Did you know that the churches we support as “world missions” conduct Gospel ministry in places they consider their own fields ripe for harvest (John 4)? It is true! In India, the Lutheran Mission of Salvation-India conducts ministry among people they call “tribals” in remote communities (World Mission Souvenir photo, ca 2014), In Peru, professors from the Lima seminary trained evangelists to bring Christian doctrine to native communities in thatch-roof rain forest villages. In South Korea, pastors are learning to seek and minister to ethnic Koreans of Chinese citizenship. Some people and places in the world may seem strange to us, but because the churches we support also send out workers into his harvest field (Matthew 9), God has extended his kingdom in surprising fashion as the faith-creating Gospel is shared with others.
We celebrate the Reformation of the Church, which Martin Luther was led to initiate, sacrificed to bring about, prayed for God to bless, and faithfully promoted in the face of personal persecution. At the center of the Reformation was Luther’s teaching on objective justification (salvation won by Christ for all) and subjective justification (salvation received personally through faith in Christ): “Although the work of redemption itself has been accomplished, it still cannot help and benefit a man unless he believes it . . . (Luther’s Works, SL10, 991). We and the churches which we support are committed to spreading the Gospel because faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ (Romans 10).
(ELS mission work world-wide is supported by the Board for World Outreach.)