hi friends,
i hope you’ve been keeping well in this strange and difficult season. if you’re looking for new reads to pick up during this period of self-isolation, i highly recommend this book below that I wrote a personal reflection on for one of my theology classes this term. i’ve been deeply impacted by it, and my perception and understanding of mission, and missions, has changed so much because of it.
do note that this was written as an academic essay so its tone and structure is a little more formal. but i still think it’s worth sharing about on the blog, and i really hope you have a chance to pick up the book yourself and let me know what you think!
xx,
iz
Christopher J. H. Wright’s The Mission of God’s People: A Biblical Theology of the Church’s Mission champions a holistic understanding of the mission of God and His people. Wright argues that our fundamental call to mission is not just found in the New Testament’s Great Commission (Matthew 28:16-20) but in the Old Testament’s Abrahamic covenant, where “God’s mission is ultimately to bless all the nations”.
Genesis 18:19 is foundational to a biblical understanding of mission, as it expresses how “ethics is the purpose of election and the basis of mission”. Ethics is the vital–and often missing–link that connects our ecclesiology and missiology, and Wright points out that “the community God seeks for the sake of his mission is to be a community shaped by his own ethical character”.
“For I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has promised him.”
As the people of God, then, Wright exhorts us to care for creation; be a blessing to the nations; bear faithful witness to Jesus; proclaim the gospel not only verbally but in how we live; and continually engage in praise and prayer as these, too, are missional activities. And at the heart of it all, Wright underscores the fact that “a missional people must be a worshiping people”.
Personal insights
Wright’s book has provided several key personal insights. One is his emphasis on creation care as our primary missional focus: “Ruling and serving creation is humanity’s first mission on earth, and God never repealed the mandate”. Prior to this, I regarded mission as mostly constituting cross-cultural evangelistic efforts. Realizing that God’s missional scope is so much larger and broader than these presumptions is humbling, and challenges me to re-evaluate how I should relate to all of creation, not just fellow humans. It is illuminating to regard mission as “not truly holistic if it includes only human beings… and excludes the rest of the creation for whose reconciliation Christ shed his blood”.
Wright’s treatment of mission in the public square or marketplace is also insightful. Many Christians, myself included, tend to think that what we do on earth is “temporary and transient”. But Wright stresses that our work in the new creation “will start with the unimaginable reservoir of all that human civilization has accomplished in the old creation – but purged, cleansed, disinfected, sanctified and blessed”. Thus, our mission in the public square–to be “good citizens and good workers, and thereby to be good witnesses”– is significant in God’s eyes, and work constitutes a large part of this mission.
Another valuable insight is found in Wright’s elucidation of the role the church plays in carrying out God’s mission. Before reading this book, I believed that the church alone bore the responsibility to bring the Good News to the ends of the earth. Wright, however, emphatically notes that the church is “neither the first nor the only agency of gospel proclamation”. Instead, the church is merely one of the participants in God’s all-encompassing mission alongside the Word and the Spirit. Hence, it is specious to think that mission is conceptualized and initiated by the church. Wright sums it up best: “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission – God’s mission”.
How thE BOOK HAS IMPACTED my vocation
Wright’s book has left an indelible impact on my vocation within the mission of God’s people. As a Christian, I now realize that my mission is not solely to bring people to the saving knowledge of Christ, but to be actively involved in creation care as well. To do so demonstrates “truly biblical and godly altruism”, and I am inspired to explore a fuller picture of what this would look like, beyond altering lifestyle habits like eating more mindfully and reducing waste.
As a freelance writer, I am compelled to use my voice and platform in print and digital media more missionally. Wright’s book has convicted me of the need to be constructively engaged and courageously confrontational in the marketplace. It has also spurred me to view work not only as a means of income, but as “an opportunity to “be a blessing” [and] “seek the welfare of the city””. Furthermore, realizing that my work in the media has a “front-line missional nature” leads me to ponder how it can better serve as a witness to God, particularly in issues that God has laid on my heart such as women’s rights and the intersection between faith and mental health.
As a member of the global Church, I have been given a refreshing vision of what the church is called to do regarding mission. One of my struggles with how the church approaches mission is that it often entails sending missionaries to an economically poorer or “developing” country, from which a rather unhealthy “saviour complex” may arise in the one who is sent. However, Wright dismantles such notions: “Mission is not something that happens when you go somewhere else. It starts in your own home and neighbourhood. That is where we are called to be holy”. Moreover, that prayer and praise are in themselves missional actions is nothing short of an epiphany, as I had always conceived of them more as contributors to missional efforts. Wright’s book radically prompts me to see that the prayers and praises I offer to God are just as missional as evangelizing.
The Mission of God’s People possesses a strong biblical foundation for understanding mission from God’s perspective and from an individual and collective standpoint. It has provided me with innumerable insights into what characterizes mission, and motivates me to live out these principles every day as I continue to participate in God’s grander Story.
pin for later:
a singaporean-canadian couple on serving God faithfully