Archive for the ‘Bible’ Category
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
This is a draft session for the Window on Wycliffe course in July 2010. Many of the thoughts are inspired by Chris Wright’s The Mission of God, some are taken from various presentations from Wycliffe UK Director Eddie Arthur, and some are my random musings. Please let me know any comments that you have… (I’m thinking this might be a bit ambitious for a 35 minute session, but I’ve enjoyed thinking through these things)
Q. What is mission? What do we understand by Christian mission?
I’m guessing we’re all here today because we think mission is important in some way.
Q. Why do you think that Christian mission is important? What are your reasons for giving up a week of your life, and possibly a lot longer, to mission?
Q. If we look at the Bible, can we see that mission to all nations is indeed biblical?
Many of us, although maybe not all, have probably been taught since we were young that mission is important. This has been justified using verses from the Bible, and now we have a pretty good idea of the biblical basis for reaching out to people of all nations.
Mission in the Bible
I want to suggest to you that the Bible is the story of God’s mission to humanity. Chris Wright¹ says that we often look for a biblical basis for mission, when in fact we should be discovering the missional basis of the Bible. He would argue that the grand narrative of the whole of Scripture is God reaching out to his world.
Throughout the Bible we see God’s missional plan progressing – a plan to bring humanity back into relationship with himself.
Creation: God breathing life into man
Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
Genesis 2:7
The Fall: God reaches out to Adam
When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:8-9
The Call of Abraham: Seeds of Redemption
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.”
Genesis 12:1-3
The Exodus: God promises to liberate Israel, to bring them into a covenant, and to bring them to the promised land
“Therefore, say to the people of Israel: ‘I am the Lord. I will free you from your oppression and will rescue you from your slavery in Egypt. I will redeem you with a powerful arm and great acts of judgment. I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.”
Exodus 6:6-7
The Exile: Even in judgement, God’s purpose is to reveal himself to Israel and the nations
I will summon the sword against you on all the hills of Israel, says the Sovereign Lord. Your men will turn their swords against each other. I will punish you and your armies with disease and bloodshed; I will send torrential rain, hailstones, fire, and burning sulphur! In this way, I will show my greatness and holiness, and I will make myself known to all the nations of the world. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
Ezekiel 38:21-23
The Return from Exile: God makes himself known through bringing Israel back home
I am the Lord; there is no other God.
I have equipped you [King Cyrus] for battle,
though you don’t even know me,
so all the world from east to west
will know there is no other God.
I am the Lord, and there is no other.
Isaiah 45:5-6
“Therefore, give the people of Israel this message from the Sovereign Lord: I am bringing you back, but not because you deserve it. I am doing it to protect my holy name, on which you brought shame while you were scattered among the nations. I will show how holy my great name is—the name on which you brought shame among the nations. And when I reveal my holiness through you before their very eyes, says the Sovereign Lord, then the nations will know that I am the Lord.”
Ezekiel 36:22-23
Hope for a new Covenant
I will gather all nations and peoples together, and they will see my glory. I will perform a sign among them. And I will send those who survive to be messengers to the nations—to Tarshish, to the Libyans and Lydians (who are famous as archers), to Tubal and Greece, and to all the lands beyond the sea that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. There they will declare my glory to the nations.
Isaiah 66:18-19
Jesus fulfils the mission of Yahweh in the Old Testament, as creator, ruler, judge, redeemer, saviour and reconciler.
Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we can’t see — such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together. Christ is also the head of the church, which is his body. He is the beginning, supreme over all who rise from the dead. So he is first in everything. For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
Colossians 1:15-20
Pentecost: God proclaims the Good news about Jesus in many different languages
“…and we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.
Acts 2:11-12
The Church takes God’s good news to the nations
God has given me the responsibility of serving his church by proclaiming his entire message to you. This message was kept secret for centuries and generations past, but now it has been revealed to God’s people. For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.
Colossians 1:25-27
We see that right the way through the Bible God has been revealing himself – to Israel, and through Israel and later through the church, to all the nations of the world. God’s mission is making himself known to creation through creating, ruling, judging, revealing, loving, saving, leading and redeeming. All in the context of an enduring relationship with his people.
What is the most fundamental thing we can say about God?
He is trinity. Three in One. A perfect relationship.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
John 17:20-21
God is inviting us to join in the perfect relationship of the trinity. That we would be one as the Father and the Son are one, and that we would be in the Father and the Son. First and foremost God is relational, and he is inviting humanity to be part of the relationship.
At the end of the day, God’s mission is all for the purpose of involving us in his perfect relationship.
The Bible in Mission
The Bible itself is a missional book in two senses. On one hand we can see mission happening right the way through the Bible. But on the other hand it’s true to say that the Bible is also vital in mission. It contains the revelation of God so that we can know him and receive his salvation. We might say that the Bible and mission are two sides of the same coin.
You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
2 Timothy 3:15-16
The Bible: God’s message for all nations
Ever since the day of Pentecost when each person heard God’s good news in their own language, translation has been at the heart of the gospel. Lamin Sanneh says that
“[Christianity] seems unique in being the only world religion that is transmitted without the language or originating culture of its founder” ²
Since the birth of the church it has been clear that God’s mission is not restricted to one language or culture, but that his message of salvation is for people of all nations. The diverse cultures of the world will see the Bible from very different perspectives, and live out its message in different ways, but the central message of the gospel is unchanging and relevant to people of every language and culture. As the church, our role is to share this good news with the world.
Communication: It’s about connecting
I’ll now give each small group a passage of Scripture where we see God speaking to people in some way. I want each group to answer the following questions:
- What do we see of God’s character, and his mission in this passage?
- Why do you think God speaks in this particular way in this situation?
- What are the implications for our involvement in God’s mission?
Exodus 3: God speaks through a burning bush
1 Kings 19: God speaks through a whisper
Matthew 13: God speaks through parables
Acts 2: God speaks through the disciples
Acts 10: God speaks through Peter
Right the way through the Bible we see that God is communicating in ways that are very specific to the situation and people he is speaking to. The aim is never just to pass information, but rather to reach out to people.
One thing I’ve learnt from spending time in Tanzania is that communication isn’t just about the passing of information from one mind to another, but is primarily about drawing closer to the other person. In many parts of Africa when you go to the market it’s important to discuss the price of whatever you’re buying. This isn’t because the seller doesn’t know what a good price is, or because he wants to rip you off, but because actually the time spent discussing is an important part of building a relationship. If you settle quickly on the first price the seller suggests, the seller may be happy to have made some easy money, but they’ll also be disappointed that you haven’t spent the time getting to know them and building a relationship.
The message of the Bible is that the Bible isn’t just a message, but through the work of the Holy Spirit it is God’s way of reaching out and restoring his relationship with a broken world.
Conclusion
- We see in the Bible that God is missional, reaching out to all nations
- God is first and foremost relational, and his mission is to restore the broken relationship with humanity (ultimately through Immanuel – God with us)
- The Bible itself is key in mission, helping us to know God and the salvation he has bought for us
- As the church shares this message with the world, we need to be doing so in ways that are consistent with how we see God reaching out in Scripture
¹ Chris Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative
² Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West
Tags: Bible, Bible translation, Communication, Connecting, Relationships, Theology, Window on Wycliffe
Posted in Bible, Bible translation, Mission, Theology | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
I’m very much enjoying reading Chris Wright’s The Mission of God at the moment. It is quite heavy going at times, but it’s a very thorough look at the way missional themes run right the way through the Bible.
I’ve just finished the chapter on God’s people, much of which is focused on how God called Abraham in Genesis 12, and how this echoes through the rest of Scripture:
The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:1-3
Wright explains that right from the time when God called Abraham – the start of the Israelite nation – his purpose in choosing Abraham was that people of all nations be blessed through him. God blessed Abraham in order that Abraham be a blessing to others.
It struck me how the general principle of receiving in order to pass on resonates through the Bible and throughout creation. For example:
- In plant and animal reproduction, characteristics are passed on from one generation to the next through their DNA
- The Isrealites were commanded to give certain parts of what they have received from God back to him
- God’s people were given the law, and told to teach it from one generation to the next
- Jesus was sent by the Father, and in turn sent out the disciples
- Jesus spent time investing in his followers, and told them to go and do the same
We can often make the mistake of on the one hand thinking that receiving is an end in itself. We rejoice that God has blessed us. We look for blessing, as if our being blessed was the ultimate goal.
On the other hand, we see that there is a need to give, but our giving comes out of a pragmatic view of need, rather than a natural passing on of what we have received.
Our temptation is either to think that God could give whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted, so we ask for blessing for ourselves, and don’t see the need to give to others. Or we think that God is limited in how much he can give, so we have to help him by giving – our money, time, training – as a matter of necessity.
It would be quite easy for God to do everything himself – making disciples, providing for the priests, creating new plants and animals from scratch – but he chooses to work by investing in particular parts of his creation, in particular ways, with the intention that they pass on that blessing to all those around them.
Our pragmatic, individualistic approach to life can often mean that we miss the nature of how God works. We assume that God does things the easiest and most efficient way – that’s the way we like to work, so we assume God does the same. We would take a tree and clone it a billion times to fill the earth. We’d create a multi-billion dollar company to finance world mission. We’d design a super discipleship programme in a single universal language to teach everyone what they need to know about God. Our natural desire is to create efficient programmes to achieve our goals with the minimal effort.
God could meet every need directly, satisfying every desire without the involvement of anyone. But instead he chooses to work in very local, particular ways, giving with the intention that the gift be passed on. God wants to bless all nations equally, but it seems that he often does it by blessing particular individuals, communities and nations in very particular ways so that they can pass on that blessing to others.
- Where do you see around you the pattern of receiving in order to give, being sent in order to send, living in order to give life, in the way God works?
- Why do you think God uses the particular and the local (Abraham, Israel, Jesus, the disciples, the Church) in order to pass on a message that is global and universal?
- Given that we see God working in this way, what should this mean for the way we work?
Posted in Bible, Mission, Theology, Under the Baobab Tree | 1 Comment »
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
One of the challenges in working cross-culturally is the human tendency to naturally assume that everyone else thinks the same way as we do. We presume that others have the same problems, the same goals and aspirations, the same fears, that they value what we value, and that they see the world just as we see it.
In Christian mission this can mean that we naturally assume that when we move into a different culture, we know what people’s needs are, what the solutions are to those needs, and how to get from the problems to the solutions.
Onesimus has posted the transcript of a fascinating discussion between mainly African Christians, on the subject of African theology. What does theology look like in Africa?
Do have a read through the discussion, as it touches on how an African understanding of God through the Bible is different from the way that many western Christians read scripture, and the vital importance of having an African theology if Christianity is really going to impact the day to day lives of Africans.
GO: Why in churches where there are dealing with issues of barrenness and poverty, these are the churches that are thronged with people? Because they are addressing the felt needs of the people.
TJ: It’s because the African people are asking these questions. And they are asking, ‘Where is God in this situation?’ No one is asking about the virgin birth or the nature of Christ. They are more concerned about action rather than theological concepts. In my home area, there is an active volcano, and when the mountain shakes, the people go up on the mountain to offer sacrifice to calm the mountain spirits down. This is the real need of the people, and the churches are not meeting the need, and they don’t stop the mountain from shaking. The geologist don’t understand nor can they stop the situation. But the traditional practitioners deal with the actual situation and provide a solution.
MM: When the gospel came to Africa, it was foreign to the way of life of the people. It provided answers to questions nobody was asking. When crisis came, they had a fallback plan, which was to go back to the traditional answers to the pressing questions of the culture. Especially in the issue of marriage, naming of children, initiation, there was nothing in the imported Christianity that dealt with the felt needs of the people. What is the implication of the gospel for me who is an African and a Christian? read more
To borrow an idea from a Qom pastor from Argentina (quoted by David Smith in Mission after Christendom), there is no longer a need for westerners to go and teach the Bible to those in Africa, Asia or South America, so much as to read the Bible together with people in these places, each in his own language and culture, with each person bringing his own unique perspective on the glory of God.
I think that seeing more of God through different cultures and languages is something that should be at the heart of our theology of mission. Ultimately knowing God in our own language and culture isn’t just for our own benefit, or even for the benefit of the global church. The apostle Paul explains that God’s purpose in bringing the diversity of all the nations into his kingdom is to bear witness to his great wisdom.
God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. (Ephesians 3:10)
Tags: Africa, Bible, Scripture, Theology
Posted in Bible, Bible translation, Culture, Language, Theology, Under the Baobab Tree | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
According to Brian, one of the most neglected sections of scripture (in the modern western church) is Genesis 1-11. And yet, Brian says:
The stories of Genesis 1-11 are foundational for understanding mission, salvation, and sin. They describe the world as God intended it as well as the world in which we now find ourselves. They are presupposition for the rest of Scripture. If we miss the message of these texts, we run the risk of mishearing the Bible. read more
I have just been reading about this section of the Bible in Chris Wright’s excellent The Mission of God, which has led me to agree with Brian that these chapters are key to understanding the rest of scripture. If we fail to understand what is happening in these chapters we can completely misunderstand the nature of God’s mission to the diversity of nations he has created.
In Genesis 1-11 we see a pattern of God creating good things, people misusing God’s good gifts, and then, instead of giving up on things and wiping everything out, God by his grace redeeming the situation.
In the beginning God creates everything and puts people in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve disobey him and hide, but God doesn’t destroy them but clothes them and gives them a hope of a redeeming plan. God blesses people with crops and animals, but when Abel gives back to God a better offering than Cain, Cain becomes jealous and kills him. Even in his anger God gives Cain hope however, and promises that no one will harm him. As people continue to sin in ever worse ways, God decides to destroy humanity, but in his grace preserves Noah and his family, giving them hope and a promise of a future as they leave the ark to start a new life.
Genesis 10 and 11 then give two sides to the same story as people inhabit the earth. In Genesis 1, and again in Chapter 9 God has commanded people to go and fill the whole earth. Chapter 10 tells us that they did this – spreading out and occupying all the different lands, developing different languages. Chapter 11 then tells us something of how this came about – again as an act of God’s grace despite man’s disobedience.
Chapters 10 and 11 obviously aren’t in chronological order – chapter 10 tells of various peoples filling the earth and starting to speak their own languages, whereas chapter 11 starts by saying that at that time everyone spoke the same language. Instead, Chris Wright proposes viewing chapters 10 and 11 as two sides of the same story – one describing what happened and the other describing through what means it happened. One giving an account of the diversity of God’s creation as his people inhabit the earth and develop their own languages and customs, the other showing that once again this blessing only occurs as a result of God’s grace, despite the best efforts of mankind to rebel and take a different path.
This is a great example of why we need to read the Bible in the context of the whole story. To read Genesis 11 in isolation would leave us believing that everyone speaking the same language was a good thing, and that the linguistic diversity that we see around the world today is the result of a curse due to the rebellion of mankind. Our logical response is then to want to reverse this – we want everyone to speak the same language (as long as it’s our language) and everyone to understand each other. Why not just teach everyone English?
But reading Genesis 11 in context gives us a much different perspective. The confusion of languages at the tower of Babel was in fact following the familiar pattern of God creating something good, man rebelling and disobeying/misusing the responsibility, but God nevertheless going ahead with his blessing out of his grace.
God has already told people twice (in chapters 1 and 9) to inhabit and fill the earth. As a former sociolinguist I’ve seen first-hand that when a two groups go their separate ways, in just 3 or 4 generations their language (and probably their culture) tends to diverge to the extent that they struggle to understand each other and they become very much distinct and unique language communities. As God sent out his people to fill the earth, he did so knowing that they would form different communities and cultures, seeing the world from different perspectives, honouring him through different languages, the very nature of their praise reflecting the character of their creator.
But the people had other ideas. Their desire in coming together at Babel was twofold – firstly to make a name for themselves, and secondly to avoid being scattered across the face of the earth – in direct disobedience to God’s command to fill the world.
So God confuses their languages. But far from being a curse or an knee-jerk reaction to blatant rebellion against his command, the confusing of languages and scattering of peoples was in fact God continuing with his original plan that we see commanded in chapters 1 and 9 and worked out in chapter 10 – that people would inhabit the whole earth.
In Genesis 1-11 we see again and again (with Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Babel), God’s punishment which may seem at first to be a curse, but far from rescinding the good things he planned for creation, the punishment is actually a means through which God sets his people back on his original path of blessing.
We shouldn’t then be surprised when in the following chapter God calls Abraham with the intention that he be a blessing to the nations. Or when on the day of Pentecost God speaks through the disciples in a multitude of languages – to each person in their mother tongue (when he could have easily allowed them to all understand Greek or Aramaic). Or when we see in Revelation 7 a vision of people from every nation, people and language standing before God’s throne.
God’s plan from the start was that people fill the whole earth, that they speak different languages, and that they see the world in different ways. His intention was that the diversity of languages and cultures, just like that of the rest of creation, reflect his glorious creativity and imagination.
Mankind rebelled against this, as we have against so many of God’s gifts and the responsibilities he’s given us. But through his grace he doesn’t reverse his blessing but rather redeems the situation so that people of all nations can be united in Christ, bringing glory to him in all their immense diversity – just as he intended all along.
A map where each red dot shows the centre of one of the world’s 6,909 languages (via ethnologue.com)
Tags: Babel, Bible, Bible translation, Genesis 1-11, Language, Mission, Sociolinguistics, Theology
Posted in Bible, Bible translation, Language, Mission, Theology, Under the Baobab Tree | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
In a recent post I talked about why I think it’s important for the church to have a whole-Bible theology of mission. I’ve just been listening to a talk by N.T Wright given at a launch of the Biblefresh initiative, where he talks of the need for the whole church to engage with the whole Bible.
I think one of the ironies of modern evangelical churches is that we can become so focused on Bible knowledge that we actually miss the message of the Bible.
Many churches have a value of reading through the Bible and teaching it verse by verse, which I think is an excellent aim, coming from a desire to live lives based solely on knowing God. But it’s also something that has to be done very carefully – the danger is that when you read very small selected portions of scripture and focus intently on just those parts that you can end up teaching on the themes you feel comfortable with, and taking the message out of the context of the whole Bible.
I would say that pastors who I’ve seen do this well intentionally teach through more difficult portions of the Bible as well as those they find easy, and that they do so by asking:
- what can we learn about this verse?
- how does this verse fit into the immediate and wider contexts of scripture?
- how do we fit in to this larger picture?
rather than the other way around:
- what can we learn about this verse?
- how does my situation relate to this verse?
- how can I apply this verse to my life?
As examples of how not to read scripture, Wright talks of how the South African government frequently quoted the Bible during apartheid, and how US slave owners in the American south similarly used parts of scripture to justify the keeping of slaves, ignoring the fact that one of the overarching narratives of scripture is that of release of captives. Time and time again we’re reminded how God set the Israelites free from slavery in Egypt as this event echoes throughout scripture.
Over the last few months I’ve become increasingly excited about seeing the Bible as a grand narrative, rather than as a collection of isolated gems of wisdom. If we’re to read the Bible in its own context, rather than through our own cultural quest for abstract knowledge, we have to see it as a narrative of God’s interaction with humanity, rather than as an encyclopaedia on life or a manual for how to live.
Only then can we truly join in with what God is doing, and not end up missing the wood for the trees.
Tags: Bible, Biblefresh, N.T. Wright, Theology
Posted in Bible, Theology, Under the Baobab Tree | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
When I applied to Wycliffe Bible Translators 7 years ago I was asked to write several doctrinal statements outlining my beliefs about various biblical themes, one of which was God’s mission. I was expected to discuss the basis on which church was involved in mission in the 21st Century.
In answering this question I relied heavily on a single verse from Matthew 28, often known as the “Great Commission”, where Jesus tells his disciples to “Go and make disciples of all nations”. I reasoned that if this was true for the disciples 2,000 years ago, it must also be true for us today. If Jesus has given us this command, how can we claim to be his followers and not carry it out?
7 years on I would answer the question very differently. It’s not that what I said at the time isn’t true – I still believe that Jesus has commanded his church to make disciples of all nations. If this was the only verse in the Bible where God called his people to tell others about himself, I would still take Jesus’ commandment completely seriously.
My mistake was not in believing something that wasn’t true, but rather in believing something that was true, but ultimately missing out on the whole truth. Rather than just being a command tacked on as a panicked afterthought as Jesus realised he was leaving his disciples, God’s mission – his revelation of himself to all nations – is something that God started with the creation of the world, and has been doing ever since in and through that creation. For thousands of years God has been revealing himself to his people through the law, through prophets, through angels, visions, dreams, a donkey… and ultimately through his son.
Why is it important that we understand the whole truth about God’s mission to the nations? If we have one command from Jesus, surely that’s enough? 7 years ago that was my logic – if Jesus said something, who am I to even think about the matter any further? I should just take him at his word without question.
Our western culture likes to frame concepts abstractly and to reduce things to their logical extreme. If we believe Jesus is God, and God is truth, then Jesus always speaks the truth. If Jesus tells us to make disciples of all nations, why look any further for our mandate?
But actually we see in the Bible that God’s communication is much more holistic than we might at first think. The Bible isn’t a list of commands for us to follow like robots, but rather a collection of diverse writings – history, poetry, law, proverbs, prophecy, letters – which don’t just tell us how to live, but reveal to us the nature of God.
When God does give a command in the Bible it is always in the context of relationship. God reveals part of himself to his people, and then gives them a command which is their appropriate response.
In the verse in Matthew 28 Jesus says “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations…” (Matthew 28:18-20) If we look back to the ten commandments God says “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt, the place of your slavery. You must not have any other god but me…” (Deuteronomy 5:6-7) And in the following chapter “Listen, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:4) Repeatedly throughout the giving of the law, the commandments are framed as responses to the revelation of who God is.
My problem 7 years ago was that I understood and was willing to carry out God’s command, but I was generally ignorant of the revelation of God’s character that prompted the command. I knew that Jesus had commanded his church to make disciples of all nations, but I didn’t understand that the command was supposed to be my response to the revelation of the missional heart of God himself that we see throughout scripture. It was in fact an invitation to join in with what God had been doing since the beginning of the world.
What I believed was true, but it wasn’t the truth.
Understanding what God commands, but being ignorant of the revelation of God that prompts the command actually affects the way we carry out that command. If we hear Jesus’ call to make disciples of all nations, but don’t see the missional nature of God’s actions running through the Bible, we’ll be tempted to think that mission is our job – a task God has given us to complete alone. And so we’ll devise whatever strategies we can to accomplish that task as quickly and easily as possible. On the other hand if we understand that mission is at the heart of God’s character, and Jesus’ command is actually an invitation to be part of what God is doing, we’ll depend completely on him, in the knowledge that we are part of something so much bigger. We won’t be tempted to cut corners when we think God isn’t looking, or to achieve our goals in ways that are contrary to how God works.
Our culture values following instructions. As Christians we’re always tempted to reduce the Christian life to following rules, hoping that if we work hard enough at completing the tasks set before us, we’ll finally stand in front of God and hear him say “Well done good and faithful servant”. But I’m not sure that God defines obedience in this way.
The Bible teaches us that God cares deeply that we obey his commands, but that, despite what our reductionist culture teaches us, those commands can never be divorced from his relationship with us. We should obey God’s commands, but unless our obedience is a response to the revelation we see of him, and is a product of our relationship with him, we’re no better than the Pharisees in their hollow adherence to the rules.
Ultimately we need to have a whole-Bible understanding of God’s mission, not so that we can carry out the right commands and follow the right rules, but so that we can know the missional nature of our God, and through our relationship with him, respond by joining with him in sharing his nature with people from all nations.
Tags: Bible, Commandments, God's mission, Great Commission, Matthew 28, Mission
Posted in Bible, Mission | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
After meaning to for several months, I’ve finally started my way through Chris Wright’s mammoth book, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. As it’s 500 or so pages long there’s no way I’m going to remember all the good quotes when I get to the end, so I thought I might post a few as I go along, if nothing else to provide myself with a summary of what stood out to me in the book.
The first section is about the Bible and Mission. Wright says that he used to teach a course on the biblical basis of mission, but became increasingly convinced that the western evangelical method of listing out a few proof texts to prove what we’d already decided was true, just didn’t do justice to the missional nature of the whole Bible, including the Old Testament.
But before we can gain a fuller understanding of such a foundational theme we need to become aware of the cultural glasses* through which we view the Bible, and the world in general, and take a step back to see the bigger meta-narrative that runs through scripture. Wright suggests that reading the Bible together with people from all nations can give us a much broader and richer view of God, and shed light on the missional theme running through every page of scripture.
Even when we affirm (as I do) that the historical and salvation-historical context of biblical texts and their authors is of primary and objective importance in discerning their meaning and their significance, the plurality of perspectives from which readers read them is also a vital factor in the hermeneutical richness of the global church. What persons of one culture bring from that culture to their reading of a text may illuminate dimensions or implications of the text itself that persons of another culture may not have seen so clearly. (p39)
And on the previous page:
There is a great irony that the Western Protestant theological academy, which has its roots precisely in a hermeneutical revolution (the reformation), led by people who claimed the right to read scripture independently from the prevailing hegemony of medieval Catholic scholasticism, has been slow to give ear to those of other cultures who choose to read scriptures through their own eyes, though the situation is undoubtedly improving. (p38)
In many ways the acceptance that different cultures will read the same scriptures in different ways reflects the trend of post-modern thinking. But Wright says firstly that Christianity in effect got there a couple of millenia before post-modernism as we know it came into existence, and secondly that the church has something unique to contribute to the post-modern way of thinking:
What we [the church] have to offer, I contend, is a missional hermeneutic of the Bible. The Bible got there before postmodernity was dreamed of – the Bible which glories in diversity and celebrates multiple human cultures, the Bible which builds its most elevated theological claims on utterly particular and sometimes very local events, the Bible which seems everything in relational, not abstract, terms, and the Bible which does the bulk of its work through the medium of stories.
All these features of the Bible – cultural, local, relational, narrative – are welcome to the postmodern mind. Where the missional hermeneutic will part company with radical postmodernity, is in its insistence that through all the variety, locality, particularity and diversity, the Bible is nevertheless actually the story. This is the way it is. (p47)
If I can get my mind around it I’ll try to continue to post some thoughts from the rest of the book as Wright explores how God’s mission to his world is an/the overarching theme of the entire scripture narrative. It might take a few months however…!
*Someone once told me he was going to Kenya for a couple of weeks to give some Bible teaching to Pastors because “they always read the Bible through their own cultural glasses”. While agreeing with his statement, I don’t think he had appreciated the irony that he also had his own cultural glasses through which he read the Bible… it’s just that our glasses are a lot more obvious to those around us than they are to ourselves.
Tags: Books, Chris Wright, Christian, Mission, Post-Modernism, The Mission of God
Posted in Bible, Books, Mission, Theology | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008
 WFMW 
I was inspired to write a Works for Me Wednesday today because I just phoned a friend of mine the other day in the States (Hi Apie! : ) and we had the longest conversation in the world! We kept talking about what I do around the house that helps it to be organised and creative and productive because she is soon going to be at home fulltime – with her first baby on the way. So, even though I am not super organised, and I am eternally learning, I thought I’d share something! : )
I think the #1 thing that has been working for me is morning Bible reading. As soon as I wake up I get out of bed (before I have time to wind up and think about my upcoming day…!) and go to ‘my chair’ in the living room and open the Word of God. Praise the Lord that that He’s given me an amazing husband who is sooo my compliment and likes routine – not my favourite…! So, for encouragement, we do it together, and talk about one of the passages we read together. Its good!
We read through the Word in a year, a month and a day. So, there’s three chapters to read each day and you always know what you’re going to read next!
I also normally read Oswald Chambers ‘My Utmost for His Highest’ before I dive into the word for that day – and the thing that amazes me most is how the Bible passages and Chambers intertwine each day. There is never a day where I am like – well, that was good but it wasn’t for me. If you expect God to speak to you, you will hear Him! Its totally exciting! : )
That’s what works for me, by God’s grace! : )
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Works for Me Wednesdays at http://rocksinmydryer.typepad.com/shannon/worksforme-wednesday-guid.html
Tags: Bible, God, House, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers, WFMW
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Thursday, July 24th, 2008
Some people make cutting remarks,
but the words of the wise bring healing.
I am progressing through a very challenging personal Bible study book called Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes – and that is not to say what a great Christian woman I am – because the book has been in our house for months now, staring at me in the face daring me to read it. And I finally found the guts and grace to open the book and commit to completing it!
The sections are all very good, but I have to say that one has really stood out so far, about 8 sections in. And that section was about ‘propriety.’ Thankfully, Mrs. Hughes gives a definition of the word, as its gone out of use so much that I couldn’t quite recall what it meant…
“It means ‘characterized by appropriateness or suitability.’” (p 89 in Disciplines)
I thought… Alright – I know I’m polite, because I am a Christian and all… this shouldn’t be as hard as the other disciplines, right? Well, she got to the part about what we say as women, and that stopped me in my tracks. Especially the verses she quoted – like Proverbs 12:18, and others. It struck me that its not always enough to bite my tongue at the right times when I’m tempted to say something unhelpful. (Although I think I will keep doing that…) The second part of the verse says but the words of the wise bring healing. We aren’t meant to just look good and act right – we’re supposed to bring healing to those around us through our words. And I know that starts with my heart – which is what Godly propriety is – an attitude of the heart which spurs theraputic actions. I could go on, but for now…
Heavenly Father, as I dwell on your Word, replace my bad attitudes with holy ones so that I can, through my actions, bring healing to those around me by your Holy Spirit.
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Monday, May 12th, 2008
Next month I’ve been asked to lead a session for a church group preparing to go to Malawi for 2 weeks on a mission trip. Part of their time will be spent teaching the Bible, so I’ve been asked to give them some cultural pointers.
I certainly don’t know all the answers, so I’m planning to have an interactive session, where we first of all identify as many cultural differences as we can between “Africa” and “the West”, and then explore what these differences mean for the way that Africans see Christianity and the Bible differently from people in the West.
I’m not sure in what direction the discussion is going to go, but I’ve written down some of my thoughts so that at least I have some idea of what I think before we start. But I’d appreciate any feedback you might have.
What other broad cultural differences would you say there are between Africa and the West? What do you agree with below, and what would you disagree with? What else is important for a British group of mainly young people to be aware of before they go to Africa to teach the Bible?
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Difference (Africa / the West)
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How does this affect the way Africans view Christianity?
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How does this affect the way Africans view the Bible?
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Community outlook / Individual outlook
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Christianity is a community thing, rather than individual. Conversion to Christ is much more likely for people when respected individuals within the community have committed to Christ.
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Passages are read for their application to the community, rather than on an individual level. Interestingly, many of the books of the Bible were originally written to or for a community.
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Respect for elders, conventional wisdom / Respect for youth, new ideas
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Look to older members of family, community for guidance about life, more than to peers and new ideas brought from outside.
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Respect stories of long ago. Take notice of genealogies – these make the stories real. The fact that the Bible is 2000+ years old makes it very important.
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Low life expectancy / High life expectancy
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Life expectancy in many parts of Africa is about 40. This means death is a constant part of life. If the gospel is accepted as a life and death matter, it becomes very urgent, as many adults can only expect to live for another 5-10 years, maybe less if they have AIDS. You don’t have to tell an African that he is mortal – people know only too well the reality of death.
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In many parts of Africa half of the population is age 15 or under. These things make what the Bible has to say about children very relevant. Issues with widows and orphans are not just interesting, but are a matter of life and death for those involved.
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Spiritual aspect of life very real / More focused on physical
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In general, Africans know that there is a spiritual side to life – they’ve lived with witch doctors and traditional religion for centuries, and know that these things have power. In Africa, the question is not “Is there any kind of God?”, but “Who is this God and how powerful is he?”
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Passages about evil spirits and witchcraft are very relevant and are not just symbolic, but speak about literal realities in people’s lives.
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Poor / Rich
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People are poor, and are looking for anything that can make their life less difficult. In these situations, the prosperity gospel can be very attractive.
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The Bible says a huge amount about the poor being lifted up and the rich being humbled. These passages are often overlooked in the west, but are key to the way Africans read the Bible. It gives them hope for the present – that God will sustain and bless them – and for the future – that they will be rich in the Kingdom of God.
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Fear of drought, famine / Abundance of food
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Rain to water crops is a necessity for survival. Christianity will be seen to be true if it can help meet everyday needs for survival.
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Passages about God blessing the land with rain if the people obey him resonate with Africans – they know how much they depend on God for survival. They can identify with Israel in the OT – depending on God to send rain.
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Close to the land, agriculture / Most people work in towns, offices
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People are aware of creation, of their dependence on an unseen creator God / gods who makes crops grow and sustains the earth.
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People understand many of Jesus’ parables, as they live in similar situations. Many of the illustrations in both the Old and New Testament are to do with the land and agriculture, and these are directly relevant to everyday life.
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Death is part of everyday life / Death is a taboo
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Death and what happens afterwards are not philosophical questions to Africans, but real everyday concerns. What Christianity has to say about these issues is an important issue for today.
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People can particularly empathise with people in the Bible who lose family members – eg the widow whose son died, Ruth and Naomi.
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Low education / High education
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People are not concerned with understanding deep theological matters. They simply want to know how Christianity affects them in their daily life. Anything that depends on high education (even basic literacy) may put them off.
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People identify with the poor common people of the Bible, rather than the scholars. Whereas people in the West would identify with Paul as a well educated Jew, Africans would be more likely to feel at home studying the disciples – many of whom were Galilean fisherman.
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Oral society / Literate society
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Christianity is most attractive when presented in the form of stories. People are used to having traditional wisdom passed on orally through the generations. Christianity can take the same status, if passed orally from elders to the rest of the community (in the same way that books pass on wisdom in a literate society). Even oral recordings can perform this function, in many cases better than written scriptures.
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Parts of the Bible when the community comes together to hear God’s word (in Ezra, at the temple etc) resonate with Africans. They are used to wisdom being passed on orally and collectively, rather than individually through reading.
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Functional way of thinking / Analytical way of thinking
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For Africans, the key question about Christianity is not “is it true?”, but “does it work?”. Whether something is functional is much more important to Africans than abstract concepts like absolute truth. Africans are more likely to judge Christianity on whether it is more powerful than evil spirits than whether it is true (in the abstract, western sense of truth).
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Africans identify much more with the gospels where Jesus is healing the sick and meeting people’s needs, than with Paul’s more abstract approach to proclaiming the truth in parts of the book of Romans.
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Proverbs, wisdom, stories valued / Science, analytical thinking valued
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The things that resonate with people, are wisdom and proverbs. These are what have always been passed on through the generations, so it is only a small jump to replace traditional wisdom and proverbs from ancestors with (even more ancient) wisdom and proverbs from the Bible.
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Proverbs, Ecclesiastes etc are highly revered by African Christians, and resonate with their culture. The important thing is not “What exactly is the truth?”, but “How should we live?”
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Idols part of life / No physical idols
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Christianity must be seen to offer more than the traditional worship of idols – it must be seen to have more power.
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Parts where God tells Israel to get rid of idols, and even ridicules idols can be very real to Africans. Idols in the Bible are not taken as metaphors as they are in the West, but are seen as genuine alternatives to Christianity.
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Blood sacrifices understood / No sacrificial system
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People understand the power of blood sacrificed, normally to appease spirits, whether it’s for wrong they’ve done or because the spirits are upset. People completely understand that a just God would demand a blood sacrifice for sins committed.
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People understand blood sacrifices made in the Old Testament, and the New Testament explanations (eg Hebrews) that Jesus was the ultimate blood sacrifice to atone for sins.
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New nations – recent colonial history / Old nations
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People are aware that the nations are a drop in the bucket (Isaiah 40:15). Collectively, as well as individually, they are aware that they rely on God and his mercy to survive. The West (particularly Europe) can find it difficult to identify with God’s warnings to the Israelites that the nation would be humbled. Africans, with a recent memory of colonialisation and often difficult struggles for and since independence know that the entire nation is at God’s mercy.
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Prophecies to the nation of Israel are read as a prophecy to the whole nation, whereas in the West they are often interpreted on an individual level. Can also find it difficult to read about Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, where their memories of colonial powers mean that they may identify more with the conquered Canaanites than the victorious Israelites.
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Few generations of Christianity / Hundreds of years of Christianity
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The African church doesn’t have generations of traditions to form its view of Christianity. Most traditions have been taken on from Western missionaries. The church is much more free to read the Bible and interpret it in the way it sees fit.
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Whereas in the West there is much interest in supposed “new revelations” (gospel of Thomas, Da Vinci code etc), in Africa the whole Bible is new and exciting in its revelations.
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Business between friends, acquaintances / Business with anonymous companies
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The analogies of debt in the Bible are much more personal than for Christians in the West. If a Western Christian goes into debt, he may go bankrupt and lose his possessions. If an African can’t pay a debt his life could be in danger. Africans can identify much more with the serious concept of debt and payment (and redemption) in the Bible than Western Christians who are used to debt as a normal part of life.
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Little healthcare / Good healthcare
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An important issue is whether Christianity is able to provide healing. When people have little or no access to conventional healthcare, the promise of a healing God is much more immediate and real.
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Accounts of Jesus healing people are very powerful, as they give hope where there is little or no hope from conventional healthcare.
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