As the story of the world opens in Genesis 1:1, God initiates all that exists and directs forever a course of events with a definite purpose and path. As the path of time, as revealed in Scripture moves onward, the purpose of God for all of creation is the worship and glory of Himself.1 Through the fall of man and thus the corruption of nature, the worship and glory due to God is not complete. It is for this reason that God works and has worked in the world in order to bring about His glory in all aspects of reality.
And since worship, the ultimate recognition of the true God, is not fully present in the world today, it is the purpose now of God’s people to act and live to bring about that worship. This purpose is fulfilled in practice by the work of missions. As John Piper states, “The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.”2 Therefore the purpose and nature of God must foment at the heart of all missions. Thus this paper will show that Scripture forms a basis of theology that connects the purpose of missions to the nature of God and His revealed truth in all aspects of doctrine.
1 This purpose is clarified throughout Scripture in passages such as Isaiah 43:6-7 and Habakkuk 2:14.
2 John Piper, Let the Nations Be Glad (Grand Rapids, MI; Baker Books, 1993) 11.
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