The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative

"The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative" by Christopher J. H. Wright
(2006), InterVarsity Press.

Christopher J. H. Wright is the director of international ministries for the Langham Partnership International, known as John Stott Ministries in the United States of America. A doctor of philosophy in Old Testament ethics, Professor Wright has formerly taught Old Testament at Union Biblical Seminary in India and has served as principal of All Nations Christian College, a missionary training school in Ware, England. Dr. Wright has written commentaries on Deuteronomy and Ezekiel and is also an ordained Anglican priest, serving on staff of All Souls Church Langham Place in London, England. In "The Mission of God", Dr. Wright argues for a holistic missional hermeneutic, that takes into serious considering the Holy Scriptures in their entirety, paying particular attention to how the Old Testament acknowledges a biblical theology of mission, which is then carried on through the Gospels and letters of the New Testament.

In part one, Dr. Write explains that in order to show how the mission of God, and the participation of God's people in that mission, operates as a framework for understanding the grand narrative of the Bible, a missional hermeneutic must be discovered through a complete understanding of Scriptures and from that, an extrapolation of God's purpose. This should take place first without superimposing missional ideas or proof-texting of certain passages, both removed from context and also the overarching Biblical theme. By explaining how the shaping of a misisonal hermeneutic begins with the Biblical authority of mission in the sovereignty of God's action in human history, Dr. Wright then moves on to cover God's providence and sending for mission, "The People of Mission", and the "Arena of Mission" in parts two, three, and four respectively.

In regards to both the Old Testament and New Testament, Dr. Wright states that "the process by which these texts came to be written were often profoundly missional in nature" (p.49), indicating that a missional interpretation comes from a missional authorship. Offering a demonstration of how this is true in the Torah, historical books, and wisdom literature, Dr. Wright goes on to affirm a three-form pattern of God's reality, the reality of His story, and the reality of his chosen people in the world, and how they are are continued explicitly in the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles. Ultimately, these three realities are embodied and extended through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Dr. Wright states that "these realities authorize our action in mission. They make our mission appropriate, legitimate, and indeed necessary and inevitable. The authority for our mission flows from the Bible because the Bible reveals the reality on which our mission is based (p. 54). Through a proper and holistic Biblical hermeneutic, it becomes apparent that the missional bias of the Bible is conceived in the divine purpose of God. Instead of an anthropocentric or ecclesiocentric definition of mission, Dr. Wright calls for a paradigm shift to a theocentric worldview, where the Church is an agent designed to undertake the mission God has been resolving from and into eternity.

An unexpected yet positive contribution of this book, is Dr. Wright's tackling of postmodernism. Dr. Wright highlights the fact that Christianity has always existed within multiple cultural contexts. He states, "cultural plurality is nothing new for Christian mission. It is rather the very stuff of missional engagement and missiological reflection" (p. 46). Realizing that cultural relation exists behind, in, and above the Scriptural narrative should give new insights to the current proliferation of voices in dissonant conversation between style and substance.

A second favorite strength of Dr. Wright's book is that he declares a holistic reading of Scripture will yield a holistic view of mission. Thus mission encompasses aspects of not only the spiritual realm, but also generates Kingdom impact in the social and political arenas as well. Dr. Wright uses the story of the Exodus to promote a model of redemption when integrated with mission and the Jubilee as a type of a case study on the implications of ethics in mission and as a theology for evangelism.

In terms of a critical observation, though Dr. Wright places priority in the ownership of mission in the hands of God, he positions humanity as the primary agent for that mission. Agreeing with Karl Barth's Trinitarian teaching of the missio Dei, Wright fails to explicitly state that the Church is empowered by the Spirit. Tracing the roots of the Abrahamic covenant in Paul's letters, Dr. Wright concludes that like Israel, God's people as the Church, are elected to be a blessing to the nations. Another critique, though perhaps minor, would be Dr. Wright's four worldview questions for all religions. He proposes that the Old Testament answers the fundamental subjects for humans, being such contemplations as: Where are we? Who are we? What's gone wrong? And, what is the solution? The most obvious question missing is "why are we?" If God's intention for humanity is found in his purpose for creation, then His mission should more than adequately address that inquiry.

Overall, "The Mission of God" is a comprehensive analysis of the Bible that provides a missional hermeneutic for the Church to be lived out. Though weighty in scholarly research and sometimes excessive with Old Testament rendering, Dr. Wright has successfully produced a theology for mission that is Scripturally based in the metanarrative of the Bible.

After a lecture given in 1998, Christopher J. H. Wright was approached by Anthony Billington and questioned “about the validity of using a missiological framework as a hermeneutical approach to reading the Bible. Is it possible, is it legitimate, is it helpful for Christians to read the whole Bible from the angle of mission? And what happens if they do?” (531). Thorough and dense, though still not exhaustive in its 535 pages, THE MISSION OF GOD: UNLOCKING THE BIBLE'S GRAND NARRATIVE is the result of Wright’s journey in attempting to answer those questions. Just as it changed Wright in the process, I believe the journey will aid its readers in understanding what it means to be part of the mission of God, that which Scripture exclaims in its entirety.

Divided into four parts (The Bible and Mission, The God of Mission, The People of Mission, and The Arena of Mission), THE MISSION OF GOD progressively brings the reader into the biblical narrative and a better understanding of what it means to be a fellow pilgrim in God’s creation as intended by our Creator, recalibrating our posture from one of self-focus to God-focused participants in the continued narrative of God’s mission. I strongly recommend reading through the book in its entirety—it’ll take a while—in order to fully appreciate the journey as intended, but there is a detailed outline at the beginning and lengthy index at the end for those wishing to jump to particular sections for personal study and/or research.

As a proponent of reading the Bible in its narrative context and encouraging others to find and live out their place within this continued narrative, I appreciate Wright’s work and the result of his efforts in wrestling with this hermeneutical quest. It is a “must read” in my opinion, especially for those teaching, promoting, or looking for a particular method, form, and mode of “doing missions,” as it is often described. A proper reorienting of one’s perspective on what it is to be on God’s mission will better (rightly!) enable one to address the pragmatics of living out that mission in one’s own (or “target”) context.

Even though there are many theology books out there about the mission of God, a select few reserve the time it will take to wade through their presuppositions and conclusions. Few modern theological writers have attempted provide a biblical framework for studying Missio Dei, but Christopher J. H. Wright's The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative frames this study on the meta-narrative of history as God's missiological story. Wright theorizes that the Bible can be read with a missional hermeneutic. In fact, he not only postulates that it can be read that way; he states that this holistic approach is really the only way the Bible's truth can be discovered. When done so, the testaments reveal a fluid continuity between the players, and there is the possibility of seeing the full revelation of God in the person of Jesus Christ as the central Servant for God's missional plan beginning before creation and finding its fulfillment in the picture of all nations joining together to bring him glory. It is Wright's stubborn adherence to the foundation of the bible that makes his tome worth reading.
Although this is a human perspective, it seems there have been events that would have thwarted God's original plans, but the entirety of Scripture reveals a beautiful overarching plan that cannot be frustrated. Central to that plan is the image of Christ as the suffering servant foretold in the Old Testament in answer to man's problem of sin. The apostle Paul adopted the same symbolism when he continued to frame the missional narrative for the New Testament church. The story of Scripture is His story, His narrative, not only about His person but about His acts of reaching out to seek, save and serve those He has created. Wright's greatest contributions in developing this hermeneutical approach is his insistence on a missional map or script, a holistic approach to reading that script, identification of key players, and narrative continuity between parts.
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For Christopher Wright, mission does not represent a secondary element of Biblical theology or interpretation; rather mission is a "major key that unlocks the whole grand narrative of the canon of Scripture." (17) God's mission stands behind all of creation and salvation history. Wright asserts that mission, God's mission and his people's mission, propels the Biblical story forward to what will ultimately be the consummation of the kingdom of heaven on earth under the Lordship of Jesus. Mission serves as the bond that characterizes God's people as co-workers with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in reconciliation and restoration on earth through Jesus. Wright offers the following definition for mission which is also the essential thesis of the book:

"Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) means our committed participation as God's people, at God's invitation and command, in God's own mission within the history of God's world for the redemption of God's creation." (23)

Through his book, Wright explores the totality of the divine mission, God's people and God's creation, as these are revealed in Scripture. Wright exhaustively mines the Old Testament for insights to the Biblical basis for mission. He admits that because of his expertise on the Old Testament that his writing focuses more on it than the New Testament. Although he does discuss the topic of mission in the New Testament, I think much more could be written about how the New Testament encourages mission by individual Christians, families and communities of faith.

Wright challenges Christians to live in faithful obedience to God. He writes, "There is no blessing for ourselves or for others without faith and obedience." (207) The obedience of faith is necessary for people to be the agents for God's blessings to people. God's mission, like his love, is universal, but his mission is enacted through particular people. Through Jesus, people are called to be the particular agents of God's mission to others. As agents of God's mission, it is our duty, privilege and calling to participate in what Jesus accomplished on the cross and what will be completed in the new creation. For Wright, the cross is the core of any theology of mission. It establishes the new covenant in Jesus' blood that allows all people to come and worship God having their sins forgiven. There are no people who cannot be reconciled to God through the cross.

Wright issues a call for Christians to take their eyes off themselves and look to God and engage in his mission and not their own self-aggrandizement. Our words and our lives must declare to the world that Jesus is Lord.

Wright begins his assertion of the Biblical basis for mission by emphasizing that mission is primarily sourced in God. Mission for the church is foremost an act of advocating for God and worshipping God. The beginning, therefore, of mission for the church is doxology. Wright discusses the teaching of Jesus conveyed in Luke 24. Jesus begins empowering the church by unfolding how the Law, Prophets and Psalms bear witness to him and his mission to die and be raised to life. Wright concludes that God's mission is revealed in the Old Testament writings. Also present in this empowering of the church is the Trinitarian theology that includes the Father sending the Son and then the sending of the Holy Spirit to clothe the disciples in power that they might engage in God's mission. I appreciate how Wright delves into Scripture and thoroughly lays out a missional reading of the Old Testament. I would have like to see him also explore more fully what the Bible has to say about the Holy Spirit's role in empowering Christians for mission.

I think a key point that Wright makes is the close connection between mission and worship of God. He shows how it was to be Israel's worship of God that proclaimed his uniqueness and sovereignty to the nations. He writes that mission exists because praise of God does not exist among all people; while, in another sense, mission exists because praise does exist among God's people. He writes,

"The praise of the church is what energizes and characterizes it for mission, and also serves as a constant reminder we so much need, that all mission flows as obedient response to and participation in the prior mission of God." (134)

Wright asserts that praise must be the church's primary mode of mission. This is the act of inviting all the peoples of the earth "to hear the music of God's future and dance to it today." (134)

It was hard to get through the book, but the author's thesis was very interesting. I used this book to help me write an academic essay.

Thank you!

Nice book in good condition.

One of the finest books I own. Thank you Christopher J. H. Wright.

This book arrived in very good condition, and will be used for my Deaconate studies.

Excellent book for anyone working in a mission context or looking to understand God's design for the local church. Heavy read but worth the effort.