Exploring New Language for the Gospel

Here is an new blog that I wrote for Catalyst:

Exploring New Language for Proclaiming the Gospel: Examples from Scripture

Reading the New Testament's Eschatological Vision: Part Two

A missional reading of the New Testament’s eschatological vision steadfastly stands against all readings that promote a fixation on the assigning of times and dates as well as readers that call for a pullback from cultural engagement Christ followers.

First, it is enough to note that if the Biblical story was truly interested in providing a detailed and specific step-by-step guide to how the future will unfold, it could have easily accomplished this. Given the absence of this as well as the humorous but ultimately tragic attempts by so many “prophesy” experts to predict Jesus’ return, Christ followers will learn to live in a dynamic tension in which they recognize by faith that the future is secure while letting go of all need for details. On matters of the end, we are on a need to know basis and no matter how bad we might desire a roadmap to God’s future, the Bible does not provide one. We follow Jesus into the world on mission. This is the same Jesus who said, “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven nor the Son, except for the Father alone.”

Second, God’s mission to bring reconciliation and redemption to humanity and all creation moves forward under God’s promise of a secure future. Rather than giving Christ followers a reason to pull back from missional engagement, the New Testament church evangelized in earnest in the expectation of Jesus’ imminent return and his ushering in of the Kingdom. The God’s future is beautiful. God’s future is secure. Therefore, the mission of God’s people goes forward in earnest. In the context of the New Testament, the earliest Christians were a tiny minority. They faced hardships and persecution for their allegiance to Jesus as LORD over against the Roman world’s suffocating vision for humanity. Early Christians found themselves persecuted and reviled by both Gentiles and Jews. Thus the choice to follow Jesus was costly. The New Testament’s eschatological vision therefore is profoundly concerned with grounding Jesus’ earliest followers with a courageous hope in God’s final victory so that they may function as instruments and agents of God’s reconciling Gospel.

A Missional Approach to NT Eschatology: Part One

The New Testament writers recognized that God’s victory through the life, death, and resurrection secured the future. The New Testament is full of visions of God’s future. God’s future is bright and good. It is one of abundant love and mercy. It is the full reversal of the effects of human sin and brokenness. It includes the full redemption of all creation. It marks the return of shalom and rest. It involves the climactic consummation of God’s future.

Our day has seen an ongoing fixation on figuring out dates and time tables. The Bible is mined ingeniously for insights used to predict the end of days. However, this is not a missional approach to Scripture. As humans, we may long to gain control of the future by connecting it to our calendar of events, but this is not the purpose of the eschatological visions of the New Testament. The New Testament writers describe God’s future as a means of inspiring a courageous faithfulness in the present. Since God’s future is secure, God’s people live as the people whom God created them to be in the present. The New Testament’s eschatological vision subverts the present struggles by proclaiming a dogged and audacious confidence in God’s final victory.

Reading the Bible Well: Reflecting on a Text's Implications

Reflect on its Implications and Function within the Bible

Once we have answered key questions raised in our close reading we need to begin to draw out the broader truths and ideas that are explicit and implicit in the text. The goal here is to move from the specific details and facts in a passage to an understanding of how these details together to present a deeper message.

In light of your study, reflect on questions such as these: If this were the only passage of Scripture that I had, what would I know? What broad truths emerge from reflecting on this portion of Scripture? What does this passage teach about God? What does it teach about life in God’s creation? What does it teach me about humanity and the role of God’s people?

After reflecting on these questions, it is important to attempt to assess how the teaching of a given portion of Scripture relates to the whole. Are there other places in the Bible where similar teachings or ideas are found? Reflect on how our text nuances, affirms or critiques other biblical texts. The purpose of this step is to understand the contribution of our text to the biblical message.

Make Specific Applications

The goal of the reading the Bible as Christian Scripture is conversion. The power of Scripture to shape us depends on our willingness to push beyond merely engaging the Bible with our minds but also putting its words into practice in our world. Once we understand the message of our passage in light of the biblical message as a whole we are able to explore how it may impact our lives in the present.

Here are a few questions that you may find helpful to guide you in this process:

How does this passage understand God’s mission in the world and how do we fit into God’s purposes? What kind of people does this text imagine us to be if we were to live out its message? How would my life be different if I took the truths of this text seriously? How would my community of faith need to change in light of my study?

Try to be as specific to your own setting in life as possible in making applications.

Discipleship as Movement

Jesus lives out his ministry as an itinerant teacher, preacher, and miracle worker. He does not abide in any one place for long but continually moves to the next town or city. The baseline call of Jesus to others was “Follow me.” The Gospels model for the people of God the necessity of a dynamic movement. Jesus is on the move in the stories that the New Testament preserves for the Church.

In many ways Jesus’ encounters with people appear random. But randomness is part of the method. As Jesus moves from place to place people come to him hoping for a miracle or to hear his authoritative teaching. Jesus embodies his own sense of “sent-ness.” A missional reading highlights this ethos. Following Jesus involves moving around with eyes to see and ears to hear the needs of the world. The Gospels portray Jesus as one who is ready, willing, and able to minister to all those who come to him. Jesus’ movement from city to city offers a key message to the Church. The movement of following Jesus involves embracing this same sense of sent-ness.

The itinerant nature of Jesus’ public ministry invites modern Christ followers to reflect critically on present day practices that often focus on the building of buildings, the attraction of crowds, and the preservation of existing communities. There is obviously a place for such goals but it is crucial to evaluate them in light of Jesus who dismissed crowds who gathered to hear him so that he could move to the next destination on the journey (Matt 15:32-39). Jesus embodied a willingness to leave the ninety-nine to go after the one who was lost (Matt 18:10-14).

Discipleship as Mission

From the beginning of the Christ following movement, mission has been central. Matthew and Mark both record Jesus calling fishermen to become fishers for women and men. The call to follow Jesus is a call to mission because Jesus’ life focused on the mission of God.

All of the Gospels portray disciples as persons who carry the good news about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection to others. As the disciples follow Jesus, he does his work of shaping them into persons who can “fish for people.” The disciples’ time with Jesus is not merely preparatory or academic work but real world training. Jesus molds his disciples by modeling mission. It is also worth noting that he deploys his disciples immediately into missional activity. This begins with accompanying Jesus and learning from him, but it quickly becomes deployment as a means of extending Jesus’ reach. In Matthew 9:35–11:1 (cf. Luke 9:1-6 and 10:1-12) , Jesus sends out his disciples on mission. In this text, Jesus authorizes his disciples to proclaim the Gospel in word and deed just as Jesus himself had done. This is the map for all future disciples to follow. Mission is not the work of religious professionals; it is the work of all followers of Jesus. Reading the Gospels missionally involves seeing them as blueprints for contemporary communities of faith to follow. The energy of mission implicit and explicit in the Gospels shapes God’s people into being a missional community that reflects and embodies God’s good news for others. Of course, the Matthean and Lukan accounts end with commissions for world transforming mission (Matt 28:16-20, Luke 24:44-49, Acts 1:8). But it is vital to recognize that mission is not merely a part of discipleship but that the Gospels themselves are manuals for what a missional discipleship truly looks like.

Discipleship as the Good News of the Kingdom

To put it simply¬ Jesus did not come to initiate a new religion or some political program. He came to announce the in-breaking of God’s future. The Gospels call this the “kingdom of God” or “kingdom of heaven.” To miss this is to misunderstand fundamentally the message of Jesus.

The kingdom language is coded speech that announced the inauguration of God’s end time reign or rule over Creation. This spoke to the expectation of God’s people in the 1st century. By announcing the Kingdom, Jesus was alerting those with ears to hear that God’s long-awaited era of salvation had arrived. This connects the Gospels with Israel’s story in the Old Testament. Jesus fulfills the expectations raised in the Prophets and offers the fullest answer to the problems raised by the Exile and its aftermath.

We must never lose the power of the “good news” of the Gospel. In his words and actions, Jesus proclaims the good news of the Kingdom. In Matthew 11:3-5, John the Baptist questions whether or not Jesus is truly the long expected Messiah. Jesus responds provocatively with a thick theological statement rather than a mere "yes" or "no." What is Jesus' answer? He says to John's followers, "Go and tell John what you are seeing and hearing: blind people are receiving their sight, lame are walking, deaf people are now able to hear, dead are being raised up, and poor people are having the good news proclaimed to them." Jesus is using the language of Isa 61:1-3 to describe his activities. In other words, Jesus answers John’s question with an unambiguous “Yes!” by appealing to his Kingdom advancing actions. In the life and ministry of Jesus, God is establishing the Kingdom. Jesus’ words and actions were received as good news. Provocatively Jesus subverts some of the expectations of the elite and religious insiders by engaging the masses and reaching out especially to the outsiders (the poor, the unclean, women, collaborators with the Roman empire, and foreigners). Such persons received the Gospel with gladness whereas the religious leaders of Jesus’ day often found themselves at odds with the good news of the kingdom.

Jesus’ presentation and embodiment of God’s Kingdom is central to the Gospels. The good news of the drawing near of God’s long awaited end time rule and era of salvation stands at the heart of the Gospel. Jesus’ followers exist to carry on Jesus’ kingdom work in the world and to embody the hope of the kingdom for the watching world.

A missional reading challenges us to keep the good news in the Gospel. The Kingdom has come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The call to (re)alignment offers good news to the world and challenges God’s people to assess the extent to which its proclamation of the Gospel is an announcement of good news to those desperate for what only God can do.

The Heart of the Matter: Reading Deuteronomy Missionally

The book of Deuteronomy articulates cogently the whole being response that God desires from God’s people. Israel’s life responds to God’s saving actions with faithful obedience. The book of Deuteronomy functions to shape a missional people by concluding the Torah with a cogent call to faithful obedience and a strong warning against disobedience. The Shema captures the essence of Israel’s response to God: “Hear O Israel. The  LORD is our God, the LORD Alone. You will love the LORD your God with the whole volitional center of your being, with all that you are as a person, and with everything else.”[1] The Shema calls God’s people to establish allegiance to the LORD as the grounds for a life with God. The Shema calls people into a whole being relationship of total devotion. The Shema’s tripartite call is not about uniting three aspects of the human person (mind, soul, body) but about a commitment best described by the sports cliché of giving 110%.  Allegiance to the LORD involves recognizing that the LORD alone is one’s god. But this is not a mere intellectual achievement is involves a reordering one’s life and priorities under the lordship of the God who delivered God’s people from Egyptian bondage. All competing claims to divinity and lordship must become subservient under the absolute claims of the LORD.[2]

Thus, faithful obedience involves turning away from idols and fully (re)aligning with character and ethos of the creator of the world and liberator of God’s people. Deuteronomy 5–11 serves as a retelling of the Ten Commandments as the foundation for an exhortation to obedience. Olson suggests that 6­–11 offers warnings again three broad categories of idolatry: trust in the gods, trust in militarism, and trust in one’s standing with God apart from faithfulness. Deuteronomy 12–26 unpacks this ethos in more specific terms for God’s people as they prepare for life in the land of Canaan.[3]

A missional reading gravitates to at least three elements within Deuteronomy:

First, Deuteronomy uses a recurring series of relational verbs to describe the life of faithful obedience. These cluster in Deut 10:12-13 – “So now Israel, what is the LORD your God asking of you? But only to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all of his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with your entire volitional center and all that you are, and to keep the commandments of the LORD and his statutes which I am commanding you today for your good.” Elsewhere Moses also exhorts God’s people to cling/hold fast to the LORD your God (10:20 et al). The force of these verbs is to remind God’s people that the Torah is about its life with God and not the grounds for creating a relationship. This is a vital distinction. God has acted for Israel by delivering God’s people from Egypt (Deut 5:6 et al). Israel’s life with God is thus a response to his prior grace. God’s people practice and embody faithfulness on a moment-by-moment basis as the means to serving as a holy people before a watching world.

Second, Deuteronomy reminds us that the call to holiness is a summons to the good life.[4] In Deuteronomy, God offers a “good” land to God’s people (1:25 et al). Moses’ closing exhortation to God’s people in which he calls on them to make a decision centers on the good that God desires to work. Moses’ exhortation to engage fully with God reaches its zenith in 30:15-20 – “Look. I have set before you today life and goodness, and death and evil...Choose life so that you and your descendants may live” (30:15, 20b). We must resist the human temptation to read God’s promises through a prosperity hermeneutic but nevertheless it is vital to recognize that God’s call to God’s people has good as its end. This was hinted at in Genesis 1:1–2:3 in the movement of creation from chaos to Sabbath. The lesson of the Scripture is that God can be trusted and that the God of the Bible has our ultimate and best interests at heart. Part of the witness of Deuteronomy is an emphatic affirmation of this. But it must be noted that this comes on God’s terms and not on ours.

Last, Deuteronomy proclaims its call to faithful obedience with a sense of urgency and immediacy. Faithful obedience to the LORD is not a theoretical proposition. It is a way of life to be embraced today.[5] Moses concluding call discussed above includes the word today (30:15). This rhetorical device functions to make every contemporary generation the one addressed by Moses while at the same time pushing the hearers/readers of Deuteronomy to recognize the urgent necessity of realigning with God daily on a moment-by-moment basis. Every day is the today of Deuteronomy.

In its essence, the Torah concludes with a call to total devotion and allegiance to the LORD alone. This involves a whole being commitment to the mission of God. This contrasts with the portrait of humanity that we discovered in our engagement with Genesis 3–11. Devotion and allegiance to the LORD alone involves turning from all competing claims of divinity including devotion to self and allegiance to any of the “gods” of the nations.

© 2011 Brian D. Russell

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[1]This dynamic translation attempts to capture the meaning of the Hebrew words: lebab (“heart”), nephesh (“soul”), and mo’ed (“strength”). In each case, these words have been misunderstood historically because they were not translated culturally. For a masterful discussion of translation issues, see S. Dean McBride, Jr., “The Yoke of the Kingdom: An Exposition of Deuteronomy 6:4­–5” Int  ___

[2]Hirsch and Hirsch Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (Baker: 2011).

[3]For a terse but sublime discussion of this material see S. Dean McBride, Jr., “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy” Int 229-44.

[4]Hebrew tov recurs 29x in Deuteronomy.

[5]Heb hayyom. Literally “this day” = today. See  1:10, 1:39, et al.

[6]Torah = law. The traditional translation “law” is retained in order to capture the authoritative and normative connotations of the word.