Interview 113: Is Missions Work ‘Kingdom Building’?

About this episode

The episode features an interview with Keith Kobelia discussing the distinction between missions work and kingdom building in the context of the Great Commission.

We are picking up again with an interview from the May/June edition of FrontLIne, which is on the theme, “The Future of Missions.” Our conversation today is with Keith Kobelia, one of the professors at Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary in Ankeny, Iowa. His article is called “Is Missions Work ‘Kingdom Building’?” We’ll get into the details of that in the discussion. What Keith is doing is laying some groundwork for our Biblical philosophy of missions. It seems there is a lot of confusion among broader Christianity that includes all kinds of different relief efforts and addressing social needs as “mission” work. While sometimes those sorts of things have value in getting an audience for the gospel, they aren’t the same thing as fulfilling the Great Commission. Keith is calling for a Biblical understanding of the Kingdom in contrast to the Great Commission. Our mission is the Great Commission. The Kingdom as such comes later, and our efforts should be focused on making disciples and building up the Lord’s church. We’ll turn to our conversation next, but let me remind you that Keith’s article is available on our Substack right away for paying subscribers. We have previews for…

People in this episode

Guest: Keith Kobelia

Topics covered

• missions
• kingdom building
• Great Commission
• Biblical philosophy
• Christianity
• social needs
• discipleship

Keywords

• missions
• kingdom building
• Great Commission
• Christianity
• discipleship
• social needs
• Biblical philosophy

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Faith Baptist Bible College and Seminary, FBFI, FrontLine

Books & works: Is Missions Work ‘Kingdom Building’?

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