Home » Resources » General Resources

The Mission of the Church by Dr. Jim Harrison

Published 01 July 2008

Click here to download word document  or  PDF Format

The Mission of the Church

Dr Jim Harrison, Wesley Institute, 23/06/2008

In this brief paper, I explore the key developments in mission spanning the Old Testament and New Testament. While this presentation is not in any sense exhaustive, it is intended to show the
dynamism of mission that captured the early church, as well as its overall rationale. From this biblical basis, I provide several succinct observations on the imperative of mission, its focus, and
its implementation on the part of the church.

  1. The hope offered the Gentiles in the Old Testament

    The ‘covenantal' theology of the Old Testament extends the hope of salvation for the Gentile nations by means of the establishment of the Abrahamic covenant (Gen 12:14; 18:18; 22:17). The New Testament highlights the fulfilment of this hope in the divine offer of justification by faith to Jew and Gentile and in the gift of the Spirit (Acts 3:25; Rom 4:11-13; Gal 3:6-9, 14). The Old Testament hope for the Gentiles, however, more resided in the Gentiles being drawn to Yahweh by the distinctiveness of Israel as ‘a light to the nations' (Isa 42:6) than in any specific missionary outreach to the Gentiles. In an act of divine grace, therefore, Gentiles would be grafted into God's covenant people.

    Notwithstanding, there was considerable interest in the fate of the Gentiles in God's plan of salvation history:
    • There would be an end-time pilgrimage of the nations to Zion (Isa 2:2-4; 18:7; 25:6; 66:18-22; Jer 3:17; Hag 2:7; Zech 8:20-23) and the Gentiles would submit to Israel (Isa 45:14; 49:22-23; 54:1-3). The servant-role of Christ, the Root of Jesse, to the Jews confirms the patriarchal promises and brings to realisation the end-time salvation-hope of the Gentiles (Rom 15:7-12)
    • Salvation references to the Gentiles, though rare, do exist (Isa 19:16-25; Zeph 3:9-10), as do references to Gentiles worshipping God (Mal 1:1; Zeph 2:11).
    • References occur to proselytes attaching themselves to Israel, although some peoples (e.g. Ammonites, Moabites) are excluded (Dt 23:2-8). However, the inclusion of Moabite Ruth into Israel demonstrates that the lines of covenantal demarcation were not totally rigid in this regard. Also, concern for the alien is commanded on the basis of Yahweh's gracious redemption of Israel (Deut 24:14, 17, 19, 21: Lev 19:33-34).
    • The author of the book of Jonah demonstrates a surprising universalism in the expression of Yahweh's care for the Ninevites. This stands in contrast to the racially blinkered approach of the Israelites (Jonah 4:9ff).
    • Finally, the ‘servant' theology of Isaiah posits a quasi-‘missionary' role for the Servant figure of the ‘Servant' songs in relation to the Gentiles (Isa 24:6-7, cf. v.2; 49:6), a role that the church of Christ inherited (Acts 13:47; Rom 15:8-9).

    In sum, the notion of a ‘priestly service' to the nations (Exod 19:5-6) was carried out by ‘ethical apologetic', seen in Torah-obedience and prayer for the nations (e.g. 1 Kgs 8:41-43), rather than by ‘evangelistic mission' to the outsider. To be sure, there is evidence for occasional proselytising activity in the literature of Second Temple Judaism (e.g. Josephus, Antiquities 20.17-26; Philo, Special Laws 1.320-323; cf. Matt 23:15), but this is rather the product of individuals than a specific mission-commitment within Judaism.

  2. Jesus: pioneer missionary to the ‘outsider'

    Whereas in the Old Testament period and beyond Gentiles were drawn into the covenant community by virtue of Israel's quietist ‘ethical mission', the early church engaged in an outgoing mission to the Gentile world. The gospel moved from confines of the Jewish synagogal communities to the establishment of house churches in the eastern Mediterranean basin. What
    motivated this crucial change in strategy? The answer lies in the radical nature of the ‘new' covenantal community established by Jesus' atoning death (1 Cor 11:25; Luke 22:20; cf. Exod
    24:8) and the way that the Spirit gradually brought the church to understand the full implications of the new covenant itself: ‘through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel' (Eph 3:6)

    It is undoubtedly true that Jesus restricted his mission to Israel alone (Matt 10:5ff). Jesus embarked on a restoration of the covenant people of God (1 Cor 11:), symbolically underlined in
    his choice of twelve disciples as a sign that the end-time restoration of Israel has begun. He enlisted his disciples in this missionary task, sending them out as ‘fishers of men' (Luke 5:10; Mark 1:17), a phrase used in Jeremiah 16:16 of the restoration of Israel. However, we are confronted by certain ambiguities in Jesus' missionary practice that posed confronting questions for his contemporaries regarding the social and racial constituency of the ‘restored Israel'.

    Jesus' new covenant community consisted of several ‘undesirable' groups, at least according to the purity canons of Second Temple Judaism: namely, women (John 4:27), tax collectors (Matt 9:9-12), the poor (Luke 4:18; cf. Sirach 13.20), the physically disabled (Mark 2:1-11; 3:1-6; 10:46-52), the ritually impure (Mark 5:25-34; Luke 5:12-15), the demon-possessed (Mark 5:1-18), Samaritans (John 4:4-27; Luke 17:15ff), and non-Jews (i.e. Romans: Matt 8:5-13; Syrophoenicians: Mark 7:24-30; Greeks: John 12:20-22). In another affront to Jewish sensibilities, Jesus boldly contrasted Gentile faith with Jewish unbelief on several occasions (Luke 4:26-27; 11:30, 32; 13:28-30). How do we explain this remarkable social phenomenon that undermined the holiness system of Second Temple Judaism?

    Three factors help us to appreciate the ‘newness' of the wine that had penetrated the ‘new' wineskins:

    • As the end-time ‘Mosaic' prophet and the Messianic Son, Jesus believed that the historical Israel would soon undergo a crisis of immense magnitude that would result in her covenantal priority before God being relativised (Matt 11:21-22; 12:41-42). There was a judgement coming that would soon fall on historical Israel, its temple and cultic officials (Mark 13:2; Luke 13:1-9). Furthermore, at the final day of judgement, any distinction between Jew and Gentile would be relativised before God (Matt 25:31-46). Consequently, Jesus' Jewish contemporaries could no longer complacently presume on their covenantal membership (John 8:31-59; cf. Matt 3:9). Thus Jesus rejects any form of Jewish nationalism (Luke 9:51-55; 17:15-19; Luke 13:1-5; John 4:21; 6:15), even though in terms of historical priority salvation had come from the Jews (John 4:22b).
    • Jesus' openness towards the Gentiles is explained by his belief in the Old Testament promise of the pilgrimage of the nations (Matt 8:11-12), with the result that he held out the salvation hope to the Gentiles as well (Matt 12:41-42; 15:15; 11:22). One of Jesus' motives in cleansing of the Temple Court of the Gentiles was the abuse of the Court's function as a ‘house of prayer' for the ‘nations' (Mark 11:17). Moreover, Jesus laid the grounds for a law-free mission in saying ‘eat and drink whatever they put before you' (Luke 10:8), thereby eliminating the food and purity laws (Mark 7:17-19) that were to be such stumbling blocks for the early mission to the Gentiles (Acts 10-11; Gal 2:11-14).
    • Finally, Jesus' covenantal and atoning death ‘for the many' (Mark 14:24) has an openended nature about it. ‘Many' was a Semitic expression denoting a large or immense number and it indicates that Jesus' death now embraced the horizons of the Gentile world. Thus, in his post-resurrection appearances, Jesus widened his disciples' original commission (Matt 10:5-6) now to include the Gentile world in their mission of teaching, making disciples and evangelism (Matt 28:18-20: cf. v.19: panta ta ethne [LXX: Gen 18:18; 22:18]). This was reinforced at Pentecost when, under the enabling of the Spirit, men proclaimed the gospel of Christ in the languages of the nations (Acts 2:8-11).
  3. From Jerusalem to Rome: the role of Stephen, Philip, the church at Antioch and Paul.

    How then does the gospel move from the confines of Jerusalem to Rome? Four groups of people are paramount in its geographical and ethnic transformation: the witness of Stephen, the mission to the Greeks by the church at Syrian Antioch, and the conversion of the apostle Paul.

    First, Stephen, after highlighting the covenantal redemption secured in Christ (Acts 7:2-8, 32), loosed the gospel, as Christ had, from the ethnic boundary markers of Jewish law and cult (Acts 6:13).

    Second, Philip's dramatic with the Ethiopian eunuch is a dramatic demonstration of the gospel overcoming the boundary markers of Second Temple Judaism. This influential treasury official is a highly marginalised person in terms of the Jewish holiness system. As a Gentile adherent to Judaism (Acts 8:27), he would have been excluded from full participation in the cult at Jerusalem.

    Nonetheless, he was probably the first African to respond to the Gospel. Moreover, as a eunuch (Acts 8:27), he was also excluded from the Jewish holiness system (Deut 23:1; cf. Is 56:3-8). The barriers separating Jew from Gentile had been decisively abolished as the Spirit of God now formed the type of community that Jesus had pioneered in his ministry.

    Third, although persecution scattered the church - but with disparate non-Judean groups and individuals being powerfully touched by God in the process (Acts 8:5, 14; 8:26ff; 10:22ff) - the decisive episode in the turning from the Jews to the Gentiles with the gospel came about through the boldness and vision of believers from Cyprus and Cyrene. They were the first to engage the Greeks directly in their own language in evangelistic outreach at Antioch (Acts 11:19-20). From this unprecedented change in missionary tactics there emerged the church at Antioch, the mother church of the Gentile mission in the eastern Mediterranean basin. As a result, Barnabas and Paul were commissioned by the church at Antioch on their first missionary journey, each evangelist inheriting the mantle of the servant of the Isaianic ‘Servant' songs by being lights to the Gentile world (Acts 14:47; cf. Isa 42:6; 49:6).

    Fourth, much could be said about the role of the apostle Paul in the spread of early Christianity. Paul conceived of the gospel of Christ crucified as the dynamic power of God's
    word that was made effective in people's lives through his Spirit (Rom 1:16; 1 Cor 1:18). This power is integrally related to Paul's missionary labours: it creates new churches that would continue the apostolic mission and empower the life of the church for the work of service. Paul directs imperatives to the church to evangelise (Phil 2:16; Eph 6:15-17), as well as encouragements to be a passive witness (Col 4:6; 1 Thess 4:12). Apostles and churches pray for missions and the Church (Rom 1:8; 2 Cor 9:14; Eph 6:18-20), build each other up in Christ (Rom 15:14; 1 Cor 3:9; 2 Cor 12:19; Eph 4:11-16), witness together the truth of the gospel being verified by miracles (Gal 3:5; 2 Cor 12:12), and suffer together for the gospel (Rom 8:16-18; 1 Cor 4:9-13; 2 Cor 1:3-10; Col 1:24-25). This is the variegated expression of the partnership in the gospel (Phil 1:3-7; 2 Cor 9:13-15). Nonetheless, Paul also trained specific evangelists and church planters to carry forward the work of mission (Eph 4:11; 2 Tim 4:4; cf. Timothy; Epaphroditus; Titus; Acts 21:8). 
  4. Contemporary implications for mission praxis
    1. The crucial task of the church is teaching, making-disciples, and evangelism: the dynamic power of the gospel propels the church towards mission through the interconnection of the three activities.
    2. The mission of the church is holistic in its transformation of people and our variegated cultures for Christ. This adds another crucial dimension to our understanding of mission. Thus, in mission there are expressions of
      1. An apologetic base which engages creatively and biblically with the traditional intellectual disciplines, the performance and artistic disciplines, the business world and government, the economy, and the variegated expressions of popular culture;
      2. A charity base which ministers to the socially marginalised;
      3. A pastoral base that restores people to wholeness;
      4. A contextual base that is intergenerational, gender inclusive, multicultural, crossing class and ethnic differences.
      5. A justice and reconciliation base that brings to bear in society God's own commitment to justice and reconciliation.
    3. The mission of the church includes the task of equipping lay people for the work of service by training gifted people to work for Christ in the professions and trades, as well as in lay ministries in the church and for para-church ministries.
    4. The mission of the church includes the task of training specific people for teaching, pastoring, and making disciples, so that through healthy churches the nations can be won to Christ.

Share

Leave a comment


Smileys