by Kim Phan

One of the prevailing themes of A Gospel Primer and For the Sake of His Name is the glory of God. As we prepared for missions, it was a vital reminder that the goal of all things is to bring God glory. The goal of the gospel is not so much about man’s salvation, but it is about the glory of God. The Great Commission is not so much about making converts but it is about bringing people to worship the one true God.

A Gospel Primer by Milton Vincent focuses on preaching the gospel to yourself daily. In this book, Vincent shows us that the gospel is not just for nonbelievers, but for believers as well. Giving us thirtyone reasons why we should do meditate on the gospel daily, he shows us how essential the gospel is to our daily life and how we can never exhaust the depths of it. We tend to struggle and strive on our own strength, falling into legalism and forgetting that our justification lies in Christ, not ourselves. This is why we need the gospel. As Vincent writes, “On my worst days of sin and failure, the gospel encourages me with God’s unrelenting grace toward me. On my best days of victory and usefulness, the gospel keeps me relating to God solely on the basis of Jesus’ righteousness and not mine,” (20).

In the second and third parts of the book, he writes out the gospel message in both prose and poetic form. In it, we see how God’s glory truly is the main goal of why Christ came to die for our sins. It was God’s glory that was magnified on the Cross as Christ bore our sins demonstrating His righteousness and it was for His glory that we have been saved so that we would live “to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1:12).

There are many, however, who do not live for His glory yet they profess to believe. They pursue their own idols rather than following Christ. This is one of the main issues Doran addresses in For the Sake of His Name. Doran says, “The Great Commission produces disciples, not decisions,” (77). It is not merely enough for people to confess that they believe in Christ, but forsake all to follow Christ. If God’s glory is truly supreme in missions, then we should want to see people give Him the glory that He so rightfully deserves. Yet today we see that the goal of missions is getting the most number of people possible to accept Christ, often at the expense of the truth of God’s Word. Doran reminds us that our first priority must be faithfulness to God over fruitfulness in our ministry.

Doran also shows us through the Word that the biblical pattern of missions is done through the planting of local churches. All through Acts, we see that Paul planted churches on his mission journeys and that he was even sent out by the church at Antioch to do the work of missions. It is through the local church where disciples are made and equipped. In this way, the Great Commission is fulfilled and God is glorified.

Missions is meant to be centered around God, not man. While we may want to see people be saved and may have a heart for a certain group of people, in the end, our goal is to see His Name be made known to the ends of the earth – for Christ died for us so that we would no longer live for ourselves, but for Him who died and rose again on our behalf (2 Cor. 5:15). Soli Deo Gloria.