Finish the Mission - FOR THE TRUTH

Finish the Mission — A Fresh Call to Complete the Great Commission

Before he ascended, Jesus gave his followers a commission.

Not a suggestion. Not an aspiration. Not a long-term organisational goal to be revisited and revised as circumstances changed. A commission — a direct, urgent, scope-defining mandate from the risen Lord who holds all authority in heaven and on earth:

Go. Make disciples of all nations.

Two thousand years later, the commission is unfinished. There are still people groups — thousands of them — who have never heard the name of Jesus. Still languages in which the gospel has never been proclaimed. Still communities of human beings, made in the image of God and loved by the God who sent his Son to die for them, who remain entirely unreached and unengaged by the good news that is meant for them.

The question is not whether the commission will be completed. The God who gave it has promised that it will — that people from every tribe and tongue and nation will stand before the throne of God and before the Lamb. The question is whether this generation of Christians will be part of completing it — whether the missionary zeal that the Spirit of God ignites will burn in the hearts of a new generation with the intensity that finishing the mission requires.

Finish the Mission is a book designed to ignite exactly that zeal — and to sustain it with the theological depth, the practical wisdom, and the global perspective that genuine, lasting missionary engagement demands.

This Is No Ordinary Mission Book

The Great Commission is not a new theme. It has been written about, preached about, and called for across generations of Christian mission history. But Finish the Mission brings something genuinely fresh to this enduring subject — a breadth of perspective, a diversity of contributors, and a range of angles that together create one of the most comprehensive and most personally compelling missions books available.

The contributors — David Platt, Louie Giglio, Michael Ramsden, Ed Stetzer, Michael Oh, David Mathis, and John Piper — are not a random collection of voices. They are among the most trusted, most widely respected, and most mission-shaped Christian leaders of our generation — each of them bringing their particular gifts, their particular ministry experience, and their particular passion for the advance of the gospel to a subject that they all hold in common.

The result is a book that is simultaneously theologically serious and practically motivating — one that moves from astronomy to exegesis, from apologetics to the Global South, from being missional at home to employing our resources in the global cause, in a way that leaves no Christian reader with the excuse that the Great Commission is someone else’s responsibility.

The Perspectives This Book Brings

From Astronomy to Exegesis One of the most distinctive features of Finish the Mission is the breadth of the angles from which the contributors approach the subject of global mission. This is not a book that simply rehearses the standard missionary arguments — it approaches the Great Commission from angles that are genuinely fresh, genuinely illuminating, and genuinely motivating.

The astronomical perspective — the sheer scale and the extraordinary fine-tuning of a universe created by a God who is passionate about making his glory known among all peoples — provides a different kind of motivation for missions than the strictly exegetical. And the exegetical perspective — the careful, textually grounded case for why the completion of the Great Commission is not optional for any Christian who takes the authority of Christ seriously — provides a different kind of grounding than the experiential or the emotional.

Together, these different angles build a case for missionary engagement that is comprehensive enough to reach every kind of reader, wherever they are in their understanding of and commitment to the global cause.

From Apologetics to the Global South The apologetics dimension of the book — contributed by Michael Ramsden of RZIM — addresses the intellectual dimension of global mission: how Christians can engage thoughtfully and compellingly with the genuine intellectual objections and the genuine religious alternatives that make cross-cultural gospel proclamation so demanding and so necessary.

The Global South perspective — the recognition that the centre of gravity of world Christianity has shifted dramatically in recent decades, and that the completion of the Great Commission will be accomplished not primarily by Western missionaries but by the global body of Christ working together — gives the book a genuinely international character that most missions books lack.

From Being Missional at Home to Employing Resources in the Global Cause Not every Christian is called to cross geographical or cultural boundaries in their mission engagement. But every Christian is called to mission — to the faithful, intentional, ongoing proclamation of and embodiment of the gospel in the specific context where God has placed them.

Ed Stetzer addresses what it means to be genuinely missional at home — not as a comfortable alternative to the demands of global mission, but as the necessary foundation for a church that is genuinely engaged in the global cause. And the contributors together address how ordinary Christians can deploy their resources — their time, their money, their gifts, their networks — in ways that genuinely advance the completion of the Great Commission.

The Contributors and Their Distinctive Contributions

David Platt The author of Radical and the president of the International Mission Board, Platt brings to this book his signature combination of theological depth and missional urgency — the conviction that the ordinary Christian life is not a comfortable private affair but a radically, sacrificially, joyfully mission-shaped response to the grace that has been received and the commission that has been given.

Louie Giglio The founder of Passion Conferences and one of the most influential voices in reaching the next generation for Christ, Giglio brings his distinctive perspective on worship and mission — the conviction that genuine encounter with the greatness and the glory of God in worship is not an alternative to mission but its most powerful fuel.

Michael Ramsden The international director of RZIM, Ramsden brings his expertise in apologetics and cross-cultural engagement — showing how thoughtful, respectful, genuinely engaging intellectual conversation is an essential component of faithful gospel proclamation in a world of genuine religious diversity and genuine intellectual challenge.

Ed Stetzer The executive director of LifeWay Research and one of the most respected missiologists in contemporary evangelicalism, Stetzer brings his expertise in church planting, cultural engagement, and the nature of genuine missional faithfulness in the ordinary contexts where most Christians actually live.

Michael Oh The global executive director of the Lausanne Movement, Oh brings the perspective of the Global South — the recognition that the completion of the Great Commission is a global, collaborative, multiethnic endeavour that belongs to the whole body of Christ and not to any one nation or tradition.

David Mathis A senior teacher at desiringGod.org, Mathis brings the perspective of personal discipleship and spiritual formation — showing how the habits and the disciplines of genuine Christian growth are inseparable from genuine missional engagement.

John Piper The founder of desiringGod.org and one of the most significant theological voices of our generation, Piper brings his distinctive conviction that mission is the overflow of worship — that the passion for the glory of God among all peoples is the natural, inevitable fruit of a genuine, deep, personally inhabited encounter with the worth of Jesus Christ.

What This Book Will Help You Do

Encounter the Great Commission with fresh eyes and fresh urgency — through a range of perspectives and a range of contributors that make the unfinished nature of the mission impossible to miss and impossible to dismiss
Understand the theological foundations of global mission — why the completion of the Great Commission matters so much, what drives it, and what the God who gave it has promised about its outcome
Engage with the practical dimensions of missionary participation — from being genuinely missional at home to deploying resources in the global cause to engaging thoughtfully with the intellectual challenges of cross-cultural proclamation
Understand the global nature of the missionary enterprise — the shift to the Global South, the collaborative nature of finishing the mission, and the role of the whole body of Christ in completing it
Be genuinely, durably ignited with missionary zeal — not the temporary emotional surge of a conference experience, but the deep, theologically rooted, practically oriented passion for the glory of God among all peoples that sustains a lifetime of missional engagement
Find your own specific, concrete, genuinely significant place in the completion of the Great Commission — whether as a cross-cultural missionary, a generous sender, a faithful local witness, or a prayerful, informed supporter of the global cause

Who Should Read This Book?

Finish the Mission is essential reading for:

Every Christian who wants to understand more clearly what the Great Commission actually demands of them — and to find their own specific, genuine, significant place in its completion
Young adults and students who are discerning their calling — weighing the possibility of cross-cultural missionary service and wanting a comprehensive, compelling, theologically grounded account of why it matters
Pastors and church leaders wanting to cultivate missionary zeal in their congregations — and wanting a resource that brings together the most trusted voices of our generation to make the case
Christians who are engaged in local mission and evangelism and want to understand how their local faithfulness connects to and supports the global cause
Those who are already engaged in global missions and want the renewal of vision and the depth of theological grounding that this book provides
Church missions committees and missionary sending organisations wanting a shared, comprehensive, multi-perspectival resource for their volunteers, supporters, and senders
Christians in India — a country with both a significant missionary sending tradition and enormous internal unreached people groups — who want a biblically grounded, globally informed framework for understanding their own calling to participate in the completion of the Great Commission

About the Contributors

David Platt is the author of Radical and the president of the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. Louie Giglio is the founder of Passion Conferences and the pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta. Michael Ramsden is the international director of RZIM. Ed Stetzer is the executive director of LifeWay Research and a widely respected missiologist. Michael Oh is the global executive director of the Lausanne Movement. David Mathis is a senior teacher and executive editor at desiringGod.org. John Piper is the founder of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College and Seminary.

Together, they represent some of the most trusted, most biblically serious, and most mission-shaped voices in contemporary global Christianity.

Other John Piper titles available at forthetruth.in include:

Providence
Expository Exultation
Don’t Waste Your Life
Spectacular Sins
Five Points: Towards a Deeper Experience of God’s Grace

The Commission That Will Be Completed

Jesus promised it. Before he ascended, he promised that the gospel of the kingdom would be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations — and then the end would come. The commission will be completed. The people from every tribe and tongue and nation will stand before the throne. The new creation will come.

The question is not whether it will happen. It is whether this generation will have the privilege of participating in it — whether the missionary zeal that the Spirit of God ignites will burn brightly enough in the hearts of enough believers to carry the gospel to the communities that have never yet heard it.

Finish the Mission is an invitation to be part of that generation — to receive the fresh missionary fire that these pages are designed to ignite, to find your place in the global cause, and to give yourself, with everything you have and everything you are, to the completion of the commission that the risen Lord who holds all authority in heaven and on earth has not yet withdrawn.

The mission is not finished. The need is urgent. And the God who gave the commission is worthy of the effort it will cost to complete it.