Hello friend. Can you believe it’s already been a year since the first issue of The Commission? We sure can’t! When we started to put this little project together, we prayed that it’d be a useful tool to help you make Jesus known wherever you are and to the ends of the earth. And a year in, our hope and prayer remain the same. Thank you for being here.

In today’s edition:

• Another thing Japan is known for—that you should know too 

• A wake-up call from Jim Elliot 

• How traditional radio is making Jesus known in Turkey 

🇯🇵 Japan’s Martyrs Hill

80 years ago, on August 6th and 9th, atomic bombs detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan to end World War II.

But Nagasaki is known for something else, too, that you may not know—it was one of the first places the gospel came to in Japan. And it’s also home to Martyrs Hill.

Soon after Christianity first came to Japan, religious persecution followed. Japanese Christians were forced to renounce their faith or die. And Martyrs Hill is where 26 Christians were publicly executed in 1597.

How to Pray: While Japanese Christians no longer face extreme religious persecution, only about 1% of the population identifies as Christian. Pray that gospel workers may be trained and sent to Japan to make disciples and plant churches. Pray that God may open the hearts of the Japanese to hear and accept the gospel. In a country that’s known for its slow gospel growth, pray for the endurance and faithfulness of Japanese believers and church leaders, as they hope to see more and more come to know Jesus as the true Savior within their country.

👣 “I Dare Not Stay Home”: A Wake-Up Call from Jim Elliot

In his journal, Shadow of the Almighty, Jim Elliot wrote, “Surely those who know the great passionate heart of Jehovah must deny their own loves to share in the statement of his.”

I wonder how many of us can sit comfortably with his words.

Elliot was talking about the Great Commission. About leaving behind comfort and familiarity to reach people who had never heard the name of Jesus. But his words aren’t just for foreign missionaries or long-gone martyrs.

They’re for us. For any Christian who claims to know “the great passionate heart of Jehovah.” Because to know his heart is to be shaped by it. And his heart is always reaching, always sending, always seeking the lost.

Jim goes on to describe three voices calling out to us: 

1. The voice from above heard in the Great Commission in Matthew 28

2. The voice from around heard in the Macedonian Call from Acts 16

3. The voice from below heard in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16

These three Scripture references give us a powerful image: Heaven, Earth, and even Hell—all crying out for the same thing: go and make Jesus known.

Jim Elliot responded. He couldn’t justify staying home while the Quichua people of Ecuador lived and died without the gospel. And he was criticized for it. Why go when someone with his gifts could do so much to serve his own people? Well, it wasn’t that he hated his homeland. He just couldn’t ignore the call. And then he said something brutally honest:

We live in a time when we have more access to the Bible than any generation in history. Churches on every corner. Bible apps, podcasts, books, conferences, Christian merch, and YouTube sermons. But access isn’t the same as obedience.

Jim’s critique isn’t about guilt—it’s about misplaced priorities. He’s not bashing the Church out of bitterness. He’s calling it to wake up. He sees a Church lulled to sleep by comfort. Seduced by materialism. Distracted by busyness. He sees believers who, like the church in Laodicea from Revelation 3, say, “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing,” while failing to realize they are “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”

It’s a sobering reminder: the Christian life isn’t about self-preservation. It’s not about building a secure, middle-class lifestyle baptized in Christian language. It’s about following Jesus—wherever he leads. It’s about carrying a cross, not padding a bank account. It’s about making disciples of all nations, not just filling pews.

The danger is settling into a version of Christianity that’s respectable, manageable, and comfortable—but disconnected from the brokenness of the world and the urgency of eternity. Jim Elliot didn’t hate the Church in America. He loved it enough to tell it the truth. And we need voices like his today. Voices that remind us that the gospel is still good news. That people are still perishing without it. And Jesus is still saying, “Go.”

So here’s the question: How are you responding? Where are your bank statements pointing? What does the dust on your Bible say? These aren’t questions meant to shame—but to awaken.

Jim Elliot once said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” He gave everything. And his life, though short, shook the world.

You don’t have to be a missionary martyr to live on mission. You just have to say yes.

—Steven Morales

🇹🇷 Making disciples through traditional radio

In Turkey, most indigenous people groups have access to (at least) part of the Bible in their native language, but only 0.6% of the population identifies as Christian. 

To change this, Radical partners with a project that shares the gospel through a local Turkish radio station.

Through various faith-based programs, this radio station is broadcasting the Word of God to Turkey. But the work doesn’t end there. When a listener contacts them, the radio station follows up with a clear gospel message, discipleship opportunities, and connects them with a local church.

How to Pray: Pray for the radio station to be fruitful in its efforts to make and disciple believers. Pray that not only Turks would hear about Jesus on this radio station, but also that the millions of immigrants and refugees in Turkey would hear and know the good news of the gospel.

📍 Attention Worthy

• NEW VIDEO: David Platt had an honest conversation with Michael and Melissa Kruger about parenting with hope in the light of the gospel. Go take a listen!

• Committing yourself to other people can be costly, and the Church has so many flaws. So why join a church at all? Here are four biblical reasons.

• Philip Hunt, a church-planting missionary in Africa since 1992, shares what they never taught him in Missions 101. 

THIS WEEK’S CONTRIBUTORS:

David Burnette, Selah Lipsey, Steven Morales, Camille Suazo

MAKE JESUS KNOWN EVERYWHERE!