Becoming a Task Theologian (Missions Series 6 of 6)

Although the Bible consists of a wide variety of literature (including laws, history, prophecies, poetry, letters, and apocalyptic writings), at its core the bible is one, unfolding story of God’s mission in the world with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

And the heart of this story is about good news. The good news that God’s creation and humanity, ruined by sin, is now being redeemed by Jesus Christ and renewed by his Holy Spirit into God’s kingdom.

And God means for his unfolding mission in the world to so captivate you, that you are drawn into its plot to find your place and then compelled to draw others into that story with you for the rest of your life.

Many years ago, a Hindu leader in India strongly reproved a young missionary named Lesslie Newbegin regarding how he and the other missionaries were presenting the Bible to them. He said,

“I can’t understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion–and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don’t need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.” (A Walk Through the Bible, p.4)

To help us be aware of this common problem of interpreting the Bible apart from the unfolding mission of God, Mike Goheen writes,

“We have fragmented the Bible into bits.” “…moral bits, systematic-theological bits, devotional bits, narrative bits, and sermon bits. And when the Bible is broken up in this way there is no comprehensive grand narrative to withstand the power of the comprehensive humanist narrative that shapes our culture.” 

When the resurrected Jesus appeared to some of his disciples who were on a road to the city Emmaus, he opened the Old Testament Scriptures and helped them see that the overarching message of their Bible was about him. Jesus said,

“This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled as written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures (Luke 24:44-53).”

But we must not only read the Bible in light of the person and work of Jesus in his birth, life, death, and resurrection, but also in light of God’s mission he gave us after his resurrection when he said,

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

Therefore, we must read and interpret the Bible not only in light of Jesus’ person and work in redemption, messianically, but also read and interpret it missionally. Christopher Wright puts it this way, "Jesus himself provided the hermeneutical coherence within which all disciples must read these texts. … that is in light of the story that leads up to the great Christ messianic reading, and the story that leads on from Christ, the missional reading.”

Wright’s application is that instead of searching the Scriptures with a flashlight hoping to shine light on God’s mission wherever it might be found in the Bible, we should see God’s mission as the flashlight that actually illuminates the whole Bible. He writes,

"The mission of God is the key that unlocks the whole grand narrative of the cannon of Scripture … Therefore, the text of Scripture ought to be read as having originated in issues and controversies confronted by the people of God in the process of fulfilling the mission of God. This is where Scripture comes from … The text in itself is a product of mission in action."

As we saw earlier, the letters of the Apostle Paul were mostly follow-up letters to churches he planted around the world. And these letters were the result of real problems he had to solve as he advanced God’s mission in preaching the gospel and planting churches. The New Testament documents came out of the context of the mission confronting culture, and questions being raised, and those questions being answered and then codified. Paul was not an ivory tower, academic but a task theologian in mission.

There is a whole different perspective on the Old and New Testaments when you see them through the lens of God’s unfolding mission. And the practical ramifications of this understanding of God’s mission and the Bible are very significant in terms of your interpretation of Scripture, your preaching, your evangelism, discipleship, acts of mercy, and your worldview.

But the most important response is for you to allow God’s unfolding mission in the world to so captivate you, that you are drawn into its plot to find your place and then compelled to draw others into that story with you for the rest of your life.