Defining and Strategizing Outreach to UPGs in NYC - Part 2: Defining "the Nations" in the

As important as it is to understand what Jesus meant when he said that we are to go and “make disciples of all nations”, it is just as important to understand what Jesus was not referring to. First, let’s understand that the Great Commission was not a command to go and make disciples here, there and everywhere. As important as it is that we share the Gospel with friends and family members that God has naturally put in our path, Jesus’ command was specifically to “make disciples of all nations”. The word translated “nations” is the Greek word ἔθνος, (pronounced ethnos). It can be more accurately translated (all politics aside) “ethnicities” or “ethnic groups”. So then, Jesus was not simply referring to countries, like Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Rather he was referring to the ethnic groups within those countries.

A country like Pakistan, for instance, would be considered to have nine major distinct ethnic groups, which can then be broken up further and added to other smaller groups to make a total of 414 people groups in Pakistan. It is important to understand that, in this context, Jesus was not saying that we are to go and make disciples of Pakistanis in general. Rather, the term he used would have referred to the 414 people groups within Pakistan, of which only 5 have a Christian witness. [3]

So, in looking at this term “ethnos” (the term Jesus used for the groups we are to make disciples out of) it is important to define what we mean by an ethnic group. For missional purposes the term “people groups” is used to distinguish the context of the term “ethnos”, in the way that Jesus used it in the Great Commission, from broader contexts such as what a sociologist might mean when he uses the word “ethnicity” today. Thus, a “people group”, when used strictly as a missiological term, means “the largest group within which the Gospel can spread as a movement without encountering barriers of understanding or acceptance.” [4] It is very important to understand that a people group does not refer to a group that is defined by social status, occupation, education level, political affiliation, or economic status.[5]

While people groups can be defined by various combinations of ethnicity, language, religion, caste and geography, they are not defined by occupation, social status, education level, economic status or political affiliation…. A people group is not the same as a group of people. [6]

The power of "people group" imagery to focus people’s strategic thinking began to be used to re-define all kinds of strata of society as a "people group." So, young people, the disabled, prostitutes, or taxi drivers in certain cities (which are actually segments or a strata of society) began to be defined as a "people group."

Factually, a "people group" is a collection of inextricably linked strata. For instance, a large ethno-linguistic/ethno-cultural people group will have youth, urban, rural, rich, poor, disabled, etc. At the end of the day, however, a young person or a taxi driver or a disabled person is in familial and societal relationships with other kinds of people from other strata of the society [and are not people groups]….

So, a "people group" may have a variety of defining factors which might include ethno-linguistic or ethno-cultural/religious elements, and may legitimately have unique elements (such as caste factors in India) but it will consist of various strata.[7]

There has been much confusion in the western church about how we are to apply the Great Commission to the preaching of the Gospel due to the wide misinterpretation of what Jesus meant by the word “nations”. When Jesus said that we were to “make disciples of all nations” he was not speaking about “professionals in Chile”, to name an example.[8] Professionals in Chile are an example of a smaller strata within a larger people group. Thus, when Jesus commanded us to make disciples of the “nations” he was referring to those larger people groups within which the Gospel would be able to spread without encountering cultural barriers of understanding or acceptance.

When is Enough, Enough?

This begs the question of when enough is enough. When have we made enough disciples to satisfy Christ’s command in any particular people group? In practical terms (and in accordance with our previous definition), this can only happen once the Gospel has taken enough of a foothold within a people group that it can spread within that people group without any outside interference. At that point it becomes the primary responsibility of the church within that people group to share the Gospel among their own group.

The most commonly accepted criteria for a people group to be qualified as Unreached, and therefore still in need of an outside witness, was given by the original Joshua Project editorial committee. They suggested that any people group with less than or equal to 2% Evangelical Christian and less than or equal to 5% Professing Christians should be considered Unreached.[9] Joshua Project goes on to explain that some of this reasoning was based on articles published by sociologist Robert Bellah, from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, in Psychology Today in the 1970s, but more recently quoted in Christianity Today.[10] There is much more to be said about this, but this should suffice for the purposes of this study.

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[3] https://joshuaproject.net/countries/PK

[4] Winter, Ralph D., et al., editors. Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. 3rd Ed., Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1999. pg. 514.

[5] Jenkins, Orville Boyd. “What is a ‘people Group’?”. 2008. Retrieved from http://orvillejenkins.com/ethnicity/peoplegroup.html

[6] https://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/what_is_a_people_group

[7] Parks, S. Kent. “What Happened to People Group Thinking?”. 2019 [PDF]. Retrieved from https://joshuaproject.net/resources/articles/what_happened_to_people_group_thinking

[8] https://www.cmalliance.org/news/2008/08/05/alliance-church-in-chile-ministers-to-unreached-professionals

[9] https://joshuaproject.net/help/definitions#unreached

[10] Christianity Today Oct 2011: 42; https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/october/saltlight.html?start=5