by J.K. McKee
Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006).[1]
The Mission of God by Christopher J.H. Wright is a well-needed and overdue book for our times. Christian mission in the world has often been rather limited and narrow, with its support often only derived from a smattering of New Testament passages. This is mirrored by an approach to the Old Testament that often exclusively intends to find Messianic significance behind its every verse, and nothing more. Wright purposes to take a fresh look at the imperatives behind the Tanach story, asserting “to speak of the Bible ‘all about Christ’ does not (or should not) mean that we try to find Jesus of Nazareth in every verse by some feat of imagination. Rather we mean that the person and work of Jesus becomes the central hermeneutical key by which we, as Christians, articulate the overall significance of these texts.”[2] In a world that is becoming increasingly more pluralistic, Wright challenges Western Christians to understand the larger world of the Old Testament, and thus the Bible, as one will find great relevance for the Hebrew Scriptures in Christian ministry today. While Wright’s focus on the Tanach Scriptures is concerned with a largely traditional, Western evangelical audience, today’s Messianic movement is certainly challenged by many of the questions he poses, especially as we consider what our purpose is in the decades to come and what our level of engagement with the evangelical community will be.
Because of the intention of Wright in The Mission of God, and the fact that few evangelicals have tackled such an integral topic to Believers on such a broad scope (both the Tanach and Apostolic Scriptures), few negative things (if any) can be said about his book. Stephen Fowl comments that his “volume presents a clear, vigorous, and scriptural account of God’s mission. This mission is driven by God’s desire to draw all creation to Godself.”[3] Wright represents the first of hopefully many more Christians who will seek to recapture the importance of the Old Testament among such areas as evangelism, discipleship, vision, spiritual discernment, and perhaps above all communication. This revived interest in the Tanach Scriptures by Christians, and the role it plays as a part of God’s revelation to us, is certainly something that works in the favor for the future growth of the Messianic movement—provided we too can understand the Tanach’s missional imperatives for the ekklēsia.
The fact that God’s people are to call others in Creation back to Him is a given, but few realize the importance of Biblical imperatives such as: “I am the LORD, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations” (Isaiah 42:6, RSV). Wright makes the point early in his book that 75% of all Christians have moved South[4]—meaning that many pastors and theologians in Europe and North America need to learn to think beyond themselves. The very fact that we have the Bible, as he notes, is that the various texts “emerged out of events or struggles or crises or conflicts in which the people of God were engaged with the constantly changing and challenging task of articulating and living out their understanding of God’s revelation and redemptive action in the world,”[5] citing the composition of the Pauline Epistles as an example. Indeed, given the complexities—both ethnic and political—that today’s Body of Messiah at large is undoubtedly facing, only considering the New Testament revelation for instruction and guidance can deter Believers from accomplishing their full potential. Wright instructs his readers, “We need…both a missional hermeneutic of the whole Bible and its great indicatives as well as a committed obedience to a major imperative text like the Great Commission.”[6]
A significant amount of attention is spent by Wright discussing the symbology and themes of the Exodus, particularly as God’s template for (ongoing) redemption. While on a macro level, Wright recognizes the connections between the Passover lamb and Yeshua the Messiah, he zeros in on other themes that pastors and teachers can often too easily overlook. These include HaShem (YHWH) as superior to the gods of Egypt,[7] the Canaanite background behind the Song of the Sea,[8] the issue of monotheism in Israel in relation to other deities,[9] and in particular how HaShem is portrayed as affecting the fate of all nations and not just Israel.[10] The theme of God rescuing or delivering Israel is a recurring one, being picked up also by the Prophets. “YHWH would act again to deliver his people, but the primary motivation, in Ezekiel’s uncompromising theocentricity, would be to salvage YHWH’s own name from the gutter of profanity among the nations—not (in the first place) for Israel’s own sake.”[11] While Israel is surely God’s chosen nation, saving and helping Israel exclusively for the sake of itself is not God’s intention from an honest reading of the Tanach. God has great power and capabilities, so to have Him on one’s side ensures that victory will always be achieved.[12]
In The Mission of God, one finds that themes which are seen in the Tanach’s salvation history story are being revived in today’s Christian life and theology. But this does not need to be done at the expense of the meaning of Tanach’s narrative in its ancient context. Wright almost warns the reader, for example, “popular preaching of the exodus…tends to dismiss or ignore the historical reality that constituted the original event for Israel, namely, the actual deliverance out of real, earthy, injustice, oppression and violence.”[13] While from the opposite end, these are concepts that can easily be politicized, Wright asks us not to forget “release from slavery to all that oppresses human life and well-being and opposes God.”[14] As he correctly summarizes, “One can…be a Christian on the way to heaven, and…make a virtue out of paying little attention to the physical, material, familial, societal, and international needs and crises that abound on every side.”[15] The message that the Tanach’s story has for us is to not ignore those in bondage—spiritually or otherwise. Surely, if we are born again Believers on our way to Heaven to meet the Lord, should we not try to capture some of that Heaven now on this Earth to which it will ultimately arrive in the eschaton? One aspect that Wright wishes Christians to recapture is respect for the environment, as human beings have been made as stewards (good or otherwise) of God’s property.[16]
Another very important topic that Wright addresses, which can be so easily overlooked by the Western Bible reader, is examined in his chapter on “The Living God Confronts Idolatry.” He discusses the relationship Israel had with HaShem and with the other deities of the Ancient Near East. HaShem is One who had a unique status for Israel,[17] and to fall into idolatry was something “very real and very dangerous”[18] as one would be prone to worship objects rather than the Eternal. The Apostolic Scriptures expound upon the Tanach’s themes of idolatry and equate worshipping idols and other gods to serving demons.[19] And what of the character of the gods of the ANE? Wright is correct to assert, “They are no more durable than the men or the empires that make them…History is the graveyard of the gods.”[20] And, Wright also makes the important point: “In a polytheistic universe, we cannot expect all the gods to please all the people all the time. So disappointment with the gods is part of the lottery of life.”[21] What too many of us forget, especially if all we have been exposed to is a semi-Western Judaic/Christian/Islamic view of “God,” is that there are still several billion on Earth today who are polytheistic and who embrace a worldview similar to the ancients warned against by the God of Israel. Reviewing the warnings against idolatry in the Tanach, and particularly the theological reasons that set HaShem above all others, should be seriously considered by the Church today as it reaches out to our changing world.
The most impactful part of Wright’s The Mission of God for me personally, came near the end of his book in his chapter discussing “Mission and God’s Image.” Being made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26) obviously means that human beings possess unique qualities that those of the animal kingdom do not possess. Understanding what it means for a person to be made in the tzelem Elohim is significant, as he asserts, “this forms the basis of radical equality of all human beings, regardless of gender, ethnicity, religion or any form of social, economic, or political status.”[22] He goes on to conclude, “Anything that denies other human beings their dignity or fails to show respect, interest and informed understanding for all that they hold precious is actually a failure of love.”[23] If one is to truly demonstrate God’s commanded love (seen in both the Tanach and Apostolic Scriptures) to His human creatures, then one must recognize that there is a strong value placed on them as made in His image. To stretch the meaning of Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image” (RSV), by not demonstrating Yeshua’s love to others—could it be considered tantamount to murder? At the very least, I know that I am once again convicted that I have not been looking at others in the same way as my Heavenly Father looks at me.
Stephen B. Bevans nicely summarizes The Mission of God: “Mission is holistic, including both redemption from sin and liberation from any and all oppression.”[24] Anyone who reads Wright is going to be challenged on some level. We live in an interesting and exciting period as the Body of Messiah. For as the Church changes and expands, so must its engagement with the Scriptures.
What does a book like The Mission of God mean for today’s Messianic community? In today’s Messianic movement, we hear a great deal of negative rhetoric against our Christian brethren as though they have no regard at all for the Tanach Scriptures. Yet, because of the complexities and flattening of today’s world, with a great deal of social change and mass migration, the Christian Church is experience a renaissance as the significant relevance of the Tanach is once again being realized! In fact, theologians such as Wright have a much better handle on many of the complex issues of the Tanach than many Messianic “Torah teachers” (who often limit themselves only to the Pentateuch) we encounter. While I did have a few areas of disagreement with Wright,[25] on the whole I am quite encouraged that a book like this has been written, as it shows Messianics a definite direction that our own movement should be headed. Anyone in Messianic ministry needs to read The Mission of God, and ask themselves how our faith community can begin to join in to the conversation of what His mission truly is. How are today’s Messianics to be molded into a people that can fulfill the Divine mandate given to Ancient Israel to be a great blessing to the world around it, something realized throughout the whole of the Scriptures?
NOTES
[1] This blog entry has been adapted and expanded for a Messianic audience, from an assignment for Dr. Brian D. Russell’s Old Testament Theology course at Asbury Theological Seminary, with his permission.
[2] Christopher J.H. Wright, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006), 31.
[3] Stephen Fowl (2007). Review of The Mission of God, Theological Studies. Retrieved 15 May, 2008.
[4] Wright, 38.
[5] Ibid., 49.
[6] Ibid., 60.
[7] Ibid., 77.
[8] Ibid., pp 78-79.
[9] Ibid., 81.
[10] Ibid., pp 84-85.
[11] Ibid., 88.
[12] Ibid., 96.
[13] Ibid., 276.
[14] Ibid., 278.
[15] Ibid., 287.
[16] Ibid, 396.
[17] Ibid., 139.
[18] Ibid., 141.
[19] Ibid., 144.
[20] Ibid., pp 162, 163.
[21] Ibid., 174.
[22] Ibid., 423.
[23] Ibid., pp 423-424.
[24] Stephen B. Bevans (2007). Review of The Mission of God, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, Vol. 31. No. 3. Retrieved 15 May, 2008.
[25] Wright, 244, 304-305, 310, 337, 508-509.
