The Mission of God: Part 2

This is part 2 of a two-part review of The Mission of God by Christopher J. H. Wright. View part 1 here.

Insights Gleaned

Theological Insights

The centrality of God’s mission is an obvious theological insight that Wright’s work restores to center stage. What is helpful within this is his Christological or Messianic focus. In an effort to shy away from typological interpretation the Old Testament is taken by some Christians to be disconnected from the New Testament. Understanding Christ as the divine agent of Yahweh, as the person through whom the mission of God is accomplished, unites not only the mission of God and work of God between the testaments but also restores a proper Christotelic perspective to the Old Testament.

Another theological insight gained from Wright’s work involves the care and concern of God for all of creation as expressed through the scope of the mission of God. The vast scope of the mission of God expresses that God’s love extends far beyond the human bounds to which it is normally constrained by conservative theological interpretation. This enables and empowers the church to be involved in the care of God’s creation.

Methodological Insights

The most important insight gained from this book is the importance and fruitfulness of reading the Bible missionally. A reading of the text which strips or ignores the missional basis of the Bible itself is a reading which is essentially robbing the text of its power. As the Bible is understood to be an incarnational communication of God to mankind, we must also recognize that the Bible is communicated by God incarnationally primarily because it is missional in basis. God communicates to man, in a medium familiar to man, so that man can join God in His mission.

Another helpful methodological insight is the reminder that often the hermeneutical lens employed will in part determine the theological conclusions reached through study of a text. While in the case of The Mission of God the hermeneutical approach and theological conclusions are beneficial and sound, there are other examples of hermeneutical lenses which may not lead to theological conclusions which are as sound or as fruitful as those reached by Wright.

Questions Raised

While overall Wright’s work must be considered one of the finest examples of biblical theology available it is not without its shortcomings and flaws.

Theological Questions

Wright covers adequately a host of theological issues in his book. However, one seemingly important theological topic left untouched is the Holy Spirit. There are a number of reasons that this could have been overlooked. Wright admits that his primary focus is on the Old Testament text, and the Spirit plays a less visible role in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. However, this brings up the common practice in Evangelical circles today of radically dividing the work and presence of God among His people in the Old Testament from God’s work and presence among His people in the New Testament. Since there are already questions in this area of study, Wright’s silence on the issue was all the more disappointing. Wright also could have avoided the subject because of length. The Mission of God is already well over 500 pages without a discussion of the role of the Holy Spirit. Regardless of the reason, the absence is a disappointing shortcoming of the book.[1]

Methodological Questions

The greatest methodological question coming out of Wright’s work is the validity of his hermeneutic. Two things ought to be said in reflecting on this question. First, everyone who reads a text will approach it with some sort of hermeneutical framework; there is no tabula rasa approach to the reading of Scripture. The issue then becomes having the appropriate hermeneutical lens. This change in focus precipitates not only the question, “what is the right hermeneutical lens?” but also the question, “how do I know when I have attained the right hermeneutical lens?” Wright proposes that the validity of the hermeneutical lens employed be determined by the heuristic fruit that it bears. This is a dangerous way to state the criteria for evaluating a hermeneutical framework because it does not define the type of fruit for which we are looking.

However, from examining and synthesizing Wright’s work in The Mission of God we see two implicit criteria for evaluating heuristic fruitfulness. First, heuristic fruitfulness must be measured in terms of its ability to explain the raw exegetical data. This is why Wright spends such a large percentage of the book dealing with the major themes of the Bible: the character of God (monotheism), the person of Christ, idolatry, the covenants, biblical ethics, creation, community, etc. Wright must explain how all these major themes of the Bible fit into the hermeneutical lens which he is proposing. If Wright succeeds in incorporating these themes into his grand narrative of God’s mission then his hermeneutic has value.

Another test for examining heuristic fruitfulness comes in the issue of praxis. The theological conclusions reached through the exposition of texts and themes must have bearing upon the people of God in their attempt to carry out the mission of God in the context of their world. One way this concern of Wright’s evidences itself is in sections where he discusses creation care and the church’s relationship to those suffering from HIV/AIDs. Most impressively this focus becomes clear in the epilogue as Wright ends his tome much like a sermon. There Wright expresses his desire that his work change our own biblical perception and worldview so that we conform our own lives and missions to the much grander mission of God.

Conclusion

Christopher J. H. Wright’s, The Mission of God, is a valuable contribution to several fields of study. It engages the field of hermeneutics in seeking to define and express a missional reading of the Bible. It engages the field of Old Testament theology by interacting with major biblical themes as found in the Old Testament. It engages the field of missiology by providing a biblical basis for mission. Most of all The Mission of God challenges the reader to re-orient himself, or herself, around God’s mission, so that life is actively used in service to God. May we all submit ourselves to the great God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and actively engage our world with His mission.

---

[1] It should be noted that Wright has not avoided the topic of the Holy Spirit nor does he deny the presence or role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (or in the New!). For more on Wright’s view of the Holy Spirit see Christopher J. H. Wright Knowing the Holy Spirit Through the Old Testament (Downers Grove: IVP, 2006).

The Mission of God: Part 1

Summary of the Book

Christopher J. H. Wright’s book, The Mission of God is on the one hand an example of a biblical theology of mission. However, the book is more than an examination of a specific biblical theme; rather it is an attempt at finding and demonstrating the theme that unites Scripture. Wright himself admits that there exists a certain struggle as to whether the book is a “biblical theology of mission” or a “missional reading of the Bible” (pg. 17). Wright’s hermeneutic will be examined along with his methods later in this paper. However, at the outset we can say that Wright does an admirable job of incorporating key biblical themes into his grand metanarrative of mission. For years theologians have searched for the center of biblical theology, Wright takes many of the suggested centers and demonstrates that they are all pieces of a larger puzzle; that is the mission of God, carried out by the people of God within the world of God.

The Aims

The aims of Wright’s book are basically three. First and foremost, Wright aims to “develop an approach to biblical hermeneutics that sees the mission of God (and the participation in it of God’s people) as a framework within which we can read the whole Bible” (pg. 17). Thus, the overarching purpose of Wright’s work is to provide a new hermeneutical lens through which to read Scripture. This reshaping of the hermeneutical lens constitutes a drastic shift in the methodology of reading the Bible.

Second, and less importantly by Wright’s own admission, is the aim of creating a biblical theology of mission. For Wright this goal is secondary to the first. However, the attention that Wright gives to defining the words “mission,” “missionary,” “missional,” and “missiology/missiological” are indicative of the value he sees in developing an accurate biblical theology of mission for the reader. While for Wright the first aim is more important the second cannot be overlooked. The amount of space Wright gives to discussions later in the book on the implications of the study for the life and practice of the church indicate the implicit importance of this second aim for Wright. For Wright, having the correct hermeneutical lens is the first step; the second step is then to develop a proper understanding of God’s Word that flows from a proper reading.

The final aim of The Mission of God that needs to be noticed is the attempt by the author to relate his overarching theme, the mission of God, to other important theological themes. What Wright is attempting to do in this third aim is to relate his work to other studies in theology. Furthermore, Wright is also validating the importance of these other themes while placing them within a larger context. We could say then that for Wright, the process begins with a fruitful hermeneutical lens, proceeds to a proper appropriation of mission, and then relates itself rightly to the corpus of God’s revelation.

The Methodology

The methodology of Wright’s work is straightforward, in many ways it resembles a good sermon. He tells you what he is going to tell you, he tells you, and then he concludes by telling you what he has already told you. Wright’s methodology is most importantly contained in his hermeneutic. Wright opens by attempting to establish the “missional basis of the bible” (pg. 29) and a “missional hermeneutic” (pg. 31). The question Wright puts forward as he makes his argument is in essence a pragmatic one that asks “is it [his missional hermeneutic] profitable” (pg.31)? Wright’s comfort with post-modern categories continues in his discussion of plurality, diversity, relationship and story while explaining his missional hermeneutic (see chpt 1). For Wright the key to interpreting the Bible missionally is found in the example of Jesus in Luke 24. Wright states, “Jesus himself provided the hermeneutical coherence within which all disciples must read these texts, that is, in the light of the story that leads up to Christ (messianic reading) and the story that leads on from Christ (missional reading)” (pg.41). This argument from Wright then supports his claim that, “The proper way for disciples of the crucified and risen Jesus to read their Scriptures, is messianically and missionally” (pg. 30).

The brilliance of Wright’s work is that this is the starting point for everything else he does in the book. Once the reader agrees with his hermeneutic for reading the biblical text, his other arguments will fall into place. However, if the reader is not convinced by his opening statement the rest of Wright’s work will seem an attempt to force the Bible into a mold for which it was not designed.

Wright establishes his hermeneutic in part one. His final three sections of the book are an attempt to unite the major themes of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament and show their relationship to his overarching theme of mission. Thus, Wright deals with the character and person of God, focusing especially on the person of Jesus as Messiah and divine agent.

Wright also must discuss man’s relationship to God, which brings him into contact with the biblical covenants. This forces Wright to trace the mission of God through the story of the Bible and also explain how the mission of God expresses itself within the context of God’s relationship to His people. Wright can then interact with major events of the Pentateuch, the call of Abraham and the Exodus, which includes instruction (law) on living in relationship with God. Notice that this allows for relationship and mission to become the basis for ethics.

The final section of the book then has to deal with the context for mission, the world. Wright in stating that “the mission of God is as universal as the love of God” (pg. 393) states the arena of mission comprises nothing less than the entire cosmos. In fact Wright concludes that the relationship between God, humanity and the earth is the “creational platform on which the mission of God traces its path through history” (pg. 395). What Wright has done here is to expand the mission of God beyond just any one time period, any one place, or any one people.