Baptist Pastoral Ministry, Missions, and Church Leadership — Unit 6: The Great Commission and Baptist Missions: Carey to Today

Key Verse

"Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen." (Matthew 28:19-20, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain the three actions of the Great Commission (make disciples, baptize, teach) and why Baptists read them as a call to gather churches.

2. Describe why many Baptists in the 1700s hesitated over missions, and how Andrew Fuller and William Carey answered them.

3. Tell the main facts of the 1792 founding of the Baptist Missionary Society and of Carey's work at Serampore.

4. Trace how Baptist missions began in America, from Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice to Lott Carey, the Southern Baptist Convention and Lottie Moon.

5. Answer three common objections to missions and describe how Baptist mission work has changed in the majority world today.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Baptist tradition, for Baptist pastors. It is conservative: we hold that the Bible is the inspired, sufficient and authoritative Word of God, that the church is made of regenerate believers, and that Christ commands His church to take the gospel to every nation. When we say "we," we mean Baptists who hold these convictions. Other Christians and some historians see parts of this story differently. We state their views fairly and then give the Baptist answer. The history of Baptist origins and of the Baptist movement is told in Course 1, so this unit refers to it only briefly. Here our concern is the pastor's task: how a Baptist pastor leads a church to obey the Great Commission.

The Command of Christ

Missions does not begin with William Carey. It begins with the risen Lord on a mountain in Galilee. In Matthew 28:18 He declares that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Him. Because He rules, He sends. The command that follows has one main verb and three parts.

The main verb is "make disciples." A disciple is a learner and follower of Jesus. The sentence then tells us how disciples are made: by "baptizing them" and by "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you." Baptists notice how much this sentence says about the church. Disciples are not only to be counted as decisions. They are to confess Christ in believer's baptism, and they are to be taught to obey everything the Lord commanded. Baptism and teaching are done in a body of believers. For this reason Baptists have always joined missions and church planting. The goal is a people baptized, taught and gathered.

The other Gospels and Acts confirm the command. Luke 24:46-47 says repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all nations. Acts 1:8 promises power to be witnesses "to the end of the earth." Paul writes in Romans 10:14-15 that people cannot call on One they have not believed, cannot believe in One they have not heard, cannot hear without a preacher, and cannot preach unless they are sent. The word "sent" in that passage is the root of the missions task: some go, and others send.

The promise at the end of the verse matters just as much as the command. "I am with you always, even to the end of the age." The Lord does not give an order and then leave. A pastor who feels small before a large task can rest on that promise.

Why Some Baptists Hesitated

The honest history must include this fact. For about a century after the Particular Baptists first confessed their faith in 1644, most of them did not send missionaries overseas. We should ask why.

Some of the reasons were practical. These churches were small, often poor, and had suffered under laws that limited dissenters in England. Some of the reasons were theological. A group of Particular Baptist pastors, later called "high Calvinists" or hyper-Calvinists, taught that it was not the duty of unconverted people to repent and believe, because God would save the elect by His own power alone. If that were so, they argued, the preacher's task was only to describe the marks of the elect, not to call all hearers to Christ. Missions then seemed unnecessary, or even an interference with God's work.

Not every historian agrees on how widespread this view was. Some stress the high Calvinists and say they held many Baptist churches back. Others point out that many Baptists were simply cautious, busy with survival, or unaware of the need. Both explanations probably contain truth. We do not need to settle the debate to see the point: a doctrine of God's sovereignty that quiets the church's witness has gone beyond the Bible.

Andrew Fuller's answer

Andrew Fuller was a Particular Baptist pastor in Kettering, England. In 1785 he published The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation. He argued that the gospel is good news to be offered to all, that sinners are commanded to repent and believe, and that their failure to do so is real guilt. He held to God's electing grace, but he saw nothing in it that forbids a free offer of Christ. Fuller pointed to the preaching of the apostles. Paul told the Athenians that God now commands all people everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30). His answer to the objection is simple: God's purpose and our duty are both true, and Scripture does not ask us to wait until we know who the elect are before we preach.

Baptists today are divided in how they explain election, and Course 2 treats the General and Particular tradition. But Baptists on every side of that debate agree with Fuller on this point. The gospel is to be preached to every person.

Carey's Enquiry

William Carey was a shoemaker's apprentice who became a self-taught pastor and linguist. In 1792 he published An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. The title shows his argument. Christians have an obligation, and they must use means. Carey answered those who said the Great Commission was given only to the apostles. If that were true, he reasoned, then baptism and the promise of Christ's presence would also be limited to the apostles, and no one believes that. He surveyed the world, listing the countries and their peoples, to show the size of the task. He also looked at earlier efforts, including the work of the Moravians, to show that missions were possible. And he argued that Christians could form a society and give regularly, as merchants form a trading company, to send out missionaries.

The Enquiry is public-domain and short enough to read in an evening. Every Baptist pastor should read it once.

The Baptist Missionary Society, 1792

In October 1792, at Kettering, a small group of Particular Baptist ministers, including Fuller, formed what became the Baptist Missionary Society. Fuller served as the society's secretary. Tradition says Carey pictured himself going down into a deep mine while Fuller and his friends held the ropes above. Whatever its exact wording, the picture states the Baptist ideal: those who go and those who send are partners.

Carey sailed for India in 1793 with John Thomas, a physician who had already worked there. The early years were very hard. The East India Company did not welcome missionaries, money ran short, and illness and grief struck Carey's family. In 1800 the mission settled at Serampore, a Danish settlement near Calcutta, where it was safer from interference. There Carey joined William Ward, a printer, and Joshua Marshman, a teacher. These three are often called the Serampore Trio.

Three emphases marked their work.

Translation. Carey believed that people should hear God's Word in their own language. The Serampore press printed Scripture in Bengali and in many other languages of India and the region. This was slow, difficult labor, and later scholars have pointed out that some early versions had flaws that had to be corrected. That is no surprise in work of this kind. The lasting point is that Baptists put the Bible into the hands of people in their own tongue, which fits our conviction that Scripture is sufficient and that every believer may read it.

Preaching and churches. The missionaries preached, baptized converts, and gathered believers into churches, as the Great Commission describes.

Education and the whole person. The Trio opened schools and later a college.

Carey died in 1834 after many years in India. Historians sometimes call him the "father of modern missions." Some object that others came earlier, such as the Moravians, and that the modern missionary movement had many founders. That is fair, and Carey himself admired the Moravians. Baptists can say simply that Carey's Enquiry and the founding of the society were a decisive step for English-speaking Protestants. We honor him without claiming that he stood alone. Others also point out that Carey's work took place under the shadow of British power in India, which is a real issue, and we return to it below.

Baptist Missions in America

News of Carey's work crossed the Atlantic. Adoniram Judson, a Congregationalist, sailed for India in 1812 with his wife Ann as one of the first American foreign missionaries. During the voyage and after reaching Calcutta, he studied the question of baptism, concluded that the New Testament teaches believer's baptism by immersion, and was baptized by a Baptist missionary there. His friend Luther Rice came to the same conviction. The two decided that Judson would go on to Burma, which he reached in 1813, and that Rice would return to America to raise support among Baptists.

Rice traveled among the churches, urging them to give. In 1814 Baptists formed a national body, commonly called the Triennial Convention because it met every three years, to support foreign missions. Judson spent his life in Burma, suffering imprisonment and the loss of loved ones, and he translated the Bible into Burmese. Ann Judson shared his labors and sacrifices.

African American Baptists also entered the field early. Lott Carey, a Baptist who had been enslaved and later purchased his freedom, sailed to Liberia in 1821 as a missionary. His life shows that the call to mission came to believers of every origin, even when they lived under unjust laws.

In 1845 Baptists in the South formed the Southern Baptist Convention, and a Foreign Mission Board was among its first agencies. The reasons for this division, including the dispute over slavery, belong to Course 1. For our purposes, the SBC became one of the largest sending bodies among Baptists. Its history includes Lottie Moon, a missionary to China who went out in 1873, wrote home urging Baptists to give and to send more workers, and gave her life to the people she served. Southern Baptist churches still take a yearly Christmas offering for international missions that bears her name. Women have served in missions on every continent, often in hard places, and Baptists thank God for them. Most conservative Baptist bodies, following the Baptist Faith and Message 2000, reserve the office of pastor to men while affirming that women serve in many other ways. Some Baptist bodies ordain women as pastors. Baptists on both sides honor the labor of women missionaries.

Baptist Missions Today

The picture has changed. Baptist churches are now large and growing in many parts of Africa, Latin America and Asia, and these churches now send their own missionaries. A Nigerian, a Brazilian or a Mexican Baptist who crosses a border or an ocean is not an exception but part of the normal pattern. The Baptist World Alliance, founded in 1905, links Baptists across many nations, as Course 1 notes. A pastor in Mexico, Cuba or West Africa should not think of missions as something other people do. Your church is both a field and a sender.

Objections and Answers

Objection 1: Missions is a form of cultural imperialism. Critics, including many historians, say that missionaries often traveled with colonial powers, treated local cultures as inferior, and sometimes benefited from unjust rule. Some of this is true, and honest Baptists should say so. Some missionaries failed to separate the gospel from their own customs. Our answer. The gospel does not belong to any culture. It is for all nations, and the Bible itself was translated into the languages of the people. Translation projects gave the Word to peoples in their mother tongues, which strengthened local churches and languages. The Baptist principle of the autonomous local church means a church planted in any land should govern itself under Christ. We confess the faults of individuals and keep the command of the Lord.

Objection 2: God will save those who never hear, so there is no urgency. Some argue that people who have not heard the gospel will be saved by their sincerity or religion. Our answer. Romans 10:14-15 treats hearing and sending as the means by which people call on the Lord. Acts 4:12 says there is salvation in no other name. We leave the final judgment to the One who judges justly (Genesis 18:25), but we are not given permission to be silent.

Objection 3: We should reach our own town first. Our answer. Acts 1:8 names Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth together. A healthy church does not choose between home and abroad. A church that gives to missions often finds its own witness growing.

Pastoral Application

A deacon in a small Baptist church tells the pastor, "We can hardly pay the electric bill. Why should we give anything to missions?" The pastor does not scold him. He first thanks him for caring about the church's money. Then he opens Matthew 28 and Philippians 4:15-16 with the deacon, where a poor church supported Paul more than once. He also suggests a modest, regular plan: a monthly missions offering, a prayer calendar, and a letter from a missionary read in worship. Months later the deacon is the one reading the letter. The pastor has learned that a church comes to love missions by hearing the stories and praying for names.

Summary

The Great Commission commands us to make disciples by baptizing and teaching, which leads Baptists to plant churches. For about a century after 1644, many Particular Baptists hesitated over missions, partly because of high Calvinism and partly because of limited means. Andrew Fuller defended the free offer of the gospel in 1785, and William Carey's 1792 Enquiry argued that Christians must use means. The Baptist Missionary Society was formed at Kettering in 1792, and Carey, Ward and Marshman worked at Serampore on translation, preaching, churches and schools. Judson and Rice led American Baptists to form the Triennial Convention in 1814, and Lott Carey, the Southern Baptist Convention and Lottie Moon extended the work. Today Baptists in the majority world also send missionaries. We answer the objections of imperialism, of salvation without hearing, and of home before abroad from Scripture, and we confess faults where they are real.

Further Reading

• William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens (1792), a primary source.

• Andrew Fuller, The Gospel Worthy of All Acceptation (1785), a primary source.

• Charles H. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, a classic for pastors.

• J. M. Pendleton, Church Manual (1867).

• David Bebbington, Baptists Through the Centuries (2010).

• Chute, Finn and Haykin, The Baptist Story (2015).

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