In the closing verses of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives His followers a command that has rung out through the centuries as a rallying cry for Christians - The Great Commission. "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you"Matthew 28:19-20a (ESV).
These words from the resurrected Christ highlight the urgency and scope of the evangelistic mandate. The gospel message is not just for a select few, but for all peoples and nations. And this message must be proclaimed and taught, making disciples who follow Jesus' teachings. The apostles took this commission seriously, as seen in Acts, where they rapidly spread the good news from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). This set the pattern for future generations of believers to take the gospel across cultural and geographic boundaries.
The story of Christianity's arrival and eventual dominance across the British Isles is a fascinating tapestry woven with the threads of bold evangelists, patient discipleship, and the Gospel's unstoppable advance over centuries. At the heart of this narrative stands an essential figure - Augustine of Canterbury, the monk sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 597 AD to bring the Christian faith to the Anglo-Saxons inhabiting what is now England.
Augustine spearheaded the Christianization of Anglo-Saxon England. Through his strategic vision, tireless missionary efforts, and the establishment of Canterbury as the epicenter of English Christianity, Augustine laid an enduring foundation that reverberates through the Church in Britain to this present day.
In 1701, the Church of England demonstrated its understanding of this missionary imperative by founding the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to send missionaries around the globe. Significantly, the motto they chose was "transiens adiuva nos" - Latin for "Come over and help us!" This cry echoes the "Macedonian call" described in Acts 16, where Paul receives a vision of a man pleading, "Come over to Macedonia and help us" (v. 9 ESV). Just as Paul urgently responded to this call by crossing over to preach the gospel in Europe, so should the church today hear and obey the call to "come over and help" those who have yet to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
The pioneers of the modern missionary movement demonstrated a passionate zeal to take the gospel to unreached peoples and nations. Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and David Livingstone are examples of this urgency and sacrifice for global evangelism.
Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission
Hudson Taylor (1832-1905) is renowned as a pioneering missionary to China during the 19th century. From an early age, Taylor felt a profound call to take the gospel to the Chinese people, millions of whom had never heard the name of Christ.
After his own conversion as a teenager, Taylor immersed himself in the study of the Chinese language, culture, and people group in preparation for missionary service. At age 21, he sailed for China in 1853. Taylor quickly learned the immense challenges of reaching China's vast interior provinces, which had been largely untouched by Protestant missionary activity up to that point. He adopted a pioneering method of missionaries dressing in Chinese clothing and embracing Chinese cultural practices as much as possible in order to more effectively contextualize the gospel.
In 1865, Taylor founded the China Inland Mission (now OMF International) with the explicit goal of bringing the message of Christ to the neglected inland provinces. Over the next decades, CIM sent over 800 missionaries (including Taylor's wife and children) to spread out across all 18 provinces of China.
Taylor's driving passion is summed up well in his own words: "The great commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed." This belief compelled him to tirelessly travel, fundraise, recruit missionaries, and develop innovative strategies to reach every corner of China with the gospel message. His unwavering labors bore tremendous fruit, with hundreds of missionaries and thousands of Chinese Christians brought into the church through CIM's efforts by the time of Taylor's death in 1905. JHis life powerfully demonstrated a willingness to "come over and help" by bringing the gospel to a people who had been woefully neglected and unreached.
William Carey and the Serampore Mission
William Carey (1761-1834) is viewed as the "father of modern missions" and a pioneering force behind the Protestant missionary movement from Britain. As a young Baptist minister, Carey developed an insatiable passion for global evangelism fueled by his intense study of the Bible, geography, ethnic groups still unreached by the gospel. In 1792 he published his life-changing missionary manifesto titled "An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens." In this pamphlet, Carey revealed his broken heart for the lost millions who had yet to hear of Christ, writing, "Multitudes sit still, because they have had no Bible...by the use of translation, the Bible speaks their own language to them, pleads its own cause, and they receive its truths with joy."
Carey's zeal to see the Scriptures translated into the heart languages of unreached peoples groups set the trajectory for his pioneering missionary work in India. In 1793, he embarked for India, setting up his base at a Danish colony called Serampore. Working alongside fellow missionaries like William Ward and Joshua Marshman, Carey planted churches while also tirelessly laboring as a Bible translator. Over his lifetime he mastered Sanskrit, Bengali, and numerous other Indian dialects, translated the Bible into 40 languages and portions into 30 more.
In so doing, Carey responded to the "Macedonian call" to bring God's word to millions who desperately needed it. His conviction rang out in his soul-stirring words, "Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God!" Carey's efforts laid the foundations for a flourishing missionary work that has left an indelible impact in India and inspired generations of missionaries to follow in his footsteps of sacrifice and zeal for the unreached.
David Livingstone and African Exploration
The name of David Livingstone (1813-1873) has become inseparably linked with the evangelization of Africa and some of the most celebrated explorations of the continent's interior over the 19th century As a young man, Livingstone experienced a profound conversion and calling to take the gospel message "to the very heart of immense Africa." At age 27, he embarked for British territories in southern Africa to work as a missionary.
However, Livingstone's zeal for reaching the unreached with the gospel swiftly moved him beyond the boundaries of European settlement in Africa. Over the next three decades, he launched a series of ambitious overland expeditions that crossed vast stretches of unmapped territory in service of his dual callings as missionary and explorer.
Livingstone trekked over 30,000 miles across southern, central, and east Africa during these expeditions. Along the way, he planted churches and proclaimed the gospel to people groups who had never been exposed to the Christian message before. "My great object is the promotion of Christianity," Livingstone wrote during one of his expeditions.
His famous exploration of the Zambezi River basin opened up that entire region to future missionary expansion. Meanwhile, Livingstone's vivid written accounts and meetings with European explorers like H.M. Stanley exposed the atrocities of the African slave trade, rallying support back in Britain for its abolishment and sparking a new wave of missionary interest in Africa.
Livingstone's penetration into the heart of Africa answered the "Macedonian call" in Acts 16:9 in some of the most remote and unreached regions at that time. He never lost sight of his primary calling as a messenger of Christ's gospel, even in the midst of his trail-blazing explorations and grueling physical trials.
On his deathbed, Livingstone's unwavering commitment to this calling remained clear in his final written words: "All I can add in my solitude, is, may Heaven's rich blessing come down on every one, American, English, or Turk, who will help to heal this open sore of the world."
The Ongoing Macedonian Call
Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and David Livingstone's examples during the modern missionary movement of the 19th century potently illustrate what it means to obey the Great Commission's "Macedonian call" to bring the gospel to the unreached peoples and nations of the world. The United States, as a British colony in the 1700's, benefited from the British call to the Great Commission. We should fulfill Jesus' Commission to foster His Gospel within the U.S. and across the world.
Their stories reveal lives of single-minded devotion to this cause, willingness to endure immense hardship and sacrifice to reach people in spiritual darkness, tireless stamina in overcoming obstacles and opposition, and Spirit-empowered labor that reaped an incredible spiritual harvest in their spheres of influence.
While the missionary landscape has evolved in our modern era, the urgency of the Great Commission remains unchanged. According to the Joshua Project, there are currently over 7,000 unreached people groups comprising nearly 3 billion individuals who have little to no access to the gospel message.
The "Macedonian call" to "come over and help" echoes loudly from billions of souls who have yet to experience the freedom, joy, and eternal life found only in the good news of Jesus Christ.
We stand at a pivotal moment in history as the cultural landscape rapidly shifts and opposition intensifies towards Christian witness - particularly in regions like the 10/40 Window, where the majority of unreached peoples reside. Yet Christ's charge to "make disciples of all nations" has not been rescinded.
May we take up the baton passed on from missionary pioneers like Hudson Taylor, William Carey, and David Livingstone - their examples beckoning us to respond with urgency and sacrifice to the Great Commission call. For as Livingstone declared, "The goal is unspeakably grand: The clouds will be dispelled, and the light will shine in upon them... Shall we remain insensible to the high privilege with which the Saviour commissions us to send them a messenger of mercy?"
In 1701, deeply sensing the gravity and scope of the Great Commission, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel chose as their motto "transiens adiuva nos" - "Come over and help us!" This poignant plea reminds us that the mandate has not changed and the mission remains unfinished.
Only when the Gospel has made disciples and been proclaimed across every tribe, tongue, and nation will this "Macedonian call" cease echoing through the ages, the global church finally responding, "We have come over to help you."
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