I recently finished an article titled, “Apostles/Evangelists of the First Three Centuries as Exemplars for Modern Missionaries.”

The abstract is as follows:

This paper considers the challenge of defining the term missionary in a way that is useful— neither excessively broad nor narrow in scope. It is suggested that rather than focusing on a definition for determining who is a missionary, which ultimately places attention on the boundaries of the term, a better choice is to focus on exemplars of missionaries. In an attempt to do this, the paper suggests that the pattern of apostles and evangelists of the first three centuries of church history provides such an exemplar. More specifically, since Paul and Barnabas are the most well-known and well-described of this group of ministers, they can serve as the exemplars for this group, and ultimately for modern missionaries. The purpose of this paper is not to determine who is a missionary and who is not, but rather utilize these exemplars to critique modern definitions of the term missionary. Through this, the author believes that a better understanding of the center, rather than the boundaries, of Christian missionaries and missions can be better understood.

If you are interested in reading it, it is now available on http://www.academia.edu. You can access it by CLICKING HERE.