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'''SBJT: How does your role as scholar, teacher and writer fulfill the Great Commission?'''

'''D. A. Carson:''' That is a penetrating question
that leaves little room in which to
hide. I shall try to answer it in five points.
(1) I see myself first and foremost as a
pastor, not a professional scholar or writer.
The Lord called me to gospel ministry.
Three times I have been involved in
church planting, and I served a church as
pastor before embarking on doctoral studies.
If I now teach at a seminary, it is because
for the time being I believe the Lord
wants me to train other pastors and Christian
leaders. But although I may remain
here for the rest of my working life, I
would certainly not rule out the possibility
of a return to pastoring a local church.
That is the front line, and there are times
when working in a quarter-master’s slot
(which is where I am) prompts me to examine
my own priorities.

So now the question becomes not only
more urgent, but raises questions about
my integrity: How do your present roles
reflect your calling to be a pastor—a calling
which surely includes the responsibility
to fulfill the Great Commission?

(2) When I was a young man, through
twelve years of tertiary education and
early pastoral ministry, I was involved in
a fair bit of evangelism. The problem with
my present work teaching in a seminary
is that I teach Christians all week, and
when I preach on the weekend I’m usually
preaching to still more Christians. It
is frighteningly easy to go weeks and
months without a single serious conversation
with an unbeliever. Quite apart
from the failure to evangelize, in due
course one loses the ability to engage in
easy conversation with almost anyone.
Moreover, in a fast-changing culture like
ours, not only does one lose the common
touch, but one is soon out of date. The
danger is that the only serious contact you
have with the broader pagan culture is
through books.

So, twelve or fifteen years ago I made
a number of changes. I started insisting
that a certain percentage of the many conferences
I speak at be evangelistic. Gradually
my circle of such opportunities
multiplied. Often my evangelism is done
on university campuses; sometimes it is
church-based.

But the lesson I learned about being
intentional in this matter applies to many
pastors as well. Some pastors I know
never actually explain the gospel to anyone,
except in some sermons, and even
then mostly to friendly crowds of fellow
believers. It is essential that we ''seek out''
people who have no connection with
Christians, people who are sometimes
overtly hostile. I have made many foolish
decisions in my life, but the decision to
''plan'' to do more evangelism was a good
one. Quite apart from the people who
have been converted through such ministry,
I find myself able to stand much
closer to the front end of the culture than
would otherwise be the case. That is important
not only for my own integrity as
a Christian witness and preacher, but also
for my training of a new generation.

(3) That brings me quite naturally to the
third point. My teaching ministry is
largely geared to training pastors and
other Christian workers. Over the years,
not only many pastors but many
InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff,
Campus Crusade for Christ workers, missionaries-
in-training, Bible translators,
mission executives, and national Christian
leaders from around the world have
passed through my classrooms. In some
small way, God has enabled me to play a
part in shaping them to fulfill the Great
Commission. I often wish I did a better
job. Yet at some time or other, my teaching
and preaching have stretched outward
to touch five continents. Sometimes conferences
are organized in conjunction with
other workers to help train people in evangelism.
In May, for instance, under the title
“Telling the Truth: Evangelizing
Postmoderns,” a number of us will be trying
to pass on to others something of what
we have learned in our own attempts at
obeying the Great Commission; by now
you’ve probably seen the advertising. In
my most sober moments, I am quietly
amazed that God uses me and others like
me in this task. Certainly there are immense
delights when I see former students
proving to be faithful and fruitful
servants of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(4) In the same way, my writing has
been a indirect way of fulfilling the Great
Commission. Very little of it has been directly
evangelistic. Nevertheless individuals
have sometimes told me they have
been converted by reading one of my
books. More strategically, books that build
confidence in Scripture, books that explain
what Scripture says, books that teach
people to pray, books that help others to
preach, books that help students to articulate
the gospel in various cultures—all of
these help shape their readers, and one of
the effects is work and witness which, in
the mercy of God, is a little more fruitful
than it would have been otherwise.

Moreover, one of the books now on my
writing agenda is overtly evangelistic. It
stems from years of evangelistic preaching,
and will come with a study guide to
help small group leaders take groups of
people through substantial chunks of the
Bible and point them to the Lord Jesus.

(5) Finally, it is important to recall that
the Great Commission is ''more'' than evangelism
in some narrow sense. It is the
Lord’s mandate to go and make disciples
of all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to observe all that Jesus
himself commanded. Strictly speaking,
therefore, those who teach believers what
Jesus taught are engaged in fulfilling the
Great Commission. Of course, that sort of
thinking could become a cop out: “I’m a
teacher of Scripture, so even if I never do
a scrap of evangelism I’m fulfilling the
Great Commission.” Well, maybe—if you
can parcel out the Commission into entirely
discrete chunks. It sounds more like
a dreary excuse.

Yet there remains some truth to it.
While we recognize the overlapping gifts
God distributes to the church, we should
perceive that scholars, teachers, and writers
have their assigned tasks to fulfill under
one Master, whose “Well done!” on
the last day is the ultimate reward. Mercifully,
God himself is less judgmental
than many who worship him, for it is written,
“At that time [i.e. at the final judgment]
each will receive his praise from
God” (1 Co 4:7). That is wonderfully gracious,
especially when we remember that,
according to the Lord Jesus, on any objective
scale we are never more than unprofitable
servants.