Theology of Mission

A Concise Biblical Theology

J. D. Payne

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781683595755
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

God's mission is on every page of Scripture. In Theology of Mission: A Concise Biblical Theology, J. D. Payne traces the theme of mission throughout Scripture. The Bible is a story of God's mission. God takes initiative to dwell with humanity. He desires to be known. To this end, he sends and is sent. Through Christ, God redeems sinful humans and recreates the cosmos. And he has invited his people to join in this mission.Payne shows that God's mission is on every page of the Bible and is foundational to the church's own existence. With reflection questions following concise chapters, all readers can consider their place in God's work.

CHAPTER 1

Missional Hermeneutic

The Bible is comprised of multiple stories that unite to form one grand story revealing God and his mission. In this chapter, I address what a missional hermeneutic is, and how the approach will be advocated throughout this book. As with all forms of biblical interpretation, this method does not escape limitations. However, since God is a God of mission and brings glory to himself, this theme should be prevalent throughout the Scriptures and worthy of consideration.

The entirety of Scripture’s story is about mission.1 This hermeneutic should be granted significant priority because it derives from the unity of the entire canon of Scripture.2 This approach to interpretation allows the reader to see the beginning, end, and the way between these two points of the biblical storyline. One way to consider this approach to the Scriptures is like a “map,” that does not provide “every tiny feature of a landscape,” but offers a way to see the entire biblical terrain and how to navigate through it.3 Comprised of and built from smaller stories, the Bible contains a metanarrative of the Creator who creates a good creation that is corrupted by the fall, and who labors to redeem and recreate that which presently groans under the weight of sin.4

The Bible was birthed in the context of God carrying out his purpose in the world to redeem a people for himself and restore a groaning creation. The Old Testament was written to a people needing to know the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The worldviews of the nations around God’s people were significantly distorted by the fall. The ethical practices of the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, and other peoples of the ancient Near East fell short of God’s expectations. Torah was given to remind Israel where they came from, where they were going, and the need to love God with their entire being (Deut 6:7). God always existed, created everything from nothing, and called Israel to himself so that both Israel and all the nations of the world would be blessed (Gen 12:1–3) and not experience his judgment.

When Israel wandered from Torah, the blessing to her and the nations was at stake. In his grace, God provided prophets to deliver messages calling Israel to covenantal faithfulness. She was to remember what was expected to live with a holy God and repent, or judgment would eventually follow. The cycle of disobedience described in Judges foreshadowed a pattern replicated during the monarchy and following Babylonian exile. Rather than being a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6), that the way of the Lord and his saving power may be known among all nations (Ps 67:3), Israel turned from Torah and became like the nations of the Fertile Crescent. By 587 BC, most of the nation had been destroyed and exiled by Assyrian and Babylonian armies. Israel lost the promised land, the temple, the priesthood and her cultic practices. Jeremiah and other prophets predicted a return to the land and restoration of both Israel and the nations under God’s Davidic Servant-King. By the time the Old Testament ends, the political and religious structures are again active in Jerusalem.

The New Testament was also birthed out of the context of God’s mission in the world. Neither Jesus nor the first-century disciples saw themselves as a part of a new religious system. They were not plan B, as if Israel thwarted God’s mission and he needed to use a backup team. The Gospels are filled with Old Testament prophecies that find their fulfillment in Jesus and the Church’s labors. The new covenant addressed in Matthew 26:26–29 takes the reader back to Jeremiah, Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, and Exodus’s Passover lamb. The arrival of the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2) is a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. The birth and growth of the church, with both Jews and gentiles, was a fulfillment of Amos’s prediction of the rebuilding of David’s fallen booth (Amos 9:11, 12; Acts 15:16–17).

The letters comprising the New Testament were developed in a context where the Old Testament was the Bible of the people of God. Many of these New Testament writings were written to young churches. The last days had arrived (Acts 2:17) with the day of judgment being the next cosmic event on God’s eschatological calendar. However, Jesus commanded his people to preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations before the day arrives (Matt 24:14; 28:18–20). Very soon the nations would be judged, and the restoration of all things would come (Rev 21:1–5). The earth would be filled with God’s image-bearers glorifying him and experiencing the fullness of joy and his pleasures forevermore (Ps 16:11).

A FRESH HERMENEUTIC

A missional hermeneutic is a means of interpreting the Scriptures, in their historical and cultural contexts, with the person and work of Christ and the mission of God as the central key to proper understanding of the biblical story.5 While it is assumed by some to be primarily observed in the New Testament, the key of messiah and mission is quite evident throughout the Old Testament as well. This interpretative approach must reflect the whole canon of Scripture, clarify what is at stake, and articulate the Bible’s message.6 A missional hermeneutic is the result of recognizing God’s mission in the canon of Scripture.7

This mission-centered approach to reading the Bible has not always been the case, and it still remains foreign to many readers. However, in the later twentieth and early-twenty first centuries, scholars began to advocate this approach to biblical interpretation. At the turn of the century, Harry Daniel Beeby expressed his concerns with present-day hermeneutics and offered the following as a prescription for the problem:

I believe that biblical understanding, investigation, reading and usage are in crisis; that the questions and the problems that face us are almost beyond numbering but that among all the approaches to be made there is one, rarely considered, which is so important that renewal will fail if it continues to be neglected. The approach is of those who read in the Bible the account of the missio Dei and who believe that it provides a trajectory essential to full hermeneutical renewal.9

While a missional hermeneutic is not as widespread as desired, it has experienced growth over the past two decades. If Beeby’s crisis remains, then what can be done? One response is missiologists and theologians need to communicate with each other. Scholars in these two disciplines have at times kept their worlds separated.8 This dichotomy often resulted in biblical and theological studies focusing on the church itself, while viewing mission as a stepchild. Missiologists lacking serious biblical study often turned to oversimplification and prooftexting.10 Textual diversity and historical character, sometimes with little attention to contemporary relevance, have been the concerns of many biblical scholars, while missiologists have overlooked these important matters to fall into the unhealthy pit of eisegesis.11 While I cannot guarantee this book will completely avoid these concerns, I shall work diligently to avoid them in an attempt to bring the theological and missiological realms together regarding mission as a biblical and theological theme.

BIBLICAL-THEOLOGICAL APPROACH

A missional hermeneutic is not a panacea. Following this paradigm will not resolve all interpretative challenges found in the Old and New Testaments.12 There is a great amount of diversity in the Bible: different genres, writing styles, grammatical expressions, emphases, and themes, as well as writing locations and historical contextual event.13 Yet, within this diversity, there is great unity, especially for those who believe that the Bible, in its entirety, is God’s revelation to his people.14

I am aware scholarship has problems not only discussing unity within either the Old or New Testament books, but even the relationship of these two volumes to one another is seriously questioned.15 It is beyond the scope of this introductory book to enter into an apologetic regarding the details of the scholarly debates on this relationship. There is much internal evidence, when subjected to scholarship and reason, that reveals unifying threads woven throughout the sixty-six books of the Bible. One of these unifiers is the significant thread of God’s mission.

If the sovereign God is true to his character, then he is able to allow for healthy diversity and unity to coexist in his Scriptures. Consider van Gogh’s portfolio or Mozart’s symphonic repertoire. Their works were created over lifetimes. They display variations based on the periods of their compositions. However, the stylistic aspects of each artist run throughout their works. It is possible to extract their creations, at any moment in their careers, and observe the unifying stylistic features in view of diversity and change. If God is a God of mission, then this aspect of his nature and functions should be found across the pages of biblical revelation.16

CHRISTOCENTRIC-MISSIONAL APPROACH

The Bible begins with God’s dealings with the nations and concludes with God’s concern with the nations. God’s purposes related to the nations form the basic story of Scripture.17 The first century believers read the Old Testament from a historical, messianic, and kingdom perspective. Torah, Prophets, and Writings were God’s revelation to his people and relevant for their day. As will be shown, the early disciples often returned to the Scriptures (and thus Israel’s history) to find explanation, support, and guidance for contemporary works of the Spirit. Jesus did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt 5:17). He had no problem revealing how the Scriptures pointed to himself (Luke 24:27, 44). Following the resurrection and ascension, the disciples believed Jesus was the Messiah sent from the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He came and fulfilled parts of his mission as it was not the time for the kingdom to be fully restored (Acts 1:6–7). The great restoration would arrive, but in the interim, the divine mission remained. The disciples were to bear witness to the Savior starting in Jerusalem (Acts 1:8) and establish kingdom communities throughout the world that would live out the kingdom ethic until the parousia.18

A missional hermeneutic attempts to draw from this interpretative framework of the first century believers. A christological and missiological reading of the Bible does not mean Jesus or missionary activity are found in every passage. However, some passages, in their historic contexts, address the Messiah and mission in more detail than others. History shows it is possible to have a high view of the Messiah and commit the fallacy of eisegesis in his name. A missional hermeneutic is not about stretching the text to mean something it was never intended to mean; rather, a missional hermeneutic is governed by a christological pivot.19

A missional hermeneutic is not about prooftexting to feign the appearance of Jesus and mission. Prooftexting may draw attention to significant passages related to the desired outcome, but it avoids addressing passages that offer little support to (or conflict with) the overall metanarrative of the Bible. It is appealing, but dishonest. This book attempts to avoid this problem, recognizing portions of the Old and New Testaments may have little direct bearing on the topic. Some of the important sub-themes addressed will receive less attention than others.

While this hermeneutic is used to understand the “then and there” of the biblical stories, it is also applied to asking about the relevance to the “here and now” of those same stories.20 Orthodoxy is meant to transition into kingdom service. This is especially true in the area of disciple making. The mission of God belongs to God, but the Scriptures come with the expectation that the people of God will engage with his mission.21 The aforementioned pattern of sending and proclaiming a message of hope through judgment is a significant part of the church’s apostolic work in the world.

CONCLUSION

A missional hermeneutic is used throughout this book. Messiah and mission is a key to understanding the biblical storyline. While the Bible contains a great wealth of diversity, such is not a problem to understanding God’s work in the cosmos. Diversity should be expected, given the epochs, genres, settings, and characters encountered. However, within diversity there is continuity and unity. The charact...