A Light to the Nations

Explorations in Ecumenism, Missions, and Pentecostalism

Burgess, Lewis

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781498238144
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The essays in this volume, which are written by friends, colleagues, and former students, are dedicated to Gary B. McGee as a memorial to his life, work, and service. As a professor with a clear calling to teach, he modeled this passion at the Open Bible College (Des Moines, Iowa), Central Bible College (Springfield, Missouri), and the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary (Springfield, Missouri). He exuded the understanding that quality teaching, superior scholarship, a genuine Pentecostal spirituality, and an irenic spirit can and should go together.Within the title of this volume, A Light to the Nations, two aspects become clear. First, each person is called to be "a light to the nations," as Gary McGee modeled. Second, and foundational to the first, is the reality that Jesus Christ is the ultimate light, and our energies, study, discussions, and life in general should rely on this fact. As a reflection of Gary McGee's life and ministry, these two aspects are focused through three lenses, which are the three sections of this volume: Ecumenism, Missions, and Pentecostalism. The essays represent a diversity of subjects and denote various explorations by colleagues and friends of Gary B. McGee.

Missions, Missiology, and Missions History

6

An Overlooked Pillar

The Great Commission in Romans

Benny C. Aker

For some time now I have needed to explore and place in the marketplace what I perceive to be some form of the great commission in Paul’s letter to the Romans in 1:1–7. The invitation to contribute to such a worthy cause was an opportunity to develop this text. I count it a great privilege to contribute in some small way to honor and remember such an outstanding lifelong colleague and friend, Dr. Gary B. McGee. This choice of topic is further driven by his academic pursuit of mission history and by an event he experienced with Professor Martin Scharlemann—we were in the same class and the lesson that day dealt with Romans. It was an event that we both talked and laughed about for years.

This essay proposes to identify components of the great commission, especially with the commission in Matthew 28, in Romans 1:4–5 and explore some ramifications for exegesis and missions theology. If what I propose is even close to being right, it should offer some information about Paul and his theology of missions.

Present State of Research: The “Great Commission” in Paul and his Letter to Romans?

It is important to note that scholars, even if they know, certainly have not written about the presence of a commission in Romans 1:1–7 or anywhere in Paul’s other letters, let alone any major connection to it, as far as I can discover.249 Robert L. Plummer notes that “Gustav Warneck, ‘the father of modern missiology,’ attempted to found Paul’s missionary vision on Jesus’s Great Commission (Matt 28:18–20). Evangelical scholars up to the present time have followed in his footsteps.” Yet he notes, “[t]he assertion that Paul or the Pauline churches were motivated to missionize by the Great Commission, however, lacks convincing evidence in the Pauline epistles.” 250 Against Plummer it is in part correct to say that Paul grounded his missionary vision on the Great Commission, but no explicit connection or elaboration has been forthcoming.

Moreover, Paul Bowers, in an article attempting to address Paul and his mission first notes the “common” expectation:

Did Paul intend that each new mission congregation should assume a responsibility in its own territory for completing the work which Paul had initiated there, so that, even as the apostle hastened onward in his missionary advance, the mission itself would continue in each region towards the larger goal of granting everyone there a hearing of the gospel and an opportunity to believe (cf. Rom 10.14–15)?251

And he notes further in light of this:

How exactly does Paul view his communities in relation to the spread of the gospel? What is the relation, in Paul’s thought, of church and mission? Here we are faced with a peculiar situation. For the Paul who at every turn is himself so preoccupied with active mission to the Gentiles fails nevertheless ever to indicate clearly an independent responsibility in such a mission for his churches. There are hints and debatable allusions, but there is no expression of a clarity comparable, for example, to the missionary commissions handed down in the post-resurrection traditions of the Gospels.252

He continues to state that “The peculiarity of the situation merits a closer review of the evidence.”253 However, his research causes him to reject this “common” view.

So did Paul work with a sense of a personal Gentile mission without passing this responsibility on to others, namely to the congregations he founded, or did he somehow just leave that charge, picked up in rather scattered or in other ways, in the hands of those congregations?254 As noted above, a variety of views exist. In studies on the Great Commission, scholars have explored well its presence in a number of places, usually in the Gospels and Acts. Paul is commonly left out, with allusions to his mission here and there.255 Even a dictionary article fails to make the connection and certainly no direct connection is made with Romans 1:1–7.256

Romans itself has been the focus of a host of Pauline scholars, usually about Paul and justification.257 Because of Paul’s mention of the contents of the gospel in 1:3–4, its Christology has been much discussed, even from the early centuries of the church. In the greetings, both opening and closing, most if not all commentators have mentioned to some degree or another Paul’s evangelism or mission techniques. They have also focused on its genre, and it remains an open question even yet.258 A few have hinted at such a presence of the great commission in Romans. Everett F. Harrison, for one, writes: “He [Paul] is simply doing his duty, fulfilling the commission God in his grace has granted him as a minister of Christ (vv. 15, 16).”259 At another place he notes: “If Paul were ever to reach Spain, he would no doubt feel that he had realized in his own ministry a measure of fulfillment of the Lord’s Great Commission that bade his followers go the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).”260 He does write, though, that

The command of the eternal God points to the Great Commission, which includes all the nations as embraced in the divine purpose (Matt 28:19). This emphasis recalls the language Paul used in speaking ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword: Gary B. McGee and the “Radical Strategy” in Pentecostal Missions
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• Introduction
• Ecumenism, Roman Catholic–Pentecostal Engagement
• Missions, Missiology, and Missions History
• Pentecostal Theology and History
• Questions for Lazarus—Poem by Kilian McDonnell, OSB