According to The Topical Bible, Bible Encyclopedia, “the term "The Sent Ones" refers to individuals who are commissioned and dispatched by God or Jesus Christ to carry out specific missions or tasks, often involving the proclamation of the Gospel and the establishment of the Church.” Are you and I “sent ones,” or does that refer to the apostles, specific believers in the New Testament, or to every Christian?
In John 20:21 it says, “So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” This verse shows the continuity of the mission of the Father sending the Son, and the Son sending His followers. Jesus is the original “sent one.” He was sent by the Father to redeem lost humanity. He gathered the original twelve disciples and in Mark 3:14 we read, “And He appointed twelve, so that they would be with Him and that He could send them out to preach.”
Jesus called, trained, and sent those twelve with the same purpose for which He had been sent. The word apostle means, “to be sent.” Jesus called them to Himself and they became His disciples, and then He commissioned them into apostles, sent ones. But the commission of sending did not end with those original twelve.
Paul, formerly known as Saul of Tarsus, not one of the original twelve, also received a commission by God to carry out the proclamation of the Gospel and the planting of churches. After meeting Saul on the way to Damascus, with which Saul was carrying letters to arrest Christians, Jesus blinded Saul and then sent a messenger to him. Acts 9:15 records, “But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel.”” Paul, a former persecutor of Christians became a sent one by Christ.
The sending mandate stretches beyond the closing of the New Testament canon and beyond the lives of those early followers. As Jesus stood on the Mt. of Olives about to ascend to the right hand of the Father, many His followers had gathered there with Him. His parting words to them are recorded in Matthew 28:18-20, “And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
This statement perpetuates the mission of the Father from the beginning. To send His seed into the world and bless every nation. Everywhere the gospel takes root, that home, that neighborhood, that community, and that nation is blessed. They are blessed with the presence of those who will bring the goodness of God to bear upon individuals. And if others believe, the blessing spreads. Christians have brought the gospel and its effects into the world by being good neighbors, by pushing for just laws, by building orphanages, by building prisons, by building hospitals, and by establishing churches that continue calling, training, and sending disciples.
