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Posted by on May 22, 2013 in Missiology | 0 comments

Responding to Millar’s Critique of Wright’s “The Mission of God” Part 3: Millar’s Major Concerns

Responding to Millar’s Critique of Wright’s “The Mission of God” Part 3: Millar’s Major Concerns

Having summarized Millar’s critique of Chris Wright and examined his minor concerns with The Mission of God, I now want to look at the substance of his critique. I do believe his major concerns warrant more attention, though I’m not sure they are all equally valid. I also want to offer a few other thoughts on Wright’s work, giving a few criticisms that Millar does not give.

Evaluating Millar’s Six Major Concerns

Millar’s first three concerns are closely related in that they have to do with how Wright interprets Scripture (both hermeneutics and exegesis) so I will discuss them together. Here are his first three criticisms in summary form:

(1) There is an absence of the Bible at key points.

(2) Millar says that there is a persistent exegetical carelessness in the book, which is uncharacteristic of Wright.

(3) Wright is unwilling to allow the NT to shape how we read the OT.

First, the second point seems a bit overstated. While certainly Millar cited some examples where Wright does seem to have misinterpreted passages (e.g., making Acts 6 primarily about physical help or social action, when the emphasis was clearly on the word and prayer), saying that there is a “persistent exegetical carelessness” in the book seems a bit strong. He may have not have been as careful as an exegete of specific passages, but surely others he simply exegetes and interprets them differently.

Secondly, Millar’s critique in points (1) and (3) seem to highlight one of the key issues for Wright’s work: the relationship of the OT and the NT. His lack of discussion of how the NT interprets and uses the Exodus, Jubilee, and exile themes is quite damaging to his thesis. This lack of an explicit explanation of the OT/NT relationship is likely what causes the absence of Scriptural support at key points.

To be clearer, the way the New Testament uses the exile and Exodus paradigm seems to primarily focus on the spiritual implications for the NT church. Though Wright may assert that we can’t cancel out the physical dimensions of the Exodus, the question remains why the NT authors do not seem to understand its significance in that way? While Wright is an OT scholar, surely more interaction with the NT at key points would have been helpful.

(4) Wright contends that evangelism is ultimate, but not primary.

This criticism is probably a little harder to pin down, as Millar cites a quote from Wright in which he says that mission has not been completed if the cross has not been proclaimed. I.e., the difference between “ultimacy” vs. “primacy” may be somewhat difficult to determine in his book. I think really what Millar is criticizing is Wright’s approach in which “everything mission.”

So he argues that Wright suggests that evangelism is simply one a number of the things that the church may rightly do, but it is not above any of the others in terms of hierarchy. While certainly Wright does not accept a hierarchy, he does seem to give it somewhat more importance than certain other aspects of what may be included in “mission,” as he doesn’t say that mission has not been done until plants have been cared as he does say about the proclamation of the cross. I believe that this criticism is really a subset of a larger issue that Millar did not mention, which I will bring up at the end.

(5) Millar argues that there is a weak doctrine of sin and judgment in the book.

(6) Millar notes that the word “gospel” is not present in the index, nor is it featured in the book itself.

These two criticisms naturally fit together. Regarding sin, I’m not sure that Millar paints Wright in completely fair terms, as he does talk about the various dimensions of the sin problem (vertical, horizontal, environmental, historical, etc). It’s probably fair to say that because Wright is seeking to correct a view which only ever talks about the vertical dimension of sin, he spends more time on the horizontal and environmental side of the discussion. This seems like a classic case of swinging a little far in one’s emphasis, rather than a complete lack of a doctrine of hell, as Millar seems to suggest.

Regarding the lack of “gospel” being present, of course, I believe this has to be a damaging criticism. Considering not just the emphasis on the gospel in the Epistles, but also the fact that Jesus came “preaching the gospel of the kingdom,” surely some attention should be given to that. And surely the discussion of the good news of the kingdom leads to a discussion of the already/not yet, which would help with some of the OT/NT issues that have already been pointed out.

Two Other Thoughts on Wright’s Work

(1) Wright never makes any distinction between the church or the people of God as institution versus organism.

In my opinion, this is the most glaring failure of Wright’s work. He simply never addresses this point. He simply assumes that what can be said of the “mission” of individual Christians as part of God’s people can be said of God’s people as a whole, that is, in the church.

This seems to me to be the issue behind many of the issues that Millar brought up. That is, he criticizes Wright for not discussing Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:19-20, or other key “mission” texts. Wright does this because he wants to show how mission is not only throughout the Bible but the basis for the existence of the Bible. And that’s a good emphasis because it shows us that there is a much larger story going on in which we have a part to play.

But it’s dangerous because it disconnects the current mission of the church from what we see in the New Testament about how the apostles and the early church understood their mission.

In particular, in a world full of need, it gives little help to the church in figuring out how, as the church, God’s people should be involved in what God is doing. There is an institutional/organized component to the church in the New Testament, as we see the instructions about elders, deacons, worship, offerings, etc. The mission of that group seems to be considerably more narrowly focused than that of individual Christians. And Wright simply fails to ever acknowledge this distinction, and I find that to be a glaring problem.

(2) Is participation in God’s holistic mission the best way of formulating the way we are part of God’s mission?

Wright defines mission in this way: “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.”

And so he sees, for example, the fighting of disease as part of the redemption of God’s creation. Accordingly, fighting disease is part of the church’s mission in his view.

This is a much larger discussion than I can get in to now, but it seems to me that “participation” may not be the best way of framing this. Or, to be more precise, our participation in the world of redemption itself may not be the best way of explaining our mission.

The New Testament (and even the Old Testament in many places) seems to indicate that our manner of participation is that of witness: we testify to the work of redemption that God is doing and will do. The primary means of this in the NT is through verbal proclamation. The church’s diaconal or mercy work certainly testifies to God’s interest in people as whole people, not disembodied spirits. But the language of testimony or witness to God’s work of redemption seems to keep God in his role and the church in his role.

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Posted by on May 16, 2013 in Missiology | 0 comments

Responding to Millar’s Critique of Wright’s “The Mission of God” Part 2: Millar’s Minor Concerns

Responding to Millar’s Critique of Wright’s “The Mission of God” Part 2: Millar’s Minor Concerns

In Part One, I summarized Gary Millar’s talk that he gave at the 2013 Gospel Coalition Conference. I had intended to write one more post analyzing it, but I believe that it will take two more posts to do so. In this one I plan on looking at Millar’s summary of Wright as well as his four minor concerns, to be followed in the third post by a consideration of his six deeper concerns.

Why I’m Interested in Wright

Some might be wondering why I am interested enough in Chris Wright’s work to type out all of this regarding Millar’s critique. Besides the obvious point that I like to read and write both academically and as a hobby, I feel like in some ways that Chris Wright’s thought has been with me on my own theological journey for a number of years.

I was first exposed to his book in college, and I greatly enjoyed The Mission of God. At the time, I found it to be an eye-opening look at biblical theology. That is, the way he showed how God’s mission to reach not only my suburban upbringing, but also the nations, was present throughout the Bible—New and Old Testaments—was powerful in my understanding of Scripture and the church’s task. I was also thinking through some of the things I had seen within a context of cultural fundamentalism (as opposed to simply being committed to the fundamentals of the faith), in which the proclamation of the gospel seemed to be the only thing that mattered. Works of justice and mercy—whether specifically run by the church or not—didn’t seem to get a lot of airtime.

So when I read Chris Wright, and he sought to demonstrate how God’s concern for the physical extended throughout all of Scripture alongside of his concern for men’s souls, I could not help but be interested in his approach. This was happening at the same time that I was beginning to travel more and have my eyes opened to the situation of the poor in many places around the world.

Several years later, after finishing seminary and heading towards ordination in the PCA, I found myself interacting with Kevin DeYoung’s work, particularly What is the Mission of the Church? as well other Reformed approaches to some of the same questions that Wright had raised. I could sense doubts about Wright’s approach beginning to arise, though I still saw great benefit in parts of his missional survey of Scripture. I later blogged my way through The Mission of God’s People, and then read through The Mission of God again. I was once again impressed by many aspects of it (many of the same ones that Millar highlights), though I was unsatisfied by other aspects.

So with that background in mind, I want to take a look at Millar’s critique and consider whether or not his criticisms hold water.

Millar’s Summary of Wright: Fair or Not?

On the whole, it seems to me that Millar’s summary of Wright represented his approach fairly. My concern is that Millar seemed to take quite a few jabs at Wright’s work during the summary. While obviously he was anticipating the critiques he would bring later, it seemed to hinder getting a fair presentation of exactly what Wright had written. In particular, his jab at the end of his summary that Wright’s book was not very clear was a bit odd. I found the book quite clear at most points. Even if there are serious issues of disagreement, that doesn’t mean it isn’t clear, only that it may be in error.

Assessing Millar’s Four Questions/Observations

Though not Millar’s deepest concerns, they clearly are important to him, as they resurface at the end in his scathing summary critique of Wright. Of these four concerns, in my admittedly not as well-informed opinion, only one of them rings completely true.

On Overstating the Case: Millar suggests that Wright at times overstates his case. I agree. To argue that the Exodus and the Jubilee are the major paradigms for mission in Scripture seems overstated. At the very least, if Wright is going to make that case more strongly, he would need to show how the NT writers relied on those two paradigms in their own understanding of their mission. I am not saying, of course, that for something from the OT to be valid, it must be repeated in the NT (I agree strongly with the covenant theology expressed in the Westminster Standards). But at the same time, Wright isn’t just saying that the Jubilee and Exodus are paradigms or helpful windows into mission in the OT. He is saying they are primary paradigms. Such a claim needs further evidence from within Scripture itself so far as I can see.

On the Missional Hermeneutic: Millar strongly criticizes Wright’s use of the term “missional hermeneutic.” He thinks it is unclear, and therefore not helpful. As I have read Wright, he is saying this: there is not so much a biblical basis for mission as there is a missional basis for the Bible. That is, as God’s revelation to his people, the Bible exists because God has a mission to redeem and renew all things.

Therefore, when we read Scripture, we need to view it, and all its contents from that perspective. Even the most common of stories in the Old Testament was written for the purpose of advancing God’s mission, and so we need to be aware of that and make that clear when we preach and teach it.

I understand that Millar’s problem lies more with the term “hermeneutic” than with “missional.” We can talk about a “grammatical-historical” hermeneutic and know that we need to read Scripture using the tools of grammar and history in order to do our exegesis, putting Scripture in its proper context. Millar doesn’t see how “missional hermeneutic” can be considered a method in any clear manner. But in the sense that I described above, I don’t find it unclear, though obviously it must still work in concert with proper principles of biblical interpretation.

On Having an Aversion to Going Anywhere: I found this critique a bit puzzling. Millar cited no statements from The Mission of God that explicitly illustrated such an idea from Wright. If I understood Millar correctly, his flow of thought seemed to go like this:

(1) Wright deemphasizes texts such as the Great Commission in favor of seeing mission from the whole Bible. (2) Wright sees everything as mission. (3) Accordingly, Wright must not think relocating for the sake of gospel ministry is important.

I’m not sure that is a fair reading of Wright’s work. As I will explore more later, I do think he needs to spend more time on the NT and how it discusses mission. But nonetheless, as I read Wright’s focus on the nations initially, I couldn’t help but be encouraged all the more to go to the nations. It is possible that I misread him, but I never got that sense.

That’s not to say that I don’t have deep concerns about his “everything is mission” paradigm, as that does seem to undercut gospel proclamation (more on this later). But to say that he has a “deep aversion” to going anywhere doesn’t seem to flow from what Wright himself has written.

On Using Straw Man Arguments: I do see Millar’s point here. But I’m not sure that is exactly what Wright was doing in some of the examples Millar provided, for one main reason.

While there may not be one single person who holds to all of the various extremes that Millar cited (only using Matthew 28, seeing no implications for politics or daily life from the resurrection, et al), there are certainly people who have advocated one or another of them in some way. Growing up, I certainly heard plenty of sermons on mission from Matthew 28, but very few from the Old Testament. Now scholarly circles may have done better in this area, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Dispensationalists could very well be said to cancel out much OT teaching (not just on mission) with NT teaching, seeing radical discontinuity there. So I’m not sure that these arguments are truly straw-men arguments. They might not be the best arguments, but that doesn’t mean they are straw-men arguments.

Now I would imagine that at some points Wright uses arguments that don’t perfectly describe the positions of his opponents. We all fail in being completely clear, so I don’t know that it’s particularly helpful in a 535-page book to bring out a few small examples of such things.

So thus far, while Millar, as far as I’m concerned, has not proven his case very well. But in the last post, I’ll look at his deeper concerns, which is really where the primary discussion will come.

In terms of previewing my perspective, I do think Millar’s six larger concerns are both more serious and generally more accurate. I’m not convinced however, that they truly advance the conversation or hit at some of the things that might ultimately help Wright’s project to be refined biblically.

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Posted by on May 14, 2013 in Missiology | 2 comments

Responding to Millar’s Critique of Wright’s “The Mission of God” Part 1: Summary

Responding to Millar’s Critique of Wright’s “The Mission of God” Part 1: Summary

At The Gospel Coalition national conference in April, Gary Millar gave a talk in which he critiqued Chris Wright’s massive tome, The Mission of God. I have read The Mission of God twice (in addition to others of Chris Wright’s works), and while I greatly appreciate much of what Wright has done in his books, I too have concerns about his approach to biblical theology. Obviously, I was quite curious to see what Millar would have to say about Wright’s book.

The audio was briefly put up on the Conference Media page, but it seems to in process again at this point. However, somehow I was able to get the audio when it was up briefly, and so I want to write two posts about the talk. In this first one, I will simply summarize Millar’s talk based on the notes I took on it. In the second post, I hope to examine Millar’s critiques and see if they hold water or not.

Millar’s Summary of The Mission of God

Millar begins his talk by summarizing the argument and flow of The Mission of God. He also notes that he has great appreciation for Chris Wright both academically and personally, but that obviously he believes there are things that need critique in his book. He gives three reasons for critiquing the book:

  1. The book is becoming a common textbook in “missio dei” classes and discussion.
  2. His approach (missoi dei–>mission of God’s people) is taken for granted.
  3. He believes Wright’s approach to be deeply flawed.

Four Key Conclusions from Wright

Millar summarizes what he sees as the four main conclusions that Wright presents in his work:

  1. Mission is the mission of God. As Wright puts it on page 22, “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.”
  2. Everything is mission.
  3. The Great Commandment is as important as the Great Commission.
  4. The Jubilee and the Exodus are primary paradigms for mission.

Walking through The Mission of God

Millar then goes on to walk through the four parts of the book, though obviously, this is only a brief summary of the book, given it is 535 pages in total.

Part 1: The Bible and Mission

Here Wright summarizes his key terms and his approach, which he describes as a “missional hermeneutic.” Millar suggests that Wright is not merely saying that the Bible is a product of God’s mission (though it is certainly that), but that he is also saying that a “missional hermeneutic” is a certain method for reading the Scriptures also.

From that, Wright argues that we should not base our understanding of mission only on texts like the Great Commission in Matthew 28, but that we we must take the whole Bible into account. The overarching category of story–the story of the Bible as the story of God on mission–is the source for authority.

Part 2: The God of Mission

Millar highlights in this section how Wright sees the exodus and the return from exile as the main events that give shape to God’s mission in the OT. He also builds on his previous work on monotheism, idolatry, and critique of religious pluralism, all of which Millar finds helpful.

Part 3: The People of Mission

Millar notes some quibbles and some things he appreciates (such as the brilliant connection between the tower of Babel and the call of Abraham), but he hones in on three aspects of Wright’s approach in this section.

First, he notes that Wright makes the mission of Israel a controlling idea in the NT. Anticipating his coming critiques, he suggests that this idea is without sufficient exegetical warrant.

Secondly, he focuses on how Wright views the Exodus as paradigmatic for mission. The key point here is that Wright, unlike Millar, sees the Exodus as paradigmatic in all its aspects: political, social, and spiritual. That is, he sees it presenting a model which carries into the NT period, a model which says that God cares about redeeming his people from slavery, oppression, the effects of the curse, etc, not simply slavery to their own sin. Again anticipating his critique, Millar suggests this is lacking exegetically, particularly from the NT, as the NT makes the connection with the Exodus primarily in terms of Christ’s death on the cross in order to reconcile us to God.

Thirdly, he notes that Wright also sees the Jubilee as paradigmatic for mission, though again Millar suggests that this is thin exegetically, as the Jubilee gets very little airtime in the rest of Scripture, that is, outside of the original context in which it was given.

From these three points, Millar is showing that Wright thinks that mission is on every page of the OT, from Israel’s missional calling to the priesthood as symbolic of mission, to the Exodus and Jubilee, and so on.

Part 4: The Arena of Mission

Millar admits that he sees this section as the most problematic. In it, Wright makes his case that because the effects of sin extend to the relationship between God, humanity, and the earth, so also the extent of mission must deal with all of those relationships. And so Wright suggests (as he does in his later book, The Mission of God’s People), that mission extends to even working with the non-human.

Wright also argues that sin spreads horizontally in people and institutions and vertically through generations, and thus sin can be institutional, structural, endemic, and embedded in history. Millar doubts that these formulations have significant exegetical warrant. He also suggests that while Wright’s survey of the biblical teaching on the nations is helpful at many points, he gives far little space to the theme of the judgment of the nations, which is part of the biblical record.

A 7-Point Summary of The Mission of God

  1. Mission is God’s mission.
  2. Mission is central to the Bible.
  3. The Bible is written on mission and is the product of God’s people on their mission
  4. We need to read Bible through a missional lens and hermeneutic
  5. The whole Bible should shape our mission
  6. Sin is all-pervasive, between individuals, countries, structures, etc
  7. The primary paradigms for mission are the Exodus and the Jubilee
  8. God’s mission is all-embracing, setting all nations free from the all-encompassing problems of sin

In light of this summary, Millar says that he doesn’t believe this book is the clearest that has ever been written, despite his appreciation for others of Wright’s works. He then moves on to his affirmations and critiques.

Six Things Millar Loves about the Book

  1. The God-centeredness of Wright’s approach
  2. His brilliant defense of the uniqueness of Christ
  3. His insights into key OT texts like Genesis 11-12, and 18-19
  4. His discussion and exegesis of key OT missiological texts, despite his overly positive view of the nations in the OT
  5. His clear articulation of what what God asks of us: to be involved in what God is doing in the world, and to speak in a way that commends God to the nations
  6. His affirmation that evangelism is at the heart of mission

Four Things Millar Noticed and Questioned

  1. Some things are unclear, such as his use of the term “missional hermeneutic.” Millar suggests that it’s unclear what exactly this method is, whether it’s just the awareness of mission’s importance as we read it, or something more.
  2. Wright has a tendency to overstate his case, such as the missional role of Israel being everywhere, or the Jubilee and Exodus as paradigms for mission.
  3. Wright has an aversion to going anywhere. That is, Millar thinks he underplays the importance of the Great Commission and relocating for the sake of gospel ministry. Millar goes so far as to say that Wright relativizes Matthew 28.
  4. Wright has an annoying habit of using straw man arguments. Millar references several caricatures: that those who don’t agree with Wright only talk about Matthew 28:19-20 with reference to mission, that Jesus’ claims were misunderstood by Romans and Jews and that his death and resurrection have no impact on the real world, including politics, and that we can’t cancel out OT teaching on mission with NT teaching on mission. Along with others, Millar suggests that this is not an accurate picture of those who disagree with Wright, and so his arguments fall flat.

Millar’s Six Deep Concerns

  1. There is an absence of the Bible at key points. Millar specifically references the paradigmatic status given to the Exodus and Jubilee and the relationship of the OT and NT. He suggests that Wright assumes too much continuity without proving such, particularly in relation to the Exodus, without giving attention to how the NT interprets the exodus event through Christ.
  2. Millar says that there is a persisten exegetical carelessness in the book, which is uncharacteristic of Wright. He cites a number of examples: Wright’s skipping over how the verbs in Gen. 1:27 and 2:15 are later used for priestly activity, his replacing of “righteousness” with “justice” in Matt. 6:33 without exegetical defense, his use of Acts 6 to affirm the importance of social action, ignoring that the passage actually highlights the centrality of the ministry of word and prayer, and others.
  3. Wright is unwilling to allow the NT to shape how we read the OT. He again notes that Wright does not examine the NT passages on the Exodus to see how they shape our view of that event for the current age. He doesn’t look at how the experience of a Israelite slave freed from Egypt would differ from that of a Roman slave freed from the bondage of sin in the first century. He also notes that he doesn’t interact with other biblical theology very much.
  4. Wright contends that evangelism is ultimate, but not primary. Millar’s basic concern here is that evangelism, while not rejected, is simply put alongside a list of other things that we also must do as part of mission. That is, there is no hierarchy in terms of mission, and so ecological work can be put alongside of evangelism. Millar finds this particularly weak, given no sustained examination of Acts 1:8 (or the rest of Acts), the Great Commission, or the theme of witness in Revelation.
  5. Millar argues that there is a weak doctrine of sin and judgment in the book. Millar argues that Wright’s view of sin seems to primarily be horizontal in terms of its effects on our environment (speaking more broadly than, though including, the natural world). He notes that original sin does not seem to have much place in the book, nor substitutionary atonement. The positive evaluation of the nations and lack of discussion of the theme of judgment lead Millar to conclude that while Wright is not a universalistic himself, it opens the door wide for that view.
  6. Millar notes that the word “gospel” is not present in the index, nor is it featured in the book itself. He admits that Wright would likely say it’s the driving force behind all of mission, but Millar argues that it must be explicitly defined, discussed, and cited as the driving force behind mission.

Summary of Millar’s Concerns

Millar asks the following question: if this book dominates evangelical and Reformed missions for the next 30 years, where will we be?

There will be no hell, no judgment, not really any hope from the cross, no one will go anywhere, no one will preach to anyone, because we’re not sure that God cares that much, because everything is mission, and being is more important than going. Thus Millar says that it would be disastrous to take theology from TMoG.

Millar says that it’s not so much what’s in the book as it is what’s left out of it. His fear is that if we leave out what’s left out of The Mission of God, there will be no going, no preaching, because who would stand up and preach a gospel that will get us persecuted. There would be no evangelism, hell, judgment, and ultimately, no need for a cross. And therefore, ultimately, no mission.

Clearly, Millar’s critique, despite his expressed admiration for Chris Wright’s other work, is fairly scathing. I hope in Part 2 to look at some of his critiques and consider whether or not they are fair or not. Though I have not read Wright’s book in about a year, I have read it twice and spent quite a bit of time in his works, so I hope to offer some of my thoughts as I’m wrestling through some of these very issues.

I obviously would recommend actually listening to Millar’s critique and not relying on my notes on it. That will give better context for my interaction with his thoughts in the coming post.

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Posted by on May 11, 2013 in Missiology | 2 comments

Challenging Thoughts on Partnership

Challenging Thoughts on Partnership

Dr. Timothy Tennent, in his Invitation to World Missions: A Trinitarian Missiology for the 21st Century, makes a challenging observation about the nature of the western church’s work outside of the West going into the future:

More importantly, the vast majority of missionary activity will be initiated by movements within the Majority World. In the past the word partnership generally meant a missionary initiative from the Western world, which is planned and financed by the West but uses national workers in the implementation of the plan. This frequently turned out to be more of a sponsorship model than a true partnership model. However, with the dramatic rise of the global church, as well as the increasing vitality of many economies in the Majority World, the twenty-first century promises to be more profoundly collaborative. Churches from around the world will be taking the initiative in missionary planning and global engagement.

Certainly, it seems like history is full of examples of a sponsorship model instead of a true partnership model. Obviously, there are many reasons for why that has happened. But for me personally, I can see that one of the reasons it is so difficult to truly partner my own pride. And I suspect that as Westerners, we are continuing to struggle with that, as we want to keep the reins of power our own hands.

But perhaps, just perhaps when we truly commit to partnership in the coming decades, we will see the Lord work mightily through his people–only it will be through his people that may not look like me. And we need to pray that the Lord would humble us so that we are more committed to his glory and the salvation of all peoples than we are to our own accolades.

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Posted by on Dec 20, 2012 in Cross-Cultural Issues |

Review of Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed

jesus_carsonI have written a couple times already about some gems from D.A. Carson’s new book, Jesus the Son of God: A Christological Title Often Overlooked, Sometimes Misunderstood, and Currently Disputed, but I’d like to give a little more information about what the book provides. It is a short book, based on lectures that he gave at Reformed Theological Seminary this year. Here’s the (brief) table of contents:

Chapter 1: “Son of God” as a Christological Title

Chapter 2: “Son of God” in Select Passages [Hebrews 1 and John 5:16–30]

Chapter 3: “Jesus the Son of God” in Christian and Muslim Contexts

The first two chapters explore the ways in which Scripture uses the term “son of God,” both to apply to Jesus and to apply to people and nations. His desire is to see our doctrinal formulations regarding Jesus’ identity to be shaped by Scripture, with careful attention given to how each particular passage discusses Jesus’ identity as well. He explains the impetus for this topic in the preface:

I chose the topic about three years ago. Some work I had done while teaching the epistle to the Hebrews, especially Hebrews 1 where Jesus is said to be superior to angels because he is the Son, prompted me to think about the topic more globally. Moreover, for some time I have been thinking through the hiatus between careful exegesis and doctrinal formulations. We need both, of course, but unless the latter are finally controlled by the former, and seen to be controlled by the former, both are weakened. The “Son of God” theme has become one of several test cases in my own mind. Since choosing the topic, however, the debates concerning what a faithful translation of “Son of God” might be, especially in contexts where one’s envisioned readers are Muslims, have boiled out of the journals read by Bible translators and into the open. Entire denominations have gotten caught up in the controversy, which shows no sign of abating. The last of these three chapters is devoted to addressing both of these points—how, in a Christian context, exegesis rightly leads to Christian confessionalism, and how, in a crosscultural context concerned with preparing Bible translations for Muslim readers, one may wisely negotiate the current debate. But I beg you to read the first two chapters first. They provide the necessary textual detail on which discussion of the controversies must be based. (pgs. 11-12)

So when it comes to the last chapter, he is seeking to ground any conclusions about the current translation debate in exegesis of Scripture, and having read the book, I can say that I found his approach quite helpful in keeping the emphasis on communicating what Scripture is communicating while remaining culturally sensitive.

I will leave it to others to interact fully with Carson’s arguments regarding the translation issue, but nonetheless I found one particular thought insightful:

…the richest theological loading of the expression “Son of God” as applied to Jesus springs from passages that deploy the expression to cross-pollinate distinctive uses. This fact constitutes a driving reason to translate “Son of God” and “Father” expressions consistently, for otherwise these crucial intracanonical links will be lost to view.

His point is that while “Son of God” has a variety of meanings in the Scriptures, the term is used intentionally in the New Testament to communicate that Jesus’ identity is a complex of the trajectories arising from the Old Testament. If the term is replaced with something specifically tied to only one of those meanings, we will have missed out on the richness of what God is communicating to us about the person of the Savior.

This is helpful because the debate has at times, perhaps somewhat unfairly, been characterized entirely as stripping away Jesus’ familial identity with the Father. But there are some passages in which that may not be the primary meaning intended. But nonetheless, there is a whole complex of meanings attached to the term that we would be unwise to keep from being expressed through the expression “Son of God.”

I hope that there will be substantive interaction with Carson’s approach in this book, as I find that it does advance the discussion forward in some significant ways.

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Posted by on Aug 8, 2012 in Book Reviews, Ecclesiology, Missiology |

Some Thoughts on Total Church by Chester and Timmis

Having had it recommended to me by several people recently, I just read Total Church: A Radical Reshaping around Gospel and Community by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis. I found it to be a compelling and stimulating read, so I’ve decided to write out some thoughts about it. I will likely be writing more on a few specific topics raised in the book, but here are some overview thoughts for now. The table of contents is below:

As you can see, the book covers a number of topics, but its central premise is that the church–from its life and organization to its mission–should be shaped around two pillars: gospel and community. This theme is woven through every page of the book. After laying out this basic premise in the first two chapters, the remaining flesh out how that can look in the life the church. I’ll probably be posting numerous times in the coming days about specific ideas from the book, but for now, I want to offer just a few commendations and concerns.

Commendations

Chester and Timmis stick to their guns: gospel and community are the two driving forces behind their approach to the church and to church planting. This is evident throughout the book. Whether it’s discipleship, evangelism, apologetics, pastoral care, or any of the other topics they discuss, gospel and community take center stage. And that’s quite refreshing in the program-heavy church church environment in which we now live.

The book is of immense practical benefit in thinking about how the church is always to keep its focus on reaching its community, and how Christians can and should rethink their role in such an effort. To give an idea of where they go with their practical ideas, consider this list of what it might mean to be gospel-centered and community-centered:

  • seeing church as an identity instead of a responsibility to be juggled alongside other commitments
  • celebrating ordinary life as the context in which the word of God is proclaimed with ‘God-talk’ as a normal feature of everyday conversation
  • running fewer evangelistic events, youth clubs, and social projects, and spending more time sharing our lives with unbelievers
  • starting new congregations instead of growing existing ones
  • preparing Bible talks with other people instead of just studying alone at a desk
  • adopting a 24-7 approach to mission and pastoral care instead of starting ministry programs
  • switching the emphasis from Bible teaching to Bible learning and action
  • spending more time with people on the margins of society
  • learning to disciple one another–and to be discipled–day by day
  • having churches that are messy instead of churches that pretend

Now, I might want to quibble with some of the details, but in terms of the big picture, those are some practical goals that are fleshed out with some degree of clarity in the book. It’s also easy to tell that programs are not a big feature of their vision for the church. Instead, living life in community, and including unbelievers in that community, are the central features of the church’s outreach in the community. I would imagine that every pastor would say, “Yes! If only…” In some ways, we probably have programs because church members have either become isolated from nonbelievers, or not encouraged to bring unbelievers into the community, or are just too uncomfortable doing so. I highly encourage reading some of the ideas (and snippets of stories from real life) on how to do and encourage this.

Following up on this, I thought that the application of their two-pronged approach to apologetics had some very insightful comments. Consider this one:

This does not mean that there is no place for rational apologetics. But it means that such approaches must be less ambitious. Their role is not to persuade unbelievers. The role of rational apologetics is to demonstrate that unbelief is a problem of the heart rather than a problem of the head. (p. 172)

They also take aim at the approach that many middle to upper class churches take toward church planting and leadership development.

One of the reasons we have middle-class churches that are failing to reach working-class people is that we have middle-class leaders. And we have middle-class leaders because our expectations of what constitutes leadership and our training methods are middle-class. Indeed working-class people only get into leadership by effectively becoming middle-class. (p. 120)

That’s a bit of a searing indictment, but my denomination must profess that it is at least partially true. Now, I’m grateful for the ordination standards of my denomination, and there have been steps taken in the past few years to make our ordination standards more accessible to those who can’t uproot for 3-4 years to go into full-time seminary. But nonetheless, this is a conversation that the PCA needs to keep having, even as we hold on to our belief that the shepherds of Christ’s church should know Christ’s word.

There’s plenty of other ideas that are helpful in the book, but as I intend to blog about them in coming days, I’ll wait on them and go on to a few concerns.

Concerns

First, the discussion of sermons and preaching seems underdeveloped in the book. This comes through on several levels. The authors seem to encourage moving away from a sermon-centered approach to teaching and worship to a community-led, discussion-based learning model. They even claim that the sermon as such didn’t exist till after Constantine. But little defense is offered for such an approach, other than that there is less likelihood that a whole community will be led astray from Scripture’s teaching when they process it together.

Notwithstanding questions about such a claim, there seems to enough Scriptural testimony on the topic that it deserves more attention than that. While I don’t believe one book can address every issue, if you’re going to take a bite out of such a staple of how church has been done for quite some time, I would think that you’d want some more support for it than that.

Secondly, following up on that, the issue of authority seems quite neglected. In a book entitled Total Church, there is little to no discussion of elders and how leadership as such factors into the planting and discipling of churches. That seems like a glaring issue, as the establishing of local leadership seemed rather important in Acts and the Pauline epistles. Further, they claim that the Protestant response to the Roman hierarchy was that each person was his own individual pope (p. 159).

That seems to be quite a misunderstanding of what the Reformers actually taught, and so it seems to create a false dichotomy between a leadership-led interpretation of Scripture and a community-led interpretation of Scripture.Ironically, the Anabaptists are lifted up as the example of those who followed a community model of interpretation, despite the fact that they were the ones that the Reformers accused of taking individualistic interpretations too far. At the very least, the discussion of this issue in the book needed to be clearer and fuller.

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