Seven Key Ways that the Old Testament Continues to Shape the Christian Story and Mission

            

Many readers of the Bible struggle integrating the Old Testament into their understanding of the Christian life and mission. Even recently Andy Stanley a prominent Christian pastor preached about the need to "unhitch" the Gospel from the Old Testament. Time will tell how far Stanley intends go with this line of thought or whether this is indeed a form of "Marcionism." Regardless, his remarks illustrate the problem that many Christians have with the Old Testament despite the New Testament's heavy use of Israel's Scriptures and the prominent role that the Old Testament played within the preaching and teaching of the early Church.

In fact,  Israel’s Scriptures are ripe with insight for understanding God’s mission and role of God’s people in it. In this essay, I will sketch out seven key takeaways from Israel’s story to help guide us as we follow Jesus today.            

(1) Genesis 1–11 set the stage for God’s mission by describing the universe as God intended it and by acknowledging the profound lostness of people and brokenness of Creation due to human rebellion/sin.

Israel’s creation accounts (Genesis 1–2) describe God carefully and deliberately crafting a very good creation. Humanity stands at the pinnacle of God’s creative activity and at the center of God’s missional plans. In God’s original plan, humanity was to fill the earth and serve as the invisible creator God’s visible representatives. Men and women were to live as a community that embodied God’s character and served God’s mission of caring for God’s world.

In Genesis 3–11 human sin ruptures creation. Humanity is lost and creation itself is broken. Paul aptly summarizes Genesis 3–11 in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory….” The iconic narratives of the Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah’s Flood, and the Tower of Babel serve as warnings against humanity’s hubris and injustice by demonstrating the costliness of sin.

Genesis 1–11 is crucial for understanding the rest of the Bible. It sets Israel’s story in the context of all nations and as part of God’s answer to the brokenness of the world.

(2) God’s answer to the chaos and tragedy of Genesis 3–11 is to call a new humanity to serve as his missional people to reflect his character to the world.

God calls Abraham and his descendants to be agents of blessing to all people (Genesis 12:3b). After the deliverance from Egypt, this calling becomes embedded into God's vision for his liberated people (Exod 19:4–6): they will serve as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation." God’s actions in saving God’s people are for the purpose of extending blessing to all nations. This gives us a critical perspective for understanding Israel’s story. God is for Israel for the sake of all people rather than against all people for the sake of Israel. God continues to call God’s people to serve as embodiments of grace to the world. Jesus the Messiah is the climax of this new humanity. His life, death, and resurrection bring justification, reconciliation, and new birth in anticipation of the New Creation.

(3) God is faithful to his promises and powerful to save.

This theme reverberates from God’s interactions with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Exodus from Egypt, settlement in Canaan, protection from enemies, and the return from Exile.  Israel’s story is one of audacious hope. The future is ultimately secure because the Creator God has a mission to bless the nations and restore creation. This future does not depend on human ingenuity or power, but on God alone. This is good news.

(4) God’s faithfulness and grace is the final word.

God’s people repeatedly act unfaithfully in the Old Testament but this does not negate God’s ability to advance his kingdom in advance of the arrival of Jesus the Messiah. Exile to Babylon was well deserved, but it was a longtime coming as God’s mercy and patience prolonged its arrival. Even when exile came in 587 BC, it lasted only 50 years before God led God’s people a second time to the promised land. Israel’s story testifies to a hope and restoration on the other side of sin and judgment.

(5) Faithful obedience is the proper response to God’s grace and faithfulness to God’s people.

How do God’s people respond to grace? Israel’s story teaches us that it is with faithful living that reflects the character and mission of God. Israel’s obedience is not the precondition of relationship with God, but the result of the experience of salvation. Faithful living is the means by which God’s people witness to the nations the goodness and greatness of God.

(6) Israel’s story demonstrates the potential and snares of living as God’s people among the nations.

The key takeaway is the necessity of faithfulness as God’s people embody a missional holiness for the nations. When we read Scripture’s portrayal of Israel, we are often struck by the repeated failures of Israel to practice faithfulness. This stands in contrast to the mission that God has called Israel to embody for the sake of the world. Israel’s potential and failings serve as a witness to God’s people today.

(7) Idolatry and injustice are the principal impediments to faithfulness. 
God’s missional people must be vigilant against all practices that negate their witness by obstructing their love for God (idolatry) and love for neighbor including a love for creation (injustice). Israel’s story focuses on the ongoing danger of idolatry and injustice for God’s people. As we seek to live faithfully as God’s witnesses in the world, the temptation to elevate “gods” over the one true Creator and Savior remains as does the human tendency to practice injustice to elevate our own sense of power, influence or importance.

© 2016 Brian D. Russell, Revised May 2018.

For more exploration of missional readings of the Bible, see my books (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World (Cascade, 2016) and Invitation: A Ten Week Bible Study (Invitation, 2015). 

Invitation to Awaken Your Humanity

I am convinced that we must reflect on God’s original plans for humanity in order to understand the work that God accomplishes through Jesus the Messiah on behalf of us all. At minimum, salvation is God’s actions to restore humanity to His original designs for women and men. This essay will reflect on several biblical texts beginning with Genesis 1:26-31:

NIV Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. 31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

This text is profound. It focuses on the purpose of humanity. This passage affirms that every single human being has been created in the image of God (Latin: imago dei). Yet, most attempts at explaining it make the mistake of trying to interpret ontologically the meaning of the image of God – in other words, most try to explain the essence of humanity. This text however is more interested in the function and purpose of humanity. Below I will explore briefly two movements in this text and end with some theological reflection in light of the coming of Jesus Christ.

1) Humanity as the Pinnacle of God’s Creative Work
Creation reaches its climax in God’s crafting of women and men in His image. There are a number of clues that point to this. First, more verses are devoted to the making of people than to any other part of Creation in 1:1–2:3. Second, “let us” language suggest the care and deliberation of God in the forging of humanity in God’s image. Why the use of the plural plural? The most likely explanation is that “let us” is either a plural of majesty (God is so awesome that He speaks as a “We”) or it is God addressing the heavenly court. Regardless, this language clearly raises the importance of this section. Third, God appoints humanity as stewards. No other creature or created thing exercises authority over humanity. Instead, humanity is to reign over creation as God’s stewards or regents. Last, in 1:31 God offers a final evaluation of his creative activity. Days 1 to 5 were reckoned “good.” Now with the creation of humanity, God elevates his self-evaluation to “very good.”

All of these data suggest that the creation of humanity is the climactic event of God’s creative activity. All that remains for God to do at the conclusion of Day Six is rest (2:1-3).

2) Humanity as the Visible Representatives of the Creator God

A missional focus is implicit in humanity’s creation in the image of God.

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word tselem is translated as image. It refers to that which is visible. In other words, imago dei points to humanity as representatives of God in Creation. Throughout the Scriptures, creating visible representations of God is prohibited. In such places, tselem translates as "idol." Yet, in Genesis 1, God created people to serve as a visible image of the divine. We are God’s representative agents. We may read this as a missional mandate: God created people to be reflections of the Creator God. 

Humanity stands before the rest of Creation as a witness to the God who fashioned the heavens and the earth. Thus, from the beginning of Creation, humans were born for a purpose. This mission was to represent the character of God before the rest of Creation.

As a result of being forged in the image of God, humans fulfill a key role for God. God created humanity to rule over creation. In our day, we have twisted this vocation into an excuse for abusing the earth and devaluing our fellow creatures. Genesis does indeed grant a high place to humanity, but this has to be understood in light of a representational authority. Humanity does rule for its own sake or prerogatives. Humanity exercises dominion over creation on behalf of God. The actions of people are to mirror those of God. 

Humanity’s mission is to reflect God’s character and prerogatives in its exercise of authority. We don’t act for ourselves, but for God and for others. We love others including enemies and the created world as an outflow of our love for God. An authority rooted in love is the only dominion that Genesis envisions. In its wider context, Genesis 2:15 confirms this reality, “The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it” (italics added). We may even call this dominion through servanthood.

The Apostle Paul will make a similar connection between creation and mission in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. In the same context in which Paul describes those in Christ as part of a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17), he uses the language of diplomacy in stating that as part of the new creation, “so we are God’s ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us” (2 Cor 5:20).


There are two elements present in this missional function: holiness and community. Genesis 1 assumes that humanity will achieve its mission of representing God through two means. Humanity represents God to the World by reflecting God’s character. This is the essence of holiness. Related to this is the reality that God did not create a solitary human creature, but differentiated humanity into its two sexes – male and female. Humanity thus was created to live in genuine community with one another.


We may summarize humanity’s role as God’s visible representatives to Creation with three words:

Mission (Connect) – humanity serves as the mediator/ambassador between God and Creation  

Holiness (Reflect)  – humanity embodies and reflects God’s character  

Community (Relate) – humanity lives in authentic and intimate community as part of its reflection of God’s character in fulfillment of God’s mission


Every single person who has ever lived was created for this purpose. Thus all people have intrinsic value and worth. 

Everyone has amazing potential. The problem is that we tend to turn away from God and seek our own way.

3) Jesus as the Fullest Reflection of Our True Humanity
Jesus came to deliver humanity from the darkness of sin. Post–Genesis 3, the persistence and pervasiveness of human sinfulness alienates us from God and ruptures creation itself. 
 In response to sin, Jesus came to live the only truly human life. He perfectly enacted and fulfilled the mission of God. Jesus, the Word, took on our flesh and made known to humanity the truth and reality of God:


NIV John 1:14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15 John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’” 16 From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.

Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus has made it possible for humanity to live out God’s original purposes. By reconciling us to God and filling us with the Holy Spirit, Jesus awakens humanity to God’s creational purposes and unleashed his people to live the life that God created them to live.

Conclusion:
God created us to serve a profound role. Humanity is the jewel of God’s creation. God has created each person to serve in God’s mission. As such, humanity lives to connect the reality of God to Creation by reflecting God’s character corporately in community and individually as persons created in God’s image.

We must not read these functions as static or attempt to straight jacket every human being into some clone or ideal. If God is endlessly creative, why should we attempt to “standardize” humanity? Are not we in the Church often guilty of producing “followers of Jesus” who are too often closer to being protégés or a Mini-Me than true reflections of Jesus? If God created every human being with a distinct set of fingerprints, why would we ever want to limit the creativity and skill set of followers of Jesus? It is time for the Church to call people to discover their true humanity in Jesus Christ. It is time for us to Awaken humanity.

What if following Jesus Christ truly was the means of awakening all of your potential to live as the person you were created to be?

© 2006 Brian D. Russell (Revised 12/2016)

For more on reading Scripture missionally, check out my latest book (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World:

Missional Insights from Israel's Story (Genesis–Nehemiah): Learning to Live as God’s Missional People

            

Many readers of the Bible struggle integrating the Old Testament into their understanding of the Christian life and mission. Yet Israel’s Scriptures are ripe with insight for understanding God’s mission and role of God’s people in it. In this essay, I will sketch out key takeaways from Israel’s story to help guide us as we follow Jesus today.            

(1) Genesis 1–11 set the stage for God’s mission by describing the universe as God intended for it to be and by acknowledging the profound lostness of people and brokenness of Creation due to human rebellion.

Israel’s creation accounts (Genesis 1–2) describe God carefully and deliberately crafting a very good creation. Humanity stands at the pinnacle of God’s creative activity and at the center of God’s missional plans. In God’s original plan, humanity was to fill the earth and serve as the invisible creator God’s visible representatives. Men and women were to live as a community that embodied God’s character and served God’s mission of caring for God’s world.

In Genesis 3–11 human sin ruptures creation. Humanity is lost and creation itself is broken. Paul aptly summarizes Genesis 3–11 in Romans 3:23, “All have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory….” The iconic narratives of the Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah’s Flood, and the Tower of Babel serve as warnings against humanity’s hubris and injustice by demonstrating the costliness of sin.

Genesis 1–11 is crucial for understanding the rest of the Bible. It sets Israel’s story in the context of all nations and as part of God’s answer to the brokenness of the world.

(2) God’s answer to the chaos and tragedy of Genesis 3–11 is to call a new humanity to serve as his missional people to reflect his character to the world.

God calls Abraham and his descendants to be agents of blessing to all people (Genesis 12:3b). After the deliverance from Egypt, this calling becomes embedded into God's vision for his liberated people (Exod 19:4–6): they will serve as a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation." God’s actions in saving God’s people are for the purpose of extending blessing to all nations. This gives us a critical perspective for understanding Israel’s story. God is for Israel for the sake of all people rather than against all people for the sake of Israel. God continues to call God’s people to serve as embodiments of grace to the world.

(3) God is faithful to his promises and powerful to save.

This theme reverberates from God’s interactions with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Exodus from Egypt, settlement in Canaan, protection from enemies, and the return from Exile.  Israel’s story is one of audacious hope. The future is ultimately secure because the Creator God has a mission to bless the nations and restore creation. This future does not depend on human ingenuity or power, but on God alone. This is good news.

(4) God’s faithfulness and grace is the final word.

God’s people repeatedly act unfaithfully in the Old Testament but this does not negate God’s ability to advance his kingdom in advance of the arrival of Jesus the Messiah. Exile to Babylon was well deserved, but it was a longtime coming as God’s mercy and patience prolonged its arrival. Even when exile came in 587 BC, it lasted only 50 years before God led God’s people a second time to the promised land. Israel’s story testifies to a hope and restoration on the other side of sin and judgment.

(5) Faithful obedience is the proper response to God’s grace and faithfulness to God’s people.

How do God’s people respond to grace? Israel’s story teaches us that it is with faithful living that reflects the character and mission of God. Israel’s obedience is not the precondition of relationship with God, but the result of the experience of salvation. Faithful living is the means by which God’s people witness to the nations the goodness and greatness of God.

(6) Israel’s story demonstrates the potential and snares of living as God’s people among the nations.

The key takeaway is the necessity of faithfulness as God’s people embody a missional holiness for the nations. When we read Scripture’s portrayal of Israel, we are often struck by the repeated failures of Israel to practice faithfulness. This stands in contrast to the mission that God has called Israel to embody for the sake of the world. Israel’s potential and failings serve as a witness to God’s people today.

(7) Idolatry and injustice are the principal impediments to faithfulness. 
God’s missional people must be vigilant against all practices that negate their witness by obstructing their love for God (idolatry) and love for neighbor including a love for creation (injustice). Israel’s story focuses on the ongoing danger of idolatry and injustice for God’s people. As we seek to live faithfully as God’s witnesses in the world, the temptation to elevate “gods” over the one true Creator and Savior remains as does the human tendency to practice injustice to elevate our own sense of power, influence or importance.

© 2016 Brian D. Russell, Revised May 2018.

For more exploration of missional readings of the Bible, see my books (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World (Cascade, 2016) and Invitation: A Ten Week Bible Study (Invitation, 2015). 

Starting Points for Biblical Interpretation: Part One (Luke 24:44–49)

Learning to read Scripture involves a commitment to understanding how the entire Bible fits together. My two recent books Invitation (Seedbed, 2015) and (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World (Cascade, 2016) have reflected on the narrative of the Bible as a coherent story from Creation to New Creation.

NIV Luke 24:44-49 He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." 45 Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. 46 He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high."

This text occurs in the climactic section of Luke’s Gospel. The risen Jesus meets with his astonished band of disciples and begins to prepare them for their ministry as apostles. Here are some of the highlights:

1) Jesus views his life, death, and resurrection as the fulfillment of Scripture. Notice Jesus’ use of the phrase “Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms.” This is shorthand for the totality of Israel’s Scriptures. Jesus taught his followers to read the Scriptures messianically. In other words, Jesus’ followers read the whole Bible as a witness to the mission of God as fulfilled in Jesus. This does not mean, as it has in some quarters of the Church, that the Old Testament becomes a mere pool of proof texts for the coming of Jesus. For example, the whole purpose of the book of Micah was not to predict that Bethlehem would be the place from which the messiah would come (Mic 5:2). Rather the Church is to listen to the witness of the Old Testament on its own terms and to recognize a trajectory that points beyond its witness to the coming of God’s Messiah to usher in the age of salvation.

2) Scripture is to be read missionally. If most Churches do a good job recognizing and teaching Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament, it struggles in emphasizing the missional implications of this. Look again at verses 47-48. As a result of recognizing Jesus as the long-awaited messiah from God, the apostles are unleashed into the nations to be God’s witnesses. In other words, learning to read the Old Testament as a witness to Jesus is not about mere information it is about being transformed into a missional community with good news to share with the world. This will impact our reading of the Bible because it invites us to read Scripture missionally. That is we read the Bible not merely as a guide to personal piety or to create theological systems, but most profoundly in order to shape our own missional practice as we seek to live faithfully in our world as Jesus’ witnesses. The starting point for a missional reading of the Bible is the recognition of this reality. Christopher Wright in his essay “Mission as a Matrix for Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology” on page 109 asks, “Is it possible, is it valid, is it profitable for Christians to read the Bible as a whole from a missional perspective, and what happens when they do?” Wright, of course, believes that this is indeed the proper approach. Perhaps the pages of the New Testament bear witness to what happens when Christians do indeed read and act on the Scripture’s missional message. Wright's most comprehensive work on missional reading can be found in his seminal work The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative.

3) The Spirit of God empowers the Church. Verse 49 promises the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. This of course was fulfilled at Pentecost in Acts 2, but I want to suggest that this on-going reality has implications for our reading of the Bible. We do not read the Bible merely out of our own intellect, experience, education, and setting. Since the Spirit of God abides in each believer, it is important to recognize the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation. We do not read alone. Prayer for illumination is vital so that the Spirit of Truth may lead his people into the truth. I don’t want to overemphasize this aspect and I don’t see the indwelling of the Spirit as somehow legitimizing any or every reading of a text offered by a believer as there is a profound synergy involved in the interpretive process. But a text such as Luke 24 promises the empowerment of the Spirit in the life of the Church on mission. This implies, I think, guidance for the Church in its reading of the text as it seeks to bear faithful witness to the world about the salvation that God offers in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Let us apply this promise by continually praying that the Lord would astonish us anew with the richness of the Word.

Ps 29: A Missional Reading

   Psalm 29 announces the eternal reign of the LORD. It portrays the revelation of the LORD's power through the imagery of a thunder storm. By doing so, Ps 29 subverts the claims of the Canaanite god Baal who was the storm god. This psalm models a missional use of culture to teach the truth about reality and God using the language of Israel's religious context.

Psalm 29

¹ Ascribe to the Lord, you heavenly beings,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
² Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

³ The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
    the God of glory thunders,
    the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
⁴ The voice of the Lord is powerful;
    the voice of the Lord is majestic.
⁵ The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;
    the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.
⁶ He makes Lebanon leap like a calf,
    Sirion like a young wild ox.
⁷ The voice of the Lord strikes
    with flashes of lightning.
⁸ The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
    the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
⁹ The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
    and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

¹⁰ The Lord sits enthroned over the flood;
    the Lord is enthroned as King forever.
¹¹ The Lord gives strength to his people;
    the Lord blesses his people with peace.

Psalm 29 is a hymn of praise that serves to declare the eternal kingship of the LORD. This is a psalm of orientation. It reminds us of the power, grandeur and prestige of God. It uses imagery drawn from its ancient Near Eastern context. It uses the imagery of creation and a thunderstorm. This language evoked feelings of awe for its original readers because it touched on core elements of Ancient Near Eastern religious thought. We need to read between the lines to hear its rich message in our 21^st century world.

In Israel’s day, all nations worshiped and served different gods and goddesses. One of the key ways of demonstrating the power of a god or goddess was through stories of the gods controlling and shaping creation. If a god had power over creation, this god could claim to be the true King. Another important element to show a God’s strength was the ability to create and sustain life. Rain was central to the well being of ancient people who depended on rainfall for the growing of food. For the ancient Canaanites, one of the most powerful gods was Baal. If you read through the Old Testament, Baal is one of the foreign deities that God’s people often turned to during times of apostasy (e.g., 1 Kings 18:20–40). Baal was the Story god and thus served as a god of fertility. The rain that he sent fertilized the earth and brought forth crops for the ancients.

In Psalm 29, the psalmist draws on language that is similar to the type of images associated with Baal and other similar gods. But there is one major difference. This is a psalm that declares boldly that it is the LORD who is the true king.

As we’ve been reading through the laments of Book 1 of the Psalter (Pss 1–41), we’ve repeatedly read prayers for protection from enemies. As part of these prayers, the psalmists have proclaimed their own integrity, devotion, and commitment to the LORD. We need to read these statements of integrity against the competing religions of the day. If the psalmists had lost their trust in the LORD, it would not mean that they would have become atheists as some do in our day. Instead they would have turned to some other god or goddess—perhaps the god or goddess of the people who were oppressing them.

 
Psalm 29 works against this by subverting the claims of competing gods. The Scriptures declare that the LORD is incomparable to any other god and in fact by the time of Isaiah the prophets declared of the LORD, “Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other” (Isa 45:22). Yet the false worship of idols continued in Israel. Psalm 29 thus uses imagery that others used to worship Baal and shifted the language to make it about the LORD. The psalmist does this to lift up the LORD as our true source of security in the world. He is King. He alone can be trusted with our lives. 

Commentary on Psalm 29

Psalm 29 unfolds in three movements: vv. 1-2 is an invitation to the hosts of heaven to worship the LORD, vv. 3–9 describes the coming of the LORD in a storm, and vv. 10–11 contains God’s blessing on God’s people.

Psalm 29:1–2 exhort the hosts of heaven to give the LORD the honor due his name and worship him in all of his splendor. Psalm 29 begins not with God’s people on the earth but with the beings in the presence of God in his heavenly courtroom. We saw a similar exhortation in Ps 148:1–2. The scope of the worship implied in Ps 29 will be all inclusive: everyone everywhere will grant the LORD the honor and glory due his name.

The imagery for the LORD is majestic and emphasizes his overall awesomeness. The phrase “splendor of his holiness” emphasizes distinctiveness of the LORD as ethically perfect, the one who stands above and beyond creation, and who acts rightly in all circumstances.

Verses 3–9 give the basis for this call to praise. In these verses, the coming of the LORD is portrayed through the imagery of a powerful thunderstorm that is roaring and coming off the sea toward the temple. The thunder is likened to the voice of the LORD. It shatters the silence and echoes out across the waters. In the ancient world, the waters of the sea represented a chaotic and destructive force. Here the LORD’s voice in the thunder demonstrates God’s superiority over all other forces (vv. 3-4).

In verses 6–9a, the voice of the LORD subdues and strikes mighty trees, nations, and deserts. All of the place names in these verses stand outside of Israel proper. The implication is that the LORD is not merely the true King of Israel, but is indeed the King of all Creation. The storm imagery is vivid. Imagine the most severe thunderstorm you’ve experienced and feel the power of the language here as the psalmist helps us to feel coming of the LORD.

Verse 9b gives the only fitting response to the awe-inspiring arrival of the LORD in the storm. All who have gathered cry out, “Glory!” Glory is the perceived awesomeness and weightiness of God’s presence. It is an acknowledgement of God’s greatness and our smallness in his presence. It is the feeling that we get when we stand before a majestic mountain or a huge waterfall or come other wonder of the world.

Verses 10–11 make explicit the message of the storm imagery. The LORD is King of Creation and rules forever. The earth is secure for God’s people. The LORD strengthens them and extends his blessings to them.

     
This psalm invites us to ground our security in the knowledge and assurance that the God of Creation is alive and well. He sustains our world, but more importantly for us as we seek to live faithfully, he promises to sustain us as we journey through this world on mission.   
© 2016 Brian D. Russell  

It's finally out! My text on missional reading: (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World is now available.

I am pleased to announced the publication of (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World. This is my introduction to a missional reading of the Bible. I wrote it for church planters, pastors, teachers, and seminarians to serve as a guide to unleashing the power of Scripture in the advance of the Christ following movement in the 21st century.

Here are the recommendations from the back cover:

Eddie Arthur (director of strategic initiatives for Global Connections): 
This book...makes a well–argued case for reading Scripture through a missional lens and gives practical guideline for how to do this. If this were all the book did, it would be well worth a read; but it goes a step further. It calls us to action...This isn't the most comfortable book you will ever read on the subject of hermeneutics, but it is one of the most challenging.

Joel B. Green (Dean of the School of Theology and Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Fuller Theological Seminary):
What would happen if the church read its Scripture for the sake of God's mission in the world? What would this look like? And how might we shape communities of Christ followers for whom these questions are central? Here's the long-awaited manual for those of us who are interested in missional hermeneutics. Russell shows the way. Take and read.

 

   

Introduction to Missional Hermeneutics (Video Lectures)

I'm teaching Introduction to the Old Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary this semester.

As part of this course, I introduce the practice of missional hermeneutics. I'll go into much more detail in class but I've created a series of three videos that discuss the role and practice of missional hermeneutics for the church and world.

The Missional Implications of Hearing the Bible's Big Picture

The biblical narrative tells the story of Creation — Fall — Israel (God’s New Humanity) — Jesus the Messiah — Church — New Creation. See my essay God's Mission and Scripture's Story to review this framework.

1) Mission is the common thread that unites the Old and New Testaments into the Christian Bible. Seeing the Big Picture is essential for understanding the Holy Scriptures. This is not a call for a reading of Scripture that erases tensions.[1] Rather the differing voices in Scripture point to the missional dimension of the Canon.  Beeby argues that “mission rarely occurs without conflict.”[2]  Tensions within Scripture serve as witnesses to God’s call on people in various contexts to live faithfully.  Different times, contexts, and cultures call for different emphases.  Beeby writes:

This biblical parliament includes wisdom books which differ greatly from the prophets.  Within wisdom Job does not agree with Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes is out of tune with almost everybody.  The prophets include Jeremiah and Isaiah who concur on much but differ considerably…No wonder that some deny to [Scripture] any unity.  But it has a unity: a unity in tension, a harmony of conflicting forces that can speak to all sorts and conditions of humanity, in all sorts and conditions of human joy and anguish.  At times we must hear one voice more than others.  In affluence we must hear the vocation to poverty, in strength we must be conscious of the power of weakness; severity must temper goodness and law nourish grace lest it become cheap.[3]

Think about some of the more famous tensions in Scripture: differences in created order in Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4-25 or the different perspectives on faith and works found in Paul’s letter to Galatians and the writings of James. Does not reading these in the larger framework of God’s mission place the relationship of these texts in a new light? Rather than seeing the Bible as hopelessly diverse and without any center, an emphasis on the mission of God serves as the light that brings out of the true beauty and unity of the kaleidoscope of Scripture.

The review of the Big Picture of the Old and New Testament suggests that Scripture forms a story. It is the story of the Mission of God from Creation – Fall – Israel – Jesus – Church – New Creation in which the Creating and Redeeming God invites humanity to live as the people of God for the world.

Theologian Robert Jensen observes:
Scripture’s story is not part of some larger narrative; it is itself the larger narrative of which all other true narratives are parts. And so do not when reading Scripture try to figure out how what you are reading fits into some larger story; for there is no larger story.[4]

2) All of Creation matters to God. God’s ultimate mission is the full redemption of all creation. As we saw the Bible begins with a Creation which God himself evaluates as “very good” (Gen 1:31). This “very good” Creation is undone in part by human sin (Genesis 3-11, note specifically the cursing of the earth in the aftermath of the disobedience of Adam and Eve in Gen 3:17-19, cf. Romans 8:18-23). Likewise, the New Testament ends with a testimony of a New Heavens and a New Earth, including the creation of a New Jerusalem which functions as the focal point of God’s ultimate reign.
God’s love for creation implies a sufficient ground for a missional theology that is worldly in at least three respects:

First, humans remain God’s stewards over creation – creatures, plants, and inanimate material. It is contrary to Scripture to participate in the abuse of Creation. The care of God’s creation is part of the missio dei.

Second, in the post-Genesis 3-11 reality in which we find ourselves, the world remains the context in which the present mission will occur. The tension in Scripture involves the issue of the universal love of God for the world and his particular election of Israel to serve as God’s distinct people “his treasured possession” (Exod 19:4-6; Deut 7:6 cf. Titus 2:14 and 1 Pet 2:9). To some, the particular election of Israel is a theological problem around the issue of fairness. What about the rest of the world? Does God only care for Israel? The Old Testament confronts this head on by beginning the way that it does. Scripture opens up with a universal scope. Genesis 1-11 is not about Israel but about the world. The call of Abraham in Genesis 12 is a move from the universal to the particular in terms of the narrative, but not in terms of its intent. The call of Abraham is to a single family, but it is ultimately a call to servanthood as the agents through whom God will bless the nations. Genesis 12:3b reads, “…all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

The Mosaic Torah serves to function as the authoritative core of the Old Testament witness. It fundamentally serves as a polity for the people of God. This polity includes living in harmony with God’s creational intentions which involves humanity’s mission to share God’s blessings with all creation. As Christians, we may find the word sacrament to be helpful here. God’s desire for the people of God is for them to serve as a sacrament, a means of grace, to the world. Paul seems aware of this necessity in his great chapter on reconciliation in 2 Corinthians 5. After writing, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a New Creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (v. 17), he immediately turns to role that the “new creation” has for the rest of creation – “All this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (v. 18). In other words, God’s response to Fall has been to call a people to serve the world (especially other humans) on behalf of the Creator. This is a worldly vocation.

Last, mission began at creation, and not merely after the Fall. Even before human sin entered the world, there was mission. God’s creative acts in Genesis 1 serve as a model of this. God’s actions are purposeful. He creates the “very good” ordered world out of the raw material described as in Hebrew as tohu wabohu “formless void” (Gen 1:2). Even humanity is giving a missional function at creation. Humanity, forged in the image of God, is to reflect God’s character in its vocation of care over Creation and in its filling of Creation (Gen 1:26-31).

3) Rather than talking about a “biblical basis for missions” we should affirm, as Chris Wright suggests a “missional basis for the Bible.”[5] Scriptures through the power of the Holy Spirit continues to call the Church today to participate in God’s mission. Mission is the reason for which the Church continues to exist. It is the role of each individual church and each individual Christian to find his or her vocation in light of this reality. Ostensibly, mission will continue on even in the New Heavens and the New Earth as humanity returns empowered by the Holy Spirit to fulfill God’s original creational intentions.

4) We need to learn a new way of reading the Bible that reemphasizes the missional center of Scripture. It can no longer function primarily as a source of private piety. We need to relearn to read Scripture through a missional lens in which those who already follow Jesus are shaped into missionary witnesses and those who are not following Jesus are invited to full participation in the only community that truly exists for the benefit of the world.

© 2015 Brian D. Russell

For more information, see my book, (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World (Cascade, 2016).

Need a curriculum or guide to learn the Bible's Big Picture? Check out Invitation.



[1] For an excellent study on the diversity within the OT see John Goldingay, Theological Diversity and the Authority of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987).
[2] Harry Daniel Beeby, “A Missional Approach to Renewed Interpretation” in Renewing Biblical Interpretation, eds Craig Bartholomew, Colin Greene, and Karl Möller (Cumbria and Grand Rapids: Paternoster and Zondervan, 2000), 279.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Robert Jensen, “Scripture’s Authority in the Church” in Art of Reading Scripture, 34.
[5] Mission of God, 22.

Reading with a Missional Hermeneutic (Psalm 2): Part Two

Interested in missional hermeneutics. Here is how I talk about Psalm 2 from the perspective of a missional reading. Thank you to Seedbed for filming and producing this video:

Reading with a Missional Hermeneutic (Psalm 2): Part Two

Seven Minute Seminary Video: Reading with a Missional Hermeneutic (Psalm 1)

Here is the first of two videos reading Psalms 1 and 2 through the lens of mission.

Check it out here.

What is a Missional Hermeneutic?

This essay was originally published in Catalyst in 2010. 

What is a Missional Hermeneutic?

A missional hermeneutic (MH) is an interpretive approach that privileges mission as the key to reading the Scriptures. MH works across the spectrum of approaches to the biblical text. It takes seriously the historical situation of the text (“behind the text”). It recognizes the influence of the reader’s social location (“in front of the text”). Yet it is fundamentally rooted in a close reading of the text (“the world of the text”). MH seeks to hear the Scriptures as an authoritative guide to God’s mission in the world so that communities of faith can participate fully in God’s mission.

At the 2008 meeting of AAR/SBL, George R. Hunsberger (“Proposals for a Missional Hermeneutic: Mapping the Conversation”) reviewed current proposals on missional hermeneutics and organized them into four categories: The Missional Direction of the Story, The Missional Locatedness of the Readers, The Missional Engagement with Cultures, and The Missional Purpose of the Writings. I have adopted Hunsberger’s categories for the purposes of this essay.

The Missional Direction of the Story

A missional hermeneutic recognizes that the biblical canon tells the story of God’s mission (missio dei) in and for creation. The story of God’s mission can be summarized as Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus the Messiah, Church, and New Creation.

The Bible opens with the creation of the heavens and earth by God. The human community is crafted in God’s image as the pinnacle of God’s handiwork. Men and women function equally as the image of God for the sake of the rest of Creation. From the beginning, humanity was created for God’s missional purposes to represent God before Creation by reflecting God’s character in community with God, with one another, and with the world. 

Genesis 3-11 function in the story to explain the fundamental problem in the world. The “very good” Creation of Genesis 1-2 is shattered by human sinfulness. Sin infests every human person and institution as well as fractures creation itself. The stories and genealogies of Gen 3-11 describe the world in which we find ourselves this side of God’s New Creation. Yet in the midst of the chaos of sin and brokenness, Gen 3-11 presents a God who does more than pass the expected judgment—the God of the Scriptures begins to act to redeem a fallen world.

In Genesis 12, God calls a new humanity into being with a series of promises to Abram and his descendents. This people exist to serve as the agents of God’s blessings for the nations (Gen 12:3). The narrative of God’s new humanity runs uninterrupted through the Protestant canon from Gen 12 – Esther. God’s new humanity becomes the nation of Israel. It is decisively shaped through God’s liberation of Israel from Egyptian bondage and through the forging of a covenant at Sinai. Israel’s deliverance from Egypt is purposeful and is undertaken for the sake of the world. At Sinai, Israel is called to serve as God’s missional people, a holy community for the nations (Exod 19:4-6). The remaining books of the Pentateuch establish a polity for God’s people as they prepare to live faithfully in the Promised Land as a witness to the nations. Joshua to Esther narrate the potential and pitfalls of God’s people living in Canaan including the devastation of the Exile due to disobedience and the resilience of God’s faithful love shown through God’s restoration of Judah from Exile.

A large portion of the Old Testament is not set within a narrative framework. How do the Psalms, the Wisdom Literature, and the Prophets fit in the story?

The book of Psalms serves as the prayer and worship book for God’s people. The psalms reverberate with themes of God’s reign over the nations. Through lament, thanksgiving, and praise, the psalms encourage an expansive vision of the worship of God that ultimately climaxes in the concluding exhortation: Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! (150:6). The psalms root God’s people in a vital worshipping relationship with the Lord, the Creator of the World and Deliverer of Israel.

Israel’s Wisdom traditions serve God’s story by offering serious reflection on the God’s creation and the good life. Wisdom deals with questions that engage all of humanity. Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs have much in common with the wisdom of Israel’s neighbors. Wisdom is interested in navigating successfully through life. Since God created all that is, the wise can observe life astutely and deduce principles for living in God’s world. This focus on the human side of life makes it easy to connect Israel’s wisdom to culture. Yet, Israel’s unique contribution to the lore of the ancients is profoundly missional: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov 1:7). The implication is this: careful attention to the human condition may prepare persons for the truth about God (cf.  Ecc 12:12-14).

The Prophets (Isaiah – Malachi) contribute to the Israel’s story in three ways. First, Israel’s prophets continually call God’s people back to their roots as a missional community that embodies God’s holiness before the nations. The Prophets take Israel to task for failing to live as God’s people. Second, the Prophets maintain an international focus. The God of Israel is the Lord of the nations and as such the prophets speak words of both judgment and salvation to the nations. Provocatively Jonah audaciously announces God’s love for even the most committed opponents of God’s people. Last, the Prophets envision a new future work of God’s salvation (e.g., Jer 31:31-34, etc.).

It is against the backdrop of Israel’s Scriptures that Jesus the Messiah enters the story. Jesus lives as the ultimate human being who fulfills in his life, death, and resurrection God’s Creational intentions for humanity and everything that God had envisioned for Israel as God’s new humanity. Jesus’ death is for the totality of the Fall and his resurrection declares the ultimate victory of God. The Gospels narrate Jesus’ life and ministry to teach future generations of disciples what it means to follow Jesus. The core of Jesus’ message is the announcement of the arrival of God’s kingdom and his call to realign our lives in light of this reality (Matt 4:17, Mark 1:15 cf. Luke 4:16-21).

In the aftermath of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, the Risen Jesus sends out the Church to announce and extends God’s salvation to the nations. The Church is unleashed in the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament witnesses to the spread of the Gospel across the 1^st century Mediterranean world. The Scriptural story goes forth from the land of Israel to the nations in fulfillment of the Israel’s mission. The New Testament epistles serve as teaching documents for fledgling missional communities around the Mediterranean world.

The Scriptural story ends with Revelation’s portrait of God’s future New Creation (Rev 20-21).

Learning to understand the big story of the Scriptures is more than a descriptive task. The story of the Scriptures seeks to convert its readers/hearers to its perspective. The Scriptural story invites its readers to understand their lives as part of its narrative.

The Missional Locatedness of the Readers

An interpreter’s social location serves a crucial role in the reading process. It may provide a fresh perspective for reading a text or it may distort a text’s meaning. Michael Barram (“The Bible, mission, and social location: Toward a missional hermeneutic.” Interpretation 61 (2007): 42-58) has argued that readers must locate themselves in mission. The biblical texts were written in a missional context. Participating in God’s mission enables contemporary readers to find common ground with the ancient text’s perspective.  

Moreover, engaging in missional activity in the world creates new questions with which to engage the Bible and is crucial for learning to hear the text for both church and world. A practitioner of MH learns to listen to a text on behalf of the people to whom s/he serves as a witness. Missional engagement unleashes the interpreter to read a text through the eyes both of Christ followers and of unreached persons. The wise interpreter learns through missional praxis the sorts of questions that an outsider to the faith may raise when hearing a biblical text. Thus, the practice of reading the Bible from a missional locatedness trains us to read and hear the Scripture from contested spheres in the marketplace and not only in the realm of the sanctuary where we “preach to the choir.”

The Missional Engagement with Cultures

A third line of inquiry in the field of MH is the manner in which the biblical materials themselves model engagement with culture. We gain new insights about 21^st century incarnational ministry by studying the ways in which biblical texts communicate to their context. For example, how do the Creation stories of Genesis engage and subvert the dominant worldviews of Israel’s neighbors? How do the similarities between the narrative structure of Exodus 15:1b-18 and the Baal Epic serve to promote Israel’s understanding of reality to their Canaanite context? How does Paul use existing modes of communication in the Greco-Roman world to enhance the persuasiveness of his writing?

The Missional Purpose of the Writings

MH recognizes that the Scriptures exist to convert and shape their hearers. Most of us have been trained to read the Bible as the basis for doctrine and individual piety. MH reminds us that Scripture is concerned with shaping communities of God’s people into outposts for the advancement of the Gospel. Darrell Guder has been on the forefront of emphasizing this aspect. He writes concerning the New Testament documents (“Missional Pastors in Maintenance Churches” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians 31.3 (2005): 4.):

… NT communities were all founded in order to continue the apostolic witness that brought them into being. Every NT congregation understood itself under the mandate of our Lord at his ascension: “You shall be my witnesses.” …To that end, the NT documents were all, in some way, written to continue the process of formation for that kind of witness. They intended the continuing conversion of these communities to their calling—and that is how the Spirit used (and still uses!) these written testimonies.

Thus, we need to ask specifically how each text was intended to form God’s people into a missional community. Moreover this is not merely a NT perspective. As shown above, the thread of mission runs across the biblical canon. Both OT and NT texts can be read profitably in terms of how they seek to form the people of God for the sake of God’s mission to all Creation.

In his recent essay “Prophet to the Nations: Missional Reflections on the Book of Jeremiah,” Christopher Wright raised a related question: What does this text teach about the missional cost to the messenger? Wright expands the dimension of a biblical text’s teaching. Wright shows that the book of Jeremiah explicitly displays the personal cost to the prophet of participation in God’s mission. Raising the issue of missional cost is crucial as we seek to create a missional ethos in our congregations.

The Potential of a Missional Hermeneutic for Preachers and Teachers

1) MH provides a context and direction for preaching/teaching. Learning to read discrete texts within the grand narrative of God’s mission as described in Scripture provides a crucial angle for communicating the Gospel. The interpreter recognizes that every text in the Bible helps to shape the people of God to serve as a missional community that embodies the character of God in/to/for the world. 

In preparation for preaching and teaching, ask questions such as these:

How does this text help us to understand God’s mission in the world?

How do we need to change in order to live out this text corporately and individually?

How does this passage serve as an invitation to the world to join God’s mission?

What kind of persons does this text call us to become?

2) MH connects worship explicitly with life in the world by establishing a missional ethos for the community of faith. Learning to read the Scriptures through MH keeps God’s mission on the front burner for all aspects of the community. Most profoundly it keeps the worship of the Triune God grounded in God’s missional intentions for humanity and all creation. Biblical worship at its core is profoundly missional. The aim of God’s mission is worship. Humanity was created to serve as God’s missional community before creation. As God’s new humanity, the Church worships as a bold and daring testimony to the world of the greatness of God and as an invitation to unreached persons to become part of God’s new humanity for the sake of the world.

3) MH establishes a new framework for learning. As communities of faith struggle to break the grips of the paradigm of serving as inward-focused dispensers of religious goods and services to serving as outposts for the sake of God’s Kingdom, MH provides a different outcome for learning. “Christian education” is no longer merely learning facts about the stories of the Scriptures or grasping the basics of the historical creeds of the church. The goal of learning in the Church now becomes a constant conversion to the message of Scripture so that each disciple can be shaped into the sort of person that s/he needs to become in order to participate fully in God’s mission in the world. All learning can now be set in the context of the missional reality of the 21^st century Church.

Suggested Reading:

Barram, Michael. “The Bible, mission, and social location: Toward a missional hermeneutic.” Interpretation 61 (2007): 42-58.

Bauckham, Richard. The Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004.

Beeby, Harry D. Canon and Mission. Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999.

Bosch, David J. “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Mission’” Mission Studies 3.2 (1986): 65-79.

Brownson, James. Speaking the Truth in Love: New Testament Resources for a Missional Hermeneutic. Christian Mission and Modern Culture. Continuum, 1998.

Guder, Darrell C. (ed). Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America. Gospel and Culture Network. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998.

Guder, Darrell C. “Missional Pastors in Maintenance Churches” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians 31.3 (2005): 4.

Hunsberger, George R. “Proposals for a Missional Hermeneutic: Mapping the Conversation” Gospel and Our Culture Network Newsletter eseries 2 (2009): cn.org/resources/newsletters/2009/01/gospel-and-our-culture

Russell, Brian D. (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World Cascade, 2016.

Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006.

Brian D. Russell (Ph.D.) is Professor of Biblical Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary-Florida Dunnam Campus and John Wesley Fellow. His new book on missional reading (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World is now available.