No, they are going in to preach Christ crucified ('go ye into all the world and preach the gospel...'). To most, this will be a stumbling block or foolishness.
Huh? So this means the intention of evangelists in NOT that people should be converted to Christianity? Your kidding right?
Jorge: "But this is the expressed intention (converting people to Christianity)"
el: No, they are going in to preach Christ crucified ('go ye into all the world and preach the gospel...'). To most, this will be a stumbling block or foolishness.
Jorge: Huh? So this means the intention of evangelists in NOT that people should be converted to Christianity? Your kidding right?
Anyone who brings the Gospel would love for the hearer to be saved (converted). No believer wants anyone to go to hell.
The point is that all we can do is bring the Gospel. We can't argue anyone into Heaven. We can only offer the Word of Life and Truth - but God does the converting.
These missionaries assuredly will sow the seeds by spreading the Gospel - in addition to bringing medical and other relief. But they usually won't know what seeds take. Some who hear may react with open hostility, but yet reflect on what they heard - and by the grace of God, come to the Lord years later. You never know. I think this is illustrated well in the following passage:
Matt 21:28-31
28 But what think ye? A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to day in my vineyard.
29 He answered and said, I will not: but afterward he repented, and went.
30 And he came to the second, and said likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir: and went not.
31 Whether of them twain did the will of his father? They say unto him, The first.
We are priviliged to bring the Word - and we can take confidence in the words of Isaiah 55:11:
11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.
In summation, the Missionaries will bring medical, health, and other relief. But they will bring something more precious - the offer of eternal life. These missionaries will understand that most won't accept this offer, but they will also understand that some who seem to reject - really will have been saved - and there is much joy in the knowledge that as sowers of the Word they served as a precious instrument in the salvation of the lost.