Introduction to the Book of Deuteronomy

 Deuteronomy offers a vision for God’s people for living out God’s holy love faithfully as a witness to the nations. The book of Deuteronomy serves a dual focus. It uses Israel’s past as a warning against disobedience. But it simultaneously invites the present generation to a life of faithful obedience as the means to enjoying life with God. The LORD liberated God’s people from Egypt as a means of freeing them to serve the LORD as God’s holy people.
 
The name Deuteronomy comes from the Greek translation of 17:18 meaning “second Law.” There is a core section of legal materials (5:6–21 and 12:1–26:19), but the overall shape of Deuteronomy conforms more with the Hebrew name for the book “These are the words.” More than any other part of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy is primarily speech. Moses the central human character in Genesis–Deuteronomy offers a series of addresses crafted to shape the present generation for God’s mission. The situation imagined in Deuteronomy finds God’s people Israel in Moab on the eastern banks of the Jordan river poised for a movement into the Promised Land. Moses will not accompany God’s people, but he delivers a speech to galvanize God’s people for the mission ahead. The Instruction of Moses will define the character of God’s people and provide authoritative guidance for living the liberated life.

Deuteronomy’s Wesleyan vision of God’s people as a holy people is compelling. 

First, Deuteronomy envisions a dynamic relationship between God and God’s people.  The pattern is this: God acts graciously acts for Israel and God’s people respond by living faithfully. God loves God’s people (7:8). God’s gracious love delivered Israel from Egypt and now stands ready to make good on God’s earlier promises of land to Israel ancestors. Deuteronomy understands the relationship between God and God’s people in covenantal terms. In the Old Testament, covenant is the means of formalizing the relationship. Deuteronomy offers a covenant reaffirmation by God’s people as they prepare to enter into the Promised Land (Deut 30:15–20). 

Second, love serves as the defining center of God’s people’s relationship with the LORD. The Shema or Great Commandment (Deut 6:4–5) calls for a whole person response of love to the reality of the LORD as the unique one and only God for God’s people. 

Third, Deuteronomy helps to shape a Wesleyan understanding of sanctification as having a fully devoted heart toward God. Deuteronomy introduces the phrase “circumcision of the heart” to our vocabulary (10:16, 30:6). This command flows from Deuteronomy’s focus on love as the motivation of God’s people in response to God’s love . Whole hearted devotion is rooted in the commandment against idolatry and articulated positively in Great Commandment. The allegiance to the LORD as the “one and only” involves turning from all other gods or temptations in order to serve and love only the LORD. 
Reading Deuteronomy helps us to recognize that Wesley’s doctrine of Christian perfection involves both our will and the work of God in freeing us from all prior allegiances to live fully as God’s people. 

Fourth, faithfulness in relationship is understood in terms of action. God’s people respond to God’s grace with love, fear, obedience, service, by walking in God’s ways, by clinging to the LORD, and by keeping the commandments (Deut 10:12–13, 20). 

Last, Deuteronomy presents the life of holy love as the good life. God’s people will enjoy secure life in the land by carefully living out the Scriptural revelation given through Moses. The exhortation “Choose life” (30:19) summarizes the choice between faithfulness and unfaithfulness as a decision for good. Likewise it signals God’s good intentions for God’s people as they live as his witnesses in the world.

Outline of the book of Deuteronomy

I. 1:1–4:43 Israel’s Past
A. 1:1–5 These are the Words
B. 1:6–46 Failure to Possess the Land
C.  The LORD’s Recent Victories (2:1–3:29)
D. 4:1–43 Exhortation to Faithfulness

II. 4:44–11:32 The Heart of Faithfulness
A. The Instruction of Moses (4:44–49)
B. The Ten Commandments (5:1–33)
C. Israel’s One True Love (6:1–25)
D. The False Gods of Faithlessness (7:1–
E. Loving Commitment (11:1–32)

III. 12:1–28:68 Core Covenantal Commitments
A. Worship as One Holy People (12:1–28)
B. Organizing God's Holy People (12:29–17:13)
C. Leaders Under the Instruction (17:14–18:22)
D. Practicing Justice as God’s Holy People (19:1–25:19)
E. Celebrating the Land as One Holy People (26:1–19)
F. The Blessings and Curses (27:1–28:68)

IV.  29:1–32:52 Choosing Life through Covenant Faithfulness
A. Warnings Against Disobedience (29:1–29)
B. Agenda for Restoration and Renewal (30:1–14)
C. The Call to Choose Life by Aligning Fully with the LORD (30:15–20)
D. Preparing for Moses’ Departure (31:1–29)
E. The Song of Moses 31:30–32:52

V.  33:1–34:12 Final Blessings and the Death of Moses
A. The Blessing of Moses (33:1–29)
B. The Death of Moses (34:1–12)

Select Bibliography
Brueggemann, Walter. Abingdon Old Testament Commentaries: Deuteronomy. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2001.

McBride, S. Dean, Jr. “Polity of the Covenant People: The Book of Deuteronomy” Interpretation 41 (1987): 229–44.

Miller, Patrick D. Deuteronomy: Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching & Preaching). Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990.

Moberly, R. W. L. Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013.

Olson, Dennis T. Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994. (Out of print) Reprinted: Deuteronomy and the Death of Moses: A Theological Reading. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2005.

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.

Implementing a Missional Hermeneutic: Practicing Missional Community

A missional reading of Scripture calls us to become missional communities. We learn to read Scripture to discover what it means to serve as God’s people on mission. We engage the text to invite persons on the outside to become members of our community as they explore the life of faith. Missional communities exist to empower Christ followers to function fully as God’s people in the world. They, likewise, exist to shape outsiders into insiders. In our recent past, the approach to community was “believe first and then belong.” A missional approach encourages women and men to belong first and then believe.

The more disconnected and interconnected that our world becomes the more vital authentic biblical community becomes. God created humanity for community. God calls God’s people to be part of God’s new humanity: a missional community. This claim is rooted in Creation where God forged humanity to live together in shared dominion for the purposes of fulfilling God’s aims for the world. The consistent biblical witness is that God’s salvific aims remain tied to a people rather than to solitary individuals.

    Who is My Community?        

The most basic question is this: Who is my community? With whom do I and will I live my life? Do I belong to a group that loves me authentically and where I can use my gifts and talents fully for God’s mission in the world?

Mission-centered?

What kind of a community are we? Do we exist primarily to equip, send, and go into the world on mission, or are we a community that exists for some other purpose? If mission is not central to the perceived and lived-out DNA of the community, then it is not a missional community.

 Barriers to Community

We must reflect critically on any barriers intentional or unintentional that block others from access to our community. What does a person have to become as a precondition to hearing the Gospel from us? How open are the various components of our community to newcomers? How easy is it for an outsider/seeker to become an insider/follower? Are we so mono-cultural as to be impermeable to persons of different ages, political views, styles of dress, ethnicity, socio-economic status, or any of the elements that fracture the wider human community? Are we in the world enough to be a visible presence or is the chief barrier the fact that we meet primarily inside of a building separated from the world?

Realigning with God

We must ask: What kind of community do we need to become to embody fully the Scriptural vision of a missional community that reflects God’s character to/for/in the world? As we evaluate our community there must be a willingness to change in favor of becoming more permeable to outsiders for the sake of God’s mission.

© 2015 Brian D. Russell

Implementing a Missional Reading of Scripture: Understanding Your Context

Who are the people whom God has called us to reach? What are their stories? What worldviews are held? What causes matter to them? About what do they care? A missional hermeneutic must be attentive to these questions. Obviously we are committed to encountering the Scriptures in all of their richness, but if we hope to share its message with others we must be willing to engage people at a deep level as well. Biblical studies professors often use this quotation to remind students of the centrality of reading the Bible within its literary context: “A text without a context is a pretext for saying anything that an interpreter wants to say.” But it is, likewise, true that a biblical message apart from a local context of people becomes a pretext for misunderstanding and wasted words. We must be committed to shaping our speech, metaphors, and images in light of the context to which we are communicating. When we combine a rich understanding of the biblical story with a deep connection with the people to whom God has sent us, we find ourselves in an environment in which we can truly speak to fellow humans about biblical message of (re)alignment. We find ourselves with the crucified and risen Jesus calling Christ followers to join fully in God’s mission and inviting those on the margins to become part of God’s work of ushering in a different world.

Moreover, we must also gain a sense of the gods that bind the hearts and minds of the women and men in our ministry context. Only when we understand the idols that capture the hearts of the world will we be prepared to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus in ways that subvert the claims and practices of those idols. A missional hermeneutic recognizes that idols exist within both the church and world. They are easy to spot: sex, consumerism, power, family, security, pleasure, and freedom among others.[1] But these have different localized expressions. A missional approach to Scripture listens to the text in light of the idols that reign over our culture.

As interpreters of Scripture, we learn the culture by listening carefully to the stories of the outsiders to the Christ following movement with whom we become friends. We also can learn the culture by reading the books and magazines enjoyed by the masses, and by being conversant and familiar with the popular culture of our day. In a sense, learning to exegete our context involves becoming more worldly in the sense of giving careful attention in terms of time and activities to persons presently outside or on the fringes of the Christ following movement.

A key dimension involves learning to treasure people as people. Talk of mission can sometimes involve bait and switch. We encourage Christians to befriend non-Christians principally for evangelistic purposes. But when a conversion does not follow, we move along to another non-Christian. We need to move to a more relational model of engaging the world where we build lasting friendships regardless of whether our new friend turns to Jesus as Lord or not. Authentic friendships will open up entire new networks of people whom we would otherwise never have met. This will profoundly shape the way that we read the Bible because we will unconsciously begin to see and hear the Scriptures through the eyes and ears of our new friends.  
Interested in more information about reading Scripture through a missional perspective? See my book (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World (Cascade, 2016).

© 2015 Brian D. Russell 

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[1]Alan and Debra Hirsch, Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship (Baker, 2010). See also Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, Power, and the Only Hope that Matters (Dutton Adult, 2009).

Inductive Bible Study (Ideas/Books that Have Shaped Me)

In my first semester at Asbury Theological Seminary (Fall 1991), I had the privilege and good fortune to sign up for David Bauer’s Gospel of Matthew. This course served to introduce me to Inductive Bible Study methodology (then called English Bible). I went on to take 5 Inductive Bible Courses with Professors Bauer, David Thompson, and John Oswalt.

Inductive Bible Study (IBS) revolutionized the way that I read Scripture. David Bauer was my primary mentor. Bauer remains a master teacher. He demonstrated in class a passion for in depth Bible study and modeled diligently and systematically an approach to Scripture that allowed the text to speak on its own terms. IBS freed me to listen to Scripture carefully and deeply based on a close reading of the text. I will testify that my course in Inductive Bible Study was worth the price of my entire Master of Divinity degree. I would not be the person that I am today (or probably be a professor of Biblical Studies) without learning Inductive Bible Study.

Inductive Bible Study is a comprehensive methodological approach that allows a reader of Scripture to move from initial encounter with a text all the way to appropriating/applying its message to our contemporary contexts. IBS teaches learners to study Scripture by making observations of the text, asking questions based on those observations, and then answering the questions first by gathering evidence within the context of the passage itself before turning to outside resources. IBS also teaches one to understand the theological meaning of a text in light of the Canon of Scripture and in light of our present world. This allows one to move from the past historical meaning of a passage in its original context to a biblical theology of the Old and New Testaments to transformative personal and corporate formation through teaching, writing, and preaching about the message of the text.

When I started in IBS in 1991, we used Robert Traina’s seminal work in the field Methodical Bible Study. Traina’s book remains a classic but it is not user friendly for the first time reader. Once you learn the IBS method, Traina’s work becomes more valuable and I’ve read it profitably close to twenty times. It is one of those texts that rewards you every time you reread it.

For beginners, David L. Thompson’s Bible Study That Works is an excellent introductory text. It goes in and out of print but there are plenty of copies around for sale. Bible Study that Works can be read quickly and its overview of IBS method is straightforward. Thompson’s book is based off of presentations that he used to do for local churches to train non-specialists (lay people) to read the Bible well.

For those interested in learning IBS method well, there is no better book available than the joint work of Traina and Bauer Inductive Bible Study: A Comprehensive Guide to the Practice of Hermeneutics. This is a full revision of Methodical Bible Study that engages the modern field of hermeneutics and includes the refinements that David Bauer brought to the instruction of IBS. This is the text book that all Asbury Seminary students use for learning IBS and will be a classic for years to come.

David Bauer has published much IBS teaching material here. This website includes audio lectures by Robert Traina and a host of sample studies and instruction.

My own brief thoughts on IBS method may be found here: Skills for Reading Scripture, Suggestions for a Close Reading of Scripture, Reflecting on a Text's Implications.

Also I consider my work in missional hermeneutics to be a contribution to the appropriation/application part of IBS.

I've also included a chapter on the application/appropriation process in my book (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World . The chapter is titled, "Learning to Speak Human: Methodology and Missional Hermeneutics."

© 2015 Brian D. Russell. Updated and revised 2/29/16 and 7/26/17.

 

Bibliographic Resources for Studying Missional Hermeneutics

Arthur, Eddie. "Reading the Bible with the Global Church."  Encounters Mission Ezine 44 (March 2013)

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

Bauckham, Richard. Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World Canon and Mission (Christian Mission & Modern Culture). Baker, 2004.

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

Brownson, James V. Speaking the Truth in Love: New Testament Resources for a Missional Hermeneutic (Christian Mission & Modern Culture) T&T Clark, 1998.

Brownson, James V. “A Response at SBL to Hunsberger’s ‘Proposals…’ Essay.” The Gospel and Our Culture Network. http://www.gocn.org/resources/articles/response-sbl-hunsbergers-proposals-essay. Jan. 28, 2009.

Goheen, Michael. A Light to the Nations: The Missional Church and the Biblical Story Baker, 2011.

Guder, Darrell C. Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (The Gospel and Our Culture Series) 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 . Jan. 28, 2009.

Russell, Brian D. Invitation: A Ten-Week Bible Study. OneBook. Seedbed, 2015.

Russell, Brian D.  “Psalms 1-2 as anIntroduction to Reading the Psalms Missionally” Encounters Mission Ezine 33 (June 2010).

Russell, Brian D. “What is a Missional Hermeneutic?” Catalyst: Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives for United Methodist Seminarians . April 1, 2010.

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

Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God's People: A Biblical Theology of the Church's Mission (Biblical Theology for Life) Zondervan, 2010.

The Importance of a Missional Reading of the Bible: Implications for Christ followers

1) Mission is central to Scripture. As Christopher Wright suggests there is less a biblical basis for mission than there is a missional basis for the Bible. For a primer on missional hermeneutics, here is a link to my essay "What is a Missional Hermeneutic?" published by Catalyst.

2) Christendom practices approached “Christian” education principally as learning what to believe and how to understand reality. It is vital to learn to think Christianly. But in today’s climate where the very claims of Christianity are not widely accepted or even understood, any approach to Scripture that merely increases the knowledge of insiders is in danger of making the Gospel itself more and more irrelevant to the rest of the world. A missional reading demands a reading of the text from within a context of mission in which Christ followers are engaged not merely with increasing their own grasp of their own faith but are actively engaged with the World in order to make disciples of Jesus. Christian education therefore needs to have as its goal the making of disciples in the biblical sense of the world: disciples who follow Jesus in the mission of making more disciples.

3) A missional reading or hermeneutic pushes the reader beyond a self-referential reading. If we constantly ask questions such as “How does this text shape my own understanding of what God is doing in the world?”or “What sort of persons do I need to become in order to live out the story in the text?”or “What type of community does this text assume and how does our community of faith measure up?”, we begin to ask questions that push us outside of a self-centered reading to connect our transformation with God’s mission. Our reading becomes revolutionary and catalytic for recapturing the sense of movement that characterized the earliest churches.

4) A missional reading pushes both the reader and his/her community of faith to seek constant alignment with God’s work in the world. Conversion is the goal of biblical interpretation.

5) A missional reading forces the reader to read Scripture from the frontier rather than in a privileged position of power. Just as the original recipients of Scripture found themselves a minority in the World (and often a disenfranchised and marginalized minority), communities that deploy a missional reading truly grapple with how to live in the world in a way that serves as a vital and compelling witness to the world.

6) A missional reading drives individuals and communities to action. Like respiration in which we breathe in and breathe out, we must read Scripture and take missional action.

7) A missional reading connects holiness (character), community, and mission. If God’s vision for the community of faith is to become a missional community that reflects God’s character to/in/for the world, then a missional reading is crucial because it understands essence of God’s people around three interlocking themes: mission, holiness, and community. Why does this matter? Because instead of isolating these, we see them in a vital symbiosis. We can talk about a missional holiness, a missional community, a holy community, etc. A community is not biblical unless it is missional and holy. God’s people are not missional apart from holy character and a community. God’s people are not holy unless they are missional and in community. Thus, a missional reading is ultimately not a fragmented way of reading Scripture but an integrated one which holds together the deepest themes of Scripture and allows them their voices to be heard again clearly.

What do you think?

© 2008 Brian D. Russell, Revised 2015

Looking for a missional curriculum resource? My book Invitation presents the biblical narrative from Creation to New Creation through a missional framework. It will instruct its readers in the biblical story and inculcate a missional DNA that includes a strong community and holiness emphasis in support of God's mission. Check out the first chapter and video lesson here.

Reading the Bible Missionally: A Short Guide for Interpreters

The following essay assumes that the reader has already done some interpretive work on a passage of Scripture. Here are two brief essays on the process of interpretation if you desire a refresher: Skills for Reading Scripture (Context) and Suggestions for a Close Reading of A Biblical Text

The goal of interpretation is the conversion of the reader/audience to the message of the biblical text. This involves a continuous realignment with God’s mission as part of a missional community that reflects God’s character to/for/in the world.

Once you’ve carefully read a text and worked out its key teachings, it is critical to connect these teachings with your context and audience. Here is a step by step guide that I follow in my own reading of Scripture:

1) Focused attention must be given to discerning the original application present in the text under consideration. This step serves as a guide to thinking through the application of the text in contemporary communities of faith. 

Here are some key questions to consider:

To whom was the message of the text directed? The faith community, individuals or groups outside of the community, all of the above?

What assumptions does this text make about its audience?

What kind of world does this text imagine to be true for its audience?

What effect did this text intend to have on its audience?

Is there any evidence in the text that would limit its application in any way?

2) Reflect Critically on the Message of the Text in Light of the biblical Canon.

How does our text fit into the overarching narrative of the Bible (Creation – Fall – Israel – Jesus the Messiah – Church – New Creation?

How do the messages of the OT and NT affirm, challenge, nuance, or bring additional light to the message of our text?

3) In light of ##1 and 2, synthesize the key message of our text.

4) Appropriate the Text for a 21^st Century Audience.

The biblical interpreter of today must refuse the privileged position of preaching to the choir or simply pointing out to audiences interesting facts/insights about the Bible. The goal of the biblical Gospel is conversion. The text calls all its hearers to align or realign themselves with the mission of God in the World. It speaks to both insiders (Christ-followers) and outsiders (non-Christ followers).

Here are some key application questions to shape the description of the (Re)alignment for which our text is calling. Every text will not cover all three of the following areas but most texts will fall into at least one of the below categores:

1) Mission:

Insider: How does this text envision God’s work in the world?  Where do God’s people fit into this mission?  How do God’s people need to change to participate more effectively with God’s work?

Outsider: What sort of world is this text inviting me to spend my life working to create?  What would my life look like if I joined this mission?

2) Character:

Insider: What does this text tell us about the character or ethos of God’s people?  What are God’s people supposed to become?  How do God’s people need to change in order to more profoundly reflect the character of God? What sort of person do I need to become in order to live out this text?

Outsider: What type of lifestyle/character is this text inviting me to embody?  How would my life be enriched by aligning my character with the vision of this text?

3) Community:

Insider:  How does this text envision the corporate life of God’s people? How do God’s people need to change in order to embody the portrait of community assumed by this text?

Outsider:  What type of community is this text inviting me to explore? How is this text inviting me to participate in a community that exists for something greater than my own wants and desires?

Once you've thought about how a text speaks to both insiders and outsiders in terms of mission, holiness and community. Use this MAP rubric to formulate your teaching/preaching applications:

M A P

Missional Insight (Head/Thinking): How does this text challenge me to think differently? 

Attitude Alignment (Heart/Deep Surrender/Will): How do I need to (re)align my heart or what I care about?

Plan of Action (Hands/Feet/Mouthpiece): What specific actions do I need to take or rituals do I need to practice to embody the message of this text?

Remember that we must call our hearers (including ourselves) to a whole person response (head/heart/hands). This must involve action.

© 2008 Brian D. Russell (Revised 2015, 2016 and 2017)

All Right’s Reserved

To see a practical application of this method, check out my resource for small groups Invitation. This study presents the overarching biblical narrative in a way that emphasizes mission, community, and holiness. It is100% designed and written for anyone interested in the Bible (Christian or not).  

Pastors and teachers will want to know that my full blown text book on missional hermeneutics is now available: (re)Aligning with God: Reading Scripture for Church and World . 
 

The Dress Debate and Learning to Hear Scripture

What color is it? Blue and Black. White and Gold. This debate has captured media and internet attention over the past week after the image appeared on Tumblr. On the surface, it is a simple question. It's blue and black, right? Then you meet someone who claims that it is white and gold. My own wife saw it both ways at different times of the day.

The scientific community published answers to explain why different people perceive the colors of the dress differently. Keeping it simple, we perceive color through blue, green, and red receptors in our retina. The color scheme in the dress is on the border between colors so depending on how our eyes are hardwired (my term) our brains decode the dress color as blue/black or white/gold. The dress designer intended and believed that she had created a blue/black dress. Some were able to perceive the dress as she intended, but not all. Fascinating.

As readers of Scripture, we need to be aware of what we as readers bring to the text. As we seek to hear the voice of God through an ancient text, it is critical for us to be aware of ways that we may distort its message due to our biases. We may read the text and find elements that are present in the passage, but we may not see the whole story.

For example, David Smith in the beginning of his book Mission After Christendom (pg. 1) tells the story of reading the Joseph narrative (Genesis 37–50) with a group of Nigerian Christians. As a Westerner, Smith assumed that the Nigerians would read this powerful account as a testimony of God's faithfulness and that God's people can trust in God care. To his surprise, the Nigerians interpreted the Joseph story as a a witness to family loyalty. Both of these interpretations are valid, but the believabilty of each derived in part on how it intersected with the cultural values of the readers. It also illustrates some of the cross-cultural differences between readers from Western contexts and those from non-Western (in this case West African) contexts.

To become adept at reading Scripture, the wise reader will become a specialist in studying the context in which he or she is actually reading the Bible. This does not mean that the Bible can mean anything, but it does mean that we need to be aware of our biases (rooted in our political commitments,  theological beliefs, ethnicity, socio-economic status, language, gender, and age). If we forget about these elements, we may find that our preaching, teaching, and sharing of the Bible falls on deaf ears simply because our audience cannot see Scripture in the same colors that we do.

Critical Questions to Learn to See Through the Lenses of Others:
How can we learn to be more critical and discerning readers? Here are some questions that help me:

What does this text assume to be true? 

How do these assumptions affect our reading of the text?

What elements in the text may be offensive in our contemporary context? 
What issues raised will be difficult for Christ followers to understand? 
What issues in the text will be difficult for outsiders to the Christ following movement? 
What are the obvious objections that one could raise to the claims of the text? In what ways does the text answer these objections? 
What part of the text do I wish was not present? 

Words to the Wise

1) Address the obvious issues especially those that are controversial or easy to misunderstand, 

2) Anticipate and answer objections to the message of the text, 

3) Do not assume that the audience understands the contours of the Gospel, 

4) Make sense of the text within its Scriptural context, 

5) Be sensitive to the realities and challenges of your audience, 
6) Trust the Holy Spirit is working in the midst of the community

Remember those on the Fringes of Your Faith Community

How do the Scriptures speak to the homeless teen? 

How do you communicate the Gospel to the thirty-year old Muslim woman that you encounter? 

How do we teach our children to read and talk about Scripture in the increasingly multi-cultural contexts in which they find themselves? 

It is vital for leaders who desire to lead their communities of faith to make impact on the surrounding culture to begin to listen to Scripture with new eyes and ears shaped by questions that outsiders raise.

      Walter Brueggemann believes, following the suggestion of an unnamed colleague, that seminarians need to learn how to preach by engaging in street preaching.[1] Brueggemann gives two reasons for this proposal.  First, in street preaching, one’s claims are contested in ways that normally do not occur within the “safe” environment of the Church. There will be no “preaching to the choir.” On the street, one may be heckled by the crowd. The possibility of contested speech necessitates a missional reading that attempts to communicate directly with the world rather than merely edifying those already comfortable with the claims of the Church. Second, in street preaching, one will face the “So what?” question. What does it matter if Jesus died on the cross? How does this make my life different in the 21^st century? So what that the Bible is a Holy Book? How is it different from other inspired writings and holy books? Why should I believe the claims of the Gospel?

As we learn to speak meaningfully to both followers of Jesus and not-yet-followers of Jesus, let us remember the dress debate

© 2015 Brian D. Russell

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[1]Walter Brueggemann, “A First Retrospect on the Consultation” in Renewing Biblical Interpretation, eds Craig Bartholomew, Colin Greene, and Karl Möller (Cumbria and Grand Rapids: Paternoster and Zondervan, 2000), 346.

Reading Scripture for a Missional Lifestyle

When God’s mission (mission dei) takes center stage in the life of Christ followers, we read the Bible differently. Our eyes are opened to the reality that mission permeates the core of the Scriptures. This is the presupposition of a missional hermeneutic or any missional reading. Mission is present from Genesis through Revelation. Mission begins with God’s creative work to bring order to Creation (Gen 1:1–2:3). God created human beings to serve as a missional community to reflect God’s character to the world (Gen 1:26–31). A proper understanding of imago dei (image of God) turns on recognizing that image at its core points to God’s intentions for humanity to serve Creation as a visible representation of the divine. As my friend, Alex McManus says, “We are a clue.” In the aftermath of humanity’s embrace of sin (Gen 3–11), God’s mission focuses on the redemption of humanity and Creation. The Bible exists as the witness to this mission.

How do we read the Scriptures differently when we participate actively in God’s mission?

1) We bring different questions.
Engaging others in conversation by entering into the world outside the safe confines of local communities of faith quickly subverts typical Sunday School fare. In the West, a Judeo-Christian worldview is rapidly fading. This means that many of the non-Christ followers with whom we will speak will have no points of contact with the religious talk that we use. A few encounters in the world will send us back to the Scriptures in search of the Gospel beyond proof-text and for more than personal devotion. Walking the streets of Orlando brings me into conversation with persons from all over the world and from all the religions of the world.

I can remember the day this reality truly struck me.

I chaperoned my youngest daughter’s class’ trip to a Wilderness Center. I enjoyed hanging around with the kids and watching them engage the wilds of Florida. During lunch, I engaged in a fascinating conversation with a young man. He had been telling me of his love for dinosaurs. He paused. A song bird was singing. He grinned. He then took me by surprise with his next sentence. He said, “This is a beautiful place to mediate.”

I looked up from my lunch. “You meditate?” I asked.

“Yes. Meditation is the only way that we can speak with the gods.”

Wow. I was taken aback. This was the first time in my life that I was confronted by an openly polytheistic statement. Yet it was coming from a 9 year old boy! I followed up, “What gods do you speak with?”

He began to rattle off a series of Hindu gods such as Krishna and a litany of others.

At this moment, a girl sitting a few seats away joined him in talking about the various deities and their stories. I sat amazed at these two young people sharing with me and their friends about their religious beliefs openly and proudly.

My daughter looked at me with some confusion. We talked later about the world religions.

This conversation and others like it forced me to go back to Scripture to read it from a missional perspective and to ask the Bible different questions. What does it mean to be on mission in a polytheistic, syncretistic, and spiritual world? What kind of person do I need to become to live out the Gospel in my context? How do the Scriptures shape God’s people to live as a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation”?

2) We read the Bible to gain insight into humanity.
Don’t hear this incorrectly. The Bible is fundamentally about God and God’s story. But it does offer the truest portrayal and analysis of the human condition. As we seek to reach people with the Gospel, the Bible is our only true guide to understanding the deepest needs of humanity. The story of Creation­­–Fall–Israel (God’s new humanity preparing for the Kingdom)–Jesus the Messiah (the ultimate human/God-incarnate)–Church (God’s new humanity engaging the World with the good news of the kingdom)–New Creation

3) We read to allow God to transform us and our communities into missional communities.
Encounters with non-Christ followers will drive us to the realization that we need to become more profound people and our communities of faith need to become more authentic and Christlike. The recognition of our own need for continued cleansing and renewal pushes us to read the Scriptures in order to answer this question: How do I as an individual and we as a community of faith need to change in order to reach the world?

What do you think?

© 2015 Brian D. Russell (revised 3/2016)