Reading Matthew's Gospel Missionally

I am teaching an applied hermeneutics course at Asbury Theological Seminary. It focuses on the text of Matthew’s Gospel. I am working hone a missional approach to Scripture as a key lens for appropriating the message of the text in the West for the 21st century.

When I talk about a missional hermeneutic, one of the key questions that I am asked is this: Is a missional reading or hermeneutic something that we as readers impose on the text?

My short answer is this: A missional reading of the Bible arises out of a close reading of the text itself. The reader however does bring the issue of mission as part of the investigation. This is not a foreign imposition on the text because the Bible itself assumes mission. We have often missed the missional element in Scripture because we have grown up in a Church culture in which mission was not at the center. This was not the case for the recipients of Matthew’s Gospel. The NT (and the OT) assumes mission. If we are to understand truly the Scriptures, we need to locate our own readings within a context of missional engagement with the world.

How can I say that Matthew assumes mission?

Here are some representative texts and comments:

1) The Gospel of Matthew reaches its zenith in Jesus’ commissioning of his disciples to Make Disciples (Matt 28:18-20). Notices that this is not merely a call for certain followers to serve as ambassadors. It is the mission of all followers of Jesus. This was true in the initial call to “follow Jesus and learn to fish for people” (4:19). The book of Matthew is a manual on missional discipleship.

The Great Commission is the no brainer “mission” text, but Matthew from beginning to end is about Jesus’ announcement of the kingdom and call of disciples to follow him into the world announcing the good news.

2) Matthew opens with a genealogy (1:1-17). Part of this genealogy affirms Jesus as “Son of Abraham”. It was to be through Abraham that “all peoples of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 12:3). The possibility of persons outside of Israel being saved is opened up through references to Abraham in the Gospel of Matthew (see Matt 3:9 and 8:11). Moreover, Jesus’ ministry begins in “Galilee of gentiles” (4:15) and Jesus gives the Great Commission from Galilee (28:16­–20).

3) Matthew focuses on the inclusion of outsiders in the scope of Jesus’ mission. This begins with the Magi (2:1-12) and continues on with Jesus’ ministry to those outsiders desperate for the Kingdom (see especially Jesus’ mighty acts in chapters 8-9). Who are the recipients of Jesus’ ministry? Lepers, foreigners, women, Roman centurions, tax collectors. This is a significant demonstration of the expansion of the scope of Israel’s ministry through the person of Jesus the Messiah.

4) Jesus’ ministry begins with his calling of the first disciples (4:18-22) on the heels of his initial proclamation of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven (4:17). This is a significant linkage of the core of Jesus’ message and the necessity of calling together a new community. This community is given a missional ethos from its beginning as Jesus calls this new community to follow him into the world on mission. Jesus even models incarnational language by describing the fishermen’s new evangelistic vocation as “fishing for people.”

5) Jesus practices boundary -breaking ministry. After teaching the ethos of the Kingdom for his disciples (Matt 5–7), he then models it in a series of mighty acts in Matt 8:1–9:34. Jesus does not allow uncleanness, foreignness, or sexism to stop the advance of the kingdom.

6) The “missionary discourse” (Matt 9:35-11:1) is Jesus’ empowerment and deployment of his followers to engage in the same sort of ministry that he had modelled for them in Matt 5-9. The Gospel of Matthew serves to teach God’s people how to live as a holy missional community to/for/in the world.

7) Jesus does not call persons to faith faith per se. Instead, Jesus calls people to “follow me”. This is significant. The Christian life is not merely about right thinking; it is about right living as well. But right living cannot be subsumed under the heading of ethics. Instead the ethos of the Christ following movement is centered on mission. When Jesus called persons to follow him, Jesus led them on mission. This is model for the Christ following movement. The Risen Christ continues to lead his people on mission to save the universe (Matt 28:20).

What do you think? What else would you add?

© 2007 with significant revisions in 2009 and 2015.

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)