Mission in Action

A Biblical Description of Missional Ethics

Martin C. Salter, Martin Salter

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781783597802
• eBook ISBN: 9781783597819
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

Missional ethics is concerned with the way in which the believing community's behaviour is, in and of itself, a witness to the wisdom and goodness of God. The debate surrounding the relationship between word and deed, or evangelism and social action, remains a significant issue within evangelical missiology.

Martin Salter seeks to address one aspect of that debate - namely, the missional significance of ethics - by conducting detailed exegesis of key biblical texts. He argues that biblical ethics is neither entirely separate from, nor merely preparatory for, mission - rather, it is an integral part of the church's mission.





Missional ethics is a theme that arises from the biblical texts and is not imposed on them. The church as both organism and institution embody a missional ethic that includes worship, justice, and charity. Word and deed belong together as an integral whole. Salter's valuable study concludes by offering a definition of missional ethics.

1. A METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY OF MISSIONAL ETHICS

Introduction

In a recent study of missional ethics Rowe summarizes the scope of missional ethics as being ‘as wide as human life itself’.1 Such a broad summary invites further enquiry in an effort to bring increased precision to the concept. This book is an attempt to move the discussion forward by offering an exegetical definition of missional ethics. A crucial question in any thematic enquiry concerns the most appropriate methodology for such an exploration.

The hermeneutical method

The method of exploration will work from four proposals which will be developed below. In sum they are as follows: First, the canonical text, as the authoritative text for the faith community, is the appropriate foundation for the study of missional ethics. Second, an appreciation of the narrative trajectory of that text can lead to a profitable understanding of the theme. Third, a missional hermeneutic reveals the centrality of ‘mission’ as it runs through the canon. Fourth, an appreciation of performative hermeneutics discloses how texts serve to shape the community. In short, an approach that utilizes, and is sensitive to, the authority, shape, emphases and intent of the canon is well placed to investigate the theme. Each of these four proposals will now be developed.

A canonical approach

The first element in this methodology proposes that the final form of the canon is the best context for enquiry. This is not to say that questions of historical criticism are unimportant, but rather, as will be argued here, the final form is more suited to this investigation.

Thiselton notes that the area of canonical approach is controversial.2 He cites Barr as saying, ‘In biblical times the books were separate individual scrolls. A “Bible” was not a volume one could hold in the hand . . . The boundary [of] . . . what was Scripture . . . was thus more difficult to indicate.’3 Thus for Barr it is unreasonable to expect to find a united witness across different texts in the exploration of any given theme. However, an increasing number of contemporary scholars are advocating a canonical approach as the context for sound theological method.4 Two influential scholars in this area are James Sanders and Brevard Childs.

Sanders advocates the discipline he terms ‘canonical criticism’. He does not deny the value of the traditional higher and lower criticisms, but argues that the texts can only be fully understood when we consider not just their origin and structure, but also their function and authority in the believing communities that shaped them.5 Sanders contends that all scholarship approaches the text with certain values and presuppositions. For some of the higher critics the notion of the text’s authority lies outside the realm of proper enquiry, since it is concerned with matters of faith. Sanders replies that ‘the sociology of knowledge, however, has now brought us to recognise that scholars themselves have systems of values of which they should be fully conscious’.6 The enquirer needs to be aware of these values and place them alongside the text. The problem of presuppositions affects all enquiry, and the solution is to be clear about the presuppositions present.

Sanders offers three observations regarding the ‘sacred text’. First, the canon of Scripture emerged out of the faith communities of Israel, early Judaism and the early church seeking to answer the questions ‘Who are we?’ and ‘What are we to do?’ Second, the community shaped the texts in their common cultic and cultural life. Third, the canon’s proper function is continued dialogue with the heirs of those early communities as they continue to try to answer those first two questions: ‘Who are we?’ and ‘What are we to do?’7 For Sanders an appreciation of the communities’ shaping of the texts is critical to the hermeneutical approach of modern exegetes. The enquirer cannot isolate the texts from the communities of faith that canonized them. Canonical criticism is important because it ‘focuses on the function of authoritative traditions in the believing communities, early or late’.8 A dynamic dialectic is operative in the shaping of texts, traditions and communities. To focus piecemeal on the parts is to miss the significance of the whole.9 The task of hermeneutics is to span the gap between the historical-critical method, and the ongoing communal reception and application of the texts.10 To focus on the former alone is to miss something of the telos of the text; canonical criticism appreciates the value of these disciplines but proceeds to consider the function of the texts within and upon the communities that received and shaped them.11

While Sanders’s interest is in the function of the text for the community, Childs’s interest is primarily in the place from which the text is read. Childs suggests that although Sanders argues for a theocentric approach, he permits too much influence to the needs of each successive community. Too much power is attributed to the believing community in adapting the texts for their own current needs. In discussing Sanders’s approach Childs states:

It is an anthropocentric, sociological interpretation of canon . . . [a] history-of-religions reading of its role. In contrast, according to the Old Testament pattern (Deut. 31:9–13) the formation of a written authoritative corpus was theocentric in orientation. It identified the will of God for successive generations so that they might live in accordance with the enduring commands of God expressed in Torah. It is not simply a flexible paradigm without an established content.12

Childs also declares his unhappiness with Sanders’s term ‘canonical-criticism’, as it conveys the notion of another technique that takes its place alongside the other ‘criticisms’. Instead he suggests a canonical ‘approach’ that establishes a place from which the Bible is read as sacred scripture.13 Childs’s canonical approach challenges the exegete to ‘look closely at the biblical text in its received form and then critically discern its function for a community of faith’.14

Childs, like Sanders, argues that the ‘practice of dividing the biblical passages into their various historical stages (a “diachronic approach”) and developments often destroyed the “synchronic” dimensions of the text in which it was viewed altogether as a whole’.15 In response Childs, like Sanders, suggests that ‘the canon of the Christian church is the most appropriate context from which to do Biblical Theology’.16 He continues, ‘The status of canonicity is not an objectively demonstrable claim but a statement of Christian belief.’17 Childs recognizes that value systems are universal and is unembarrassed about his own faith-based approach to the question of methodology.18 Childs, like Sanders, is demonstrating an awareness of the forces at work in the reception of the text by the ancient community. And Childs, like Sanders, is aware that interpretation needs to consider function. Childs’s interest is in the formative and transformative impact of the texts on the communities that received them. The theological task ‘has as its proper context the canonical scriptures of the Christian church, not because only this literature influenced its history, but because of the peculiar reception of this corpus by a community of faith and practise’.19 He argues that canonical consciousness lies deep within the formation of the corpus.20 As Thiselton notes, the church ‘did not “make” the canon, but through its life and identity recognized the formative impact of divine revelation through the call of the “prophets and apostles” as a whole’.21 Similarly Hahn states, ‘The Scriptures themselves are regarded by the biblical authors as the divinely inspired testament to the divine economy as it has unfolded throughout history.’22

Any theological exploration, including the exploration of missional ethics, must engage with the peculiarly authoritative corpus of Scripture in its received form. To ignore this crucial feature of the biblical texts would be to miss the meaning and significance of them. Childs does not deny the significance of the canonical process which formed the text, but the primary interest of the canonical approach is the theological reflection on ‘the text as it has been received and shaped’.23 He goes on to state, ‘At the heart of the canonical proposal is the conviction that the divine revelation of the Old Testament cannot be abstracted or removed from the form of the witness which the historical community of Israel gave it.’24 Childs concludes, ‘there is no one hermeneutical key for unlocking the biblical message, but the canon provides the arena in which the struggle for understanding takes place’.25

As a consequence of Childs’s approach his interest is not just in individual texts, but in the shape and function of the entire canon. His desire is that theologians approach the text as a whole, rather than as a collection of isolated texts. The text comes to us not from individuals but from ‘ancient communities of faith’.26 As McConville notes, the consequence of this is that ‘Canon thus takes on a hermeneutical quality, since texts must always be read with alertness to other texts.’27 In canonical terms, ‘no text is an island’.28 Each text has a web of interactions with other texts, utilizing, interpreting and developing motifs in dependence and interaction. Therefore, while a limited investigation into missional ethics in just one text (e.g. Deuteronomy) would be valuable, it is also worthwhile (perhaps of greater importance) to consider the theme in the context of the wider ...

Table of contents

• PREFACE
• ABBREVIATIONS
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. A METHODOLOGY FOR THE STUDY OF MISSIONAL ETHICS
• 2. MISSIONAL ETHICS IN DEUTERONOMY
• 3. MISSIONAL ETHICS IN THE MAJOR PROPHETS
• 4. MISSIONAL ETHICS IN LUKE–ACTS
• 5. MISSIONAL ETHICS: TOWARDS A DEFINITION
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• SEARCH NAMES FOR AUTHORS
• Notes