Spring 2007 | Volume 65, No. 3

Last Word

God is calling out the called: are you listening?

by Emir Caner

In his brief account Creeds and Confessions of Faith, B.H. Carroll, the founder and first president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, challenged Christians to be obedient to the call to missions. Using words at which contemporary readers may hastily and understandably balk, Carroll penned the following:

A man says, ‘I want to join the church and I am willing, as a member of my church, to build up my town. You can call on me to support the pastor, for improvements on the building, for helping out the Sunday School, for anything that touches my own city. But talk about foreign missions, those [foreigners]: don’t come to me about them.’ Then why do you want to join the church? You have no creed to join the church. The fundamental element of the faith delivered to the saints was that the gospel should go to every nation under heaven.

The abrasive views which Carroll condemned as tragically common during his day are arguably present today; many might say that little has changed over the past 100 years in the life of American Christianity. Missions are all-too-often given lip service, and perhaps some monetary donations as well. But relatively few Southern Baptists spend time on international mission trips. The reasons, as given by our stalwart Baptist ancestor, are a lack of Christian character, a lack of a Christian creed, and a lack of Christian commitment to the local church.

            A Christian who does not take the entirety of the Great Commission seriously and personally will never fully mature in the Lord. Those of us who are responsible for the maturation of Christians must emphasize that going to the uttermost parts of the earth is not merely an opportunity and privilege, it is an obligation and passion. At The College at Southwestern, we unashamedly require each student to share Christ in our surrounding neighborhoods as well as go on a faculty-led international mission trip in order to graduate. Thus, our goal is that the graduates who walk across our stage are more passionate about the Lord and His Word than when they first darkened our doors.

            That Carroll equated an honest and forthright confession with intentional missions action is no accident. Theology cannot be divorced from missions. As Carroll explained, preaching to the nations is a creed to follow because all “are lost, and all of them are to have presented to them God manifest in the flesh as their Savior.” The more Southern Baptists are united in doctrine, the more united we will be in missions (Acts 2:42-47). To be clear, an education without the opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission is idle talk like that of the Pharisees: right doctrine without real experience. Conversely, missions without the obligation to study theology is emotional talk like that of the Sadducees: wrong doctrine with real experiences. Instead, the joining of orthodoxy with orthopraxy is the main goal of a biblical education.

            Finally, Holy Scripture teaches that it is essential for missions to emerge from the local church. A love for the Lord will draw men and women to love the fellowship of the saints, or, as the Apostle John poignantly noted, “Everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him,” (1 John 5:1b, ESV). Missions cannot be disconnected from the local body of believers on either end of the spectrum, whether it be calling out the called in the sending church (Ephesians 4:1-16), or leading people to faith in Jesus Christ and, thus, planting a new church (Acts 11:19-24). The heartbeat of missions should be most clearly heard within the local body of believers regardless of their location. From the most remote country town, to the sprawling metropolises of America, the future of the Southern Baptist Convention is only as clear as the clarion call to go into all the world.

            At the end of Carroll’s timeless discourse, he addressed his hope that revival would “sweep over this land from ocean boundary to ocean boundary.” This anticipation, he argued, would be ushered in when preachers faithfully expounded the Word of God. Carroll pointed to preachers such as D.L. Moody, whom Carroll greatly admired. When Moody preached, “thousands…crowded around that man and looked right in his eye as he opened his Bible and turned from threat to promise…which is the means by which regeneration is effected and which, when left out, makes our services as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals in the house of God.” Though sporadic revivals have broken out from time to time in parts of our great country, a nationwide revival has eluded us.
Perhaps this generation will see Carroll’s prayer come to fruition. If revival does come, we can be sure of it only when our churches are filled with men and women willing to go into the world and share Christ.

Quotations are from B. H. Carroll, Baptists and Their Doctrines, eds. Timothy and Denise George (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1995), 79-105.

Emir Caner
Dean, The College at Southwestern
Fort Worth, Texas