Introducing Christian Mission Today

Scripture, History and Issues

Michael W. Goheen

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780830895434
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

Best Texts of Missiology, Hearts and Minds BookstoreMission--a driving force in the long Christian story--today is often cast as the embarrassing relative of tall-steeple religiosity.In our wider culture it's now tucked in the endnotes of book-club histories or forms the ghostlike ellipses in the six o'clock news. But in Introducing Christian Mission Today, Michael Goheen brings the vibrant history, motivation and challenges of Christian mission to the fore.Through the centuries Christian mission has always been recalibrating, retooling and reevangelizing. It has repeatedly taken surprising turns as it is carried along by the Spirit of God. Goheen's introduction to mission's biblical, theological and historical dimensions engages the present and anticipates the future. As he unfolds the major issues of the global and urban, the pluralistic and wholistic contexts of mission today, he lays the ground for engaging in God's great kingdom enterprise.This full-scale text incorporates the keen missional insights of Lesslie Newbigin, David Bosch and other formative thinkers. It will be a valued resource not only for those in crosscultural contexts but also for those engaged in reevangelizing the West.

PART ONE

Biblical and Theological Reflection on Mission

1

Scripture as a Narrative Record of God’s Mission

I remember well my first course on biblical foundations for mission over thirty-five years ago. We moved rather quickly through the Old Testament because there was little missionary gold to be mined there1—or so we believed. Somehow the extermination of the Canaanites just did not fit our view of mission. We dealt more extensively with Jonah, Ruth and Isaiah 40–66 because they more readily lined up with our vision of cross-cultural witness. The New Testament more promptly yielded its missionary gold, but there were still favorite texts: “go and make disciples,” “you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth,” and so forth. The problem was that sitting there in that Bible college, situated as it was in the Evangelical tradition, we knew what mission was, and we could not imagine anything but being committed to it. All we needed was a biblical foundation to justify it.

Our point of departure was an already existing missionary enterprise, to which we all joyfully offered our wholehearted support. Through this lens we looked for missionary texts and found those that fit our preexisting paradigm: a geographical expansionist understanding of mission that highlights sending from one place (Christian West) to another place (pagan non-West). We were unaware that on closer scrutiny Jonah did not really fit in any other way beyond crossing the water to a foreign place, or that the “go” of the Great Commission was not the primary command at all.2

These comments are not meant to be disparaging. Indeed, I remain thankful for my early years in that tradition and the fervent commitment to taking the gospel to those who have never heard. My point is simply that when we examined the Bible’s teaching on mission, our preexisting understanding of mission dictated what we saw. Thus, we did not bring our missionary practice to the Bible to be scrutinized; rather, familiar endeavors were legitimized by divine authority. I have no interest in hopping on the bandwagon that maligns the modern missionary movement. I am grateful for what was accomplished, and I believe there was much in the way of biblical faithfulness. My purpose at the beginning of this chapter is to raise the question of how to proceed in dealing with mission in the Bible.

The Bible and Mission in a New Era

With the changes in mission today, it is essential to return to the Bible to get our bearings. David Bosch says that in this new era “if we want the missionary enterprise to be authentic and our reflections on mission to be relevant, we will have to pay even more serious attention to this branch of missiology than we used to do.”3 He further observes that in the past a biblical foundation for mission was laid by gleaning certain “missionary texts” from the Old and New Testaments to undergird the contemporary missionary enterprise. Mission was understood primarily as a geographical movement from the West to the non-West. Thus, it was more difficult to find Old Testament passages to fit this understanding, but the New Testament offered more. And yet here also the practice was to isolate missionary texts that fit a geographical-expansion understanding.

Mission should be based not on isolated passages of Scripture but rather on “the thrust of the central message of Scripture. In other words, either mission—properly understood—lies at the heart of the biblical message or it is so peripheral to that message that we need not be overly concerned with it.”4 Bosch advocates a missional reading of Scripture that recognizes the centrality of mission to the biblical story. So instead of grasping isolated missionary texts, we need to read Scripture as a whole.5

“What sort of hermeneutic will enable us to enter into the Bible’s own missionary direction? . . . It must be, in the first place, a canonical hermeneutic, that is, a way of reading the Bible as a whole. Secondly, it will be a narrative hermeneutic, one which recognizes how the Bible as a whole tells a story, in some sense a single story . . . constituting in its overall direction a metanarrative, a narrative about the whole of reality that elucidates the meaning of the whole of reality.”

Richard J. Bauckham, The Bible and Mission, pp. 11-12

In regard to reading Scripture “as a whole,” there are two important senses in which this is true. First, there is a redemptive-historical whole. Mission must be understood as central to the whole plot of the biblical story. Second, there is a literary whole. Various texts must be read in terms of the whole literary structure of the book. For example, the so-called Great Commission must be set within the whole literary structure of the book of Matthew. It is the first of these “wholes” that will concern us in this chapter.

The Bible is a narrative record of God’s mission in and through his people for the sake of the world. It tells a story in which mission is a central thread—God’s mission, Israel’s mission, Christ’s mission, the Spirit’s mission, the church’s mission. Indeed, “the whole Bible is itself a ‘missional’ phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. . . . Mission is not just one of a list of things the Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in the much abused phrase, ‘what it is all about.’”6 Thus, a faithful reading of Scripture is one that takes seriously a missional hermeneutic. A missional hermeneutic might be defined as “a way of reading the Bible for which mission is the hermeneutical key. . . . A missionary hermeneutic of this kind would not be simply a study of the theme of mission in the biblical writings, but a way of reading the whole of Scripture with mission as its central interest and goal.”7 In this chapter I will briefly trace the biblical story with mission as a central theme.

A faithful reading of Scripture is one that takes seriously a missional hermeneutic.

God’s Mission to Restore the Whole World

It is not controversial to claim that the Bible tells one story.8 It is more disputable to say that this is a story with universal validity—the true story of the whole world in which all people in all places at all times must find their place. But that is the claim being made here. To use current terminology, it is a “metanarrative”9 about the meaning and destiny of universal history. Scripture, as N. T. Wright puts it, “offers a story which is the story of the whole world. It is public truth.”10

God’s mission to restore the world and its peoples is a central theme in the biblical narrative. Christopher Wright offers an approach that “sees the mission of God (and the participation in it of God’s people) as a framework in which we can read the whole Bible. Mission is a major key that unlocks the whole grand narrative of the canon of Scripture.”11 Whereas a traditional interpretation of the missio Dei revolves around “sending”—the Father sends the Son, and together they send both the Spirit and the church—Wright speaks of God’s mission in terms of God’s long-term purpose to restore people from all nations and the whole creation. Thus, the Bible tells us the story of God’s long historical journey to liberate his world from the destructive power of sin.

“The Old Testament tells its story as the story or, rather, as part of that ultimate and universal story that will ultimately embrace the whole of creation, time, and humanity within its scope. In other words, in reading these texts we are invited to embrace a metanarrative, a grand narrative.”

Christopher J. H. Wright, The Mission of God, pp. 54-55

God announces his intention to restore the creation right after Adam and Eve’s treasonous act of rebellion (Gen 3:15). God, as the first to announce good news, proclaims, “Through one of Eve’s children I will crush the evil forces you have unleashed by your foolish defection.” The story of God’s mission is the path he follows to make this good news known to the ends of the earth. The mission of God’s people is to take their role in this drama.

The horizon of God’s mission is the ends of the earth. God’s intention is to restore all nations, all cultures, indeed all of the creation from the sinful rebellion of humankind and its effects. So God’s purpose is restorative and comprehensive, and it involves a battle against the corruption and idolatry that befouls his creation.

God Chooses Israel to Bring Salvation to the Whole World

The election of one people for the sake of all nations. In the Old Testament God chooses and forms Israel as a people with a view to bringing salvation to the ends of the earth. God’s way of carrying out his mission is to choose a particular people and then gather all humankind into that community. One way of speaking of God’s mission is in terms of a movement from the particular to the universal, or from the one to the many. We must learn to “read the Bible in a way that takes seriously its missionary direction.” The story of the Bible “embodies a kind of movement from the particular to the universal, which we as readers need to find ourselves inside. The Bible is a kind of project aimed at the kingdom of God, that is, towards the achievement of God’s purposes for good in the whole of God’s creation.”12 God travels a particular road—Israel, Jesus, church—to arrive at his universal destination.

God travels a particular road—Israel, Jesus, church—to arrive at his universal destination.

Here we are faced with the biblical doctrine of election. Why does God choose one people? First, election must always be understood in terms of God’s universalistic intention. Election has to do with God’s means of extending his blessing to the many. Second, election must be understood in the context of the covenant as both privilege and obligation, gift and task, grace and responsibility. Election often has been formulated in terms of privilege only. In reaction, some have emphasized only task. Yet in Scripture it is a matter of privilege and responsibility. When God’s people forget the purpose of their election, they stand under divine judgment: “You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins” (Amos 3:2).

The particular community chosen by God is first the place of God’s mission and then the channel. God works out his redemptive purposes first in the community and then through that community for the sake of the whole world. When God graciously saves his people, it is not only for their sake; it is also for the sake of others.

Genesis 12:1-3: Blessed to be a blessing. This story of a chosen people begins with the election of Abraham and the promise that God gives to him (Gen 12:1-3). However, the biblical story does not begin with Abraham. Genesis 1–11 provides the universal backdrop against which Abraham is chosen. To set the story of Abraham in this context is to emphasize “the universal dimensions of a divine plan that embraces all humanity and all creation.”13 A number of important themes that will continue throughout the biblical story are introduced: the God of Abraham and Israel is the creator of heaven and earth; there is only one true God, and there is none other; he is the God not only of Israel, but of all nations; he is the sovereign ruler over the whole earth and all of history; all nations have descended from one man created in God’s image to love, worship, and serve him; all peoples are living in revolt against him, shape their cultures and society in rebellion, are accountable to him, and are under his judgment; the scope of God’s redemptive intention is creation-wide, with his promise being to undo the deleterious effects of human sin in all creation, for all nations, and all of human life.

Against this universal backdrop God chooses Abraham to be a channel of redemptive blessing to all the families of the earth. God does not reject the nations but rather chooses Abraham precisely for their sake (Gen 12:1-3). The promise of Genesis 12:2-3, referred to as “the gospel in advance” by Paul (Gal 3:8), is summarized later in terms of a twofold promise: “Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him” (Gen 18:18). God has chosen Abraham; God will form Israel into a nation and bless them. Yet the ultimate purpose is “so that all nations on earth may be blessed” through him.14 God’s people from their inception are a “so-that people”—chosen and graciously blessed so that all people might know God’s merciful blessing. It is essential to understand the pivotal significance of these verses. “What is being offered in these few verses is a theological blueprint for the redemptive history of the world.”15Genesis 12:2-3 offers the two-stage plan by which God will carry out his redemptive purpose.

God’s people from their inception are a “so-that people”—chosen and graciously blessed so that all people might know God’s merciful blessing.

Although this promise remains central to the following patriarchal narratives, we are not told exactly how God will bring that redemptive blessing. We are given something of a hint in Genesis 18:19. God says, “I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing what is right and just, so that the LORD will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him” (Gen 18:19). The fulfillment of the promise to bless the nations is tied somehow to the way in which Abraham and his household will live. They must keep the way of the Lord and do what is right and just.

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