By Christopher J.H. Wright
"Is it possible, is it legitimate, is it helpful for Christians to read the whole Bible from the angle of mission? And what happens when they do?" The answers are, "Yes!" and "Reading the Scripture with that hermeneutic will shape a believer's entire worldview and consequently how he or she invests their days.
Christopher Wright unpacks in 550 pages what I attempted to summarize in two lines. While a scholar of Wright's stature certainly does not need my recommendation, I heartily recommend The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative.
Wright takes the reader on a sweeping journey through the older testament to demonstrate the missional hermeneutic of Scripture (473). He notes,
The Bible renders and reveals to us the God whose creative and redemptive work is permeated from beginning to end with God's own great mission, his purposeful, sovereign intentionality (531).
Beautifully and convincingly, Wright also helps us to see that "Whatever Yahweh did among the nations was ultimately for the benefit of Israel, his covenant people. Yet on the other hand, what Yahweh did for Israel was ultimately for the benefit of the nations. . . . God's providential reign over the nations is related to his redemptive purpose for his people" (473).
I have been insisting throughout that our primary datum in biblical missiology must be the mission of God. And we have seen that the mission of God is strongly connected to God's will to be known by his whole creation. To that end he is at work on the whole stage of human history, not merely among the people he has chosen as the vehicle for his great redemptive agenda for the world. And even when we do focus, with the biblical texts themselves, on the story of God's dealing with his people, we must remember that God always acts among his own people with an eye on the watching nations. The nations are not just part of the incidental scenery of the narrative. They are the intended witnesses of the action. These things happen “before their eyes.” A response is therefore expected to what they witness. . . . God has basically the same intention with the nation as he had with Israel because both "will know that I am Yahweh" (473)
The majority of the pages of this massive tome are devoted to the mission of God as seen throughout the older testament. But Wright is not content to leave us there. He concludes his work considering, "God and the Nations in the New Testament." His conclusion:
I have to emphasize that Paul's picture is decidedly not Jews plus Gentiles, remaining forever distinct with separate means of covenant membership and access to God, but rather that through the cross God has destroyed the barrier between the two and created a new entity, so that both together and both alike have access to God through the same Spirit. . . . "And so all Israel will be saved," . . . The implication of the whole metaphor and its exposition is clear. There is ultimately one one people of God, and the only way to belong to it now, for Jews as much as for Gentiles, is through faith in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth (528).
The Mission of God comes to us in four parts:
Part 1: The Bible and Mission: Wright helps us shift our thinking about missions from an anthropomorphic approach (missionaries are people on a mission for God) to a heavenly vision that God himself is on a mission for us and includes us (his redeemed people) in that mission.
Part 2: Shaping A Missional Hermeneutic: God's driving will is that the whole world sees Him as "the one true living God to be known throughout his whole creation for who he truly is, the LORD God, YHWH, the Only One of Israel, incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, crucified, risen, ascended and returning" (532).
Part 3: The People of Mission: Believers are the elect of God with a mission, "the vehicle of his goal of redemption" (532). He addresses our election, the scope of God's work on our behalf, the people to whom we belong, and the ethical demands of life in Christ, which is a beacon for the nations.
Part 4: The Arena of Mission: The scope of God's mission is universal, it encompasses all cultures and nations . . . so that one day people of every tribe, people, nation and language will sing his praise in the new creation" (532).
I am grateful for the definitions he provides:
Mission: Our committed participation as God's people, at God's initiation and command, in God's own mission within the history of God's world for the redemption of God's creation. Our mission flows from and participates in the mission of God (23).
Missionary: The words is uses as both a noun, referring to people who engage in mission, usually in a culture other than their own as those "being sent" (23), and an adjective, as in "the missionary mandate" or "a person of missionary zeal." Wright is clear about his dissatisfaction with this popular use as it has created caricatures of white Western churches among "natives" in far off countries. In his view, Israel was not mandated to send missionaries to the nations.
Missional: Missional is an adjective denoting something that is related to or characterized by mission, or has the qualities, attributes or dynamics of mission" (24).
Missiology and missiological: Missiology is the study of missions-- biblical, theological, historical, contemporary and practical. He uses missiological when a theological or reflective aspect is intended (25).
A few highlights:
1. Reading Scripture: The importance of reading the Scriptures in general and the Psalms in particular collectively so we do not "miss the opportunity to feel the overwhelming cumulative force of such a pervasive theme in Israel's amazing liturgical discourse" of the universal praise given to God for his missional achievement. Psalm 117; Romans 15:8-11; Psalm 145:10-12; Psalm 148:11. Creighton Marlowe has coined the term, "the music of missions" (484).
2. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion: There is much discussion about and effort toward a world that is marked by a greater degree of diversity, equity, and inclusion. This is a good thing, but a misdirected effort among Christians when they fail to view such in light of God's grand narrative. Identity and inclusion is the joyful possession of all who find life as a part of God's covenant family through Christ. It is this diverse people who fall down in worship, declaring not the wonder of their diversity, but the wonder of Christ. It is, however, the understanding of God's impartiality which should drive efforts toward inclusion and that refuses to exalt one ethnic group above another. It is God's gracious spirit of welcoming toward us that should act as an impetus for the same. Wright's exegesis helps clarify the meaning, the motivation, and the goal when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
3. Good exegesis provides a clearer rationale: In his book, Disappearing Church Mark Sayers, referencing sociologist Philip Rieff says we should view culture through three lenses: first, second, and third. The third culture defines itself against the second culture. In the case of the "Christian" second culture, the third culture wants the fruit of it without the Christ behind it. Wright demonstrates how Christianity provides the best rationale in this "post-Christian world" for caring for the poor and the planet while pursuing the justice the world longs for and the hope of a brighter day. It is a day for which the world longs, but only the Christian can guarantee. See Proverbs 12:10, 29:7; Psalm 145:9; Colossians 1:20
4. What's it all about . . . "God's mission is what fills the gap between the scattering of the nations in Genesis 11 and the healing of the nations in Revelation 22. It is God's mission in relation to the nations, arguably more than any other single theme, that provides the key that unlocks the biblical grand narrative" (455). Once we unlock that door and walk through it, we can never be the same. God's mission must become our mission. That truth will impact my Sunday . . . and every day!
Recommendation: I have a shortlist of books that are re-reads and an even shorter list that should be (for me) annual reads. I need to put The Mission of God on that list. It's long, but so good in that it clarifies a hermeneutic for reading God's Word that shapes my worldview and consequently clarifies my world, my work in it, and God's purpose behind it. I need that!
