart and your vision and your direction for missions in the local church.

Today, we're going to be doing the first of a small series on the centrality of the local church and why it is so important for the local church to be the focus of Great Commission Ministries. In fact, I maintain that you cannot fulfill the Great Commission as we see it in Matthew 28 without the planting of local churches. Let's go back and talk about the centrality of the local church in missions as foundational concept that is extremely important and biblical. If you haven't seen this before, it will rock your world. If you're a pastor, you're going to ask, why wasn't I shown this before? Because it is so important to our understanding of the local church and of missions.

So we're going to go to Ephesians chapter 3. We're going to look at verses 7 through 11 and verses 20 and 21. Let me start out by telling you one of the reasons this is so important. And it has to do with missionary development and attrition. This biblical concept is so neglected. Missionaries neglect it. Mission agencies miss it. Even otherwise good Bible teaching churches fail to apply this concept in their vision for missions. And the consequences are very significant because missionaries get to the field and they get so distracted by missionary activities and methodologies that are inconsistent with the biblical concept of the centrality of the local church and missions. Mission agencies fail to give proper biblical respect and partnership to local churches local churches in the process of vetting, fielding, and shepherding missionaries. Local churches tend to be short-sighted about their role and responsibilities in the Great Commission. So it has lots of practical aspects to it. The consequences are catastrophic for missionary attrition. We know that in general, about 85% of those who say they want to go to the mission field or think that God wants them to be a missionary, never make it. But even worse than that is approximately 75% of those who do make it to the difficult fields remaining on the earth, the unreached people group kind of fields, don't remain five years later. The preventable attrition, that is, leaving field ministry for preventable reasons, is worse than the slaughter of Omaha Beach at Normandy on D-Day on June 6, 1944. So yes, it is important to the life and ongoing ministry of the church in missions to understand this.

Let me read this passage and I'm going to pull out some key points for us. Ephesians 3, verses 7-11, and then skipping down to verse 20-21. Paul writes, Of this gospel I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given me by the working of His power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, so that, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose that He has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. And then verse 20 and 21. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. So I want you to see five simple truths. First, the church is the central agent in God's plan. He says in verse 10, So that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known.

This whole chapter is saturated with missions. It's got missions through and through. It's Paul's calling to missions, And it results in God's glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations. The central idea is that Paul became aware by special revelation from God that it was through the church that these things take place. The church is the agent of God in fulfilling His purposes on earth. I would say that when Paul says church, he's not just talking about the universal church of sort of all Christians, wherever they are, whatever they're doing, anywhere in the world, all through time. He's talking about local churches. He's addressing local churches in his epistles. We'll see that again later. But he's thinking of local churches and this unique living dynamic of the body of Christ in a local place with committed believers and biblically qualified leaders, regularly meeting for worship, for evangelism, for equipping, for study of God's word, those kinds of things. So the church is the central agent in God's plan. And apparently, secondly, the church is the primary means of displaying God's wisdom.

When we look at the church, any particular local church, we know it's not perfect. There's a lot of humility there. There's a lot of people that are just saved sinners, saved by grace, and they're transforming their lives through the word of God and the Spirit to be able to be a little bit more like Christ day by day. The church is the primary means of displaying God's wisdom. Third, it's clear that the church is God's plan A forever, and there is no plan B. This was his plan and the eternal purpose, it says, that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord. So this was according to his eternal purpose. This is what God planned to do, is to use the church in this way. Fourthly, God's plan for the church achieved far more than our expectations. That's this benedictory part in the last verses of the chapter that we misuse so much. But it's about the church and about God's word, his mission moving forth through the whole world. It says,

So often when we read this, we miss the church. We say, Hooray for Jesus! He's our leader. He's our Lord. He's our Savior, our Shepherd. And we miss the church part. But it says right here that he gets glory in the church throughout all generations. It's an important thing to remember. Ephesians 3 is oozing with mission's importance. In the brightness of the indicative truths about the gospel and of Christ, we often fail to see the instrumental means God has appointed to accomplish his purposes on earth. That is, the local church.

So here's some bonus applications for you, supported by many biblical arguments, some of which we'll get into.

First, missionaries are the product of a vibrant, responsible local church, rather than simple volunteerism. We don't allow anyone to lay hands on themselves just because they say, God told me, or God called me, or God is leading me. Those claims have relatively little weight. Unless the local church is similarly told, called, and led.

Secondly, qualification for effective long-term missionary service, particularly in the most challenging fields, takes time, work, humility, and accountability with the local church. It's really interesting that young people think that they can go to a foreign field, foreign culture, foreign language, and be church planners, and yet never have any solid experience working in a local church. Training and choosing a missionary is an awesome, exciting, labor-intensive task worthy of the Lord Jesus Christ and the gospel. There is nothing like a local church getting skin in the game by sending one of its own to a humanly impossible task. So, if you yourself are feeling compelled to go into missions, let your church know you will be thankful. You should cooperate with your local church in becoming fully qualified, skilled, experienced, in those things that you need to be effective on the field.

So, we look at this last thing, and that is that God's glory is in the church for all ages. This is what the scripture says, and this is another reason why we need to keep the church in focus, no matter what our ministry is. We say this, that you can have all sorts of methodologies, strategies, ministries, that contribute to the planting and development of strong local churches. But if you don't have those ministries, methodologies, and strategies aimed at planting and strengthening local churches, you're off target. You're never going to hit the bullseye. You're doing a lot of extraneous peripheral things, but they need to be wired in to planting and establishing, strengthening local churches. That's what God's plan is about. That's what it says right here. So, we want you to keep that in mind, the centrality of the local church from Ephesians chapter 3.

There's more scripture that would lend credence to that and support, which we may take up in future podcasts. But today, I want you to grasp this. God loves the church. God designed the church to be his agent to accomplish his will on earth. It is the primary agent and the primary result of biblical missions. Let's just take a step back and think about this passage again. Paul is writing this while in prison. His whole missionary career has spanned decades before this time. He's writing to a church at Ephesus, likely to be circulated to other churches in the province of Asia. And he's saying that the church is the primary instrument of God to fulfill his purpose. He's saying that his calling was to explain this as he went everywhere, planting churches and seeing strong church leaders established to continue to strengthen the church and grow the church in their regions. Paul, in his experience and her perspective of age and wisdom and skill in working in missions work, the premier missionary of all time, perhaps, is saying that it's the church, the local church, where the action is. That should be our goal. That should be our goal in partnership with God. Now, I want to make one statement of clarification.

This doesn't mean that the Propempo perspective is against mission agencies, per se. We're just for the local church. Mission sending agencies have a rightful place and role, and they fulfill some very significant help to the church in fulfilling its ministry. But the mission sending agency should never replace the church and the church's role. By and large, over time, the local church has abrogated its responsibility and given it over to the mission agencies that are not wired by God to take care of the missionaries and direct the ministry and have the focus of ministry on local churches as it should. So I want to say we're not against mission sending agencies. We love them for what they do. But we definitely want the local church to step up and be the kind of church that Ephesians 3 implies. And we'll see later Matthew 28 and other observations from the New Testament demonstrate.

Here's where we are. We've seen today that the local church is central in God's plan and purposes and the ultimate result of missions. We're going to take a look at more local church centric concepts from the Great Commission itself as found in Matthew 28. And we're going to follow that up with observations from the New Testament in the upcoming episodes.

Have a good day.

Thanks for joining us today on Missions on Point. We trust that you'll find more help and resources on our websites at Propempo.com and MissioSERVE.org. We are so thankful for those who support us enabling us to produce this podcast. Now to God be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.