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.

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.

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.

I highly recommend getting the book. It is simply soaked in Scripture, as it is primarily a look at Paul’s prayers in his epistles. It comes with study questions at the end of each chapter, and so it would be a great book to use in a Sunday school class or Bible study.

Sadly, Christian leaders may be among the worst offenders. Faced with constant and urgent demands, they find it easy to neglect their calling to the ministry of the Word and prayer because they are so busy. Indeed, they are tempted to invest all of their activity with transcendental significance, so that although their relative prayerlessness quietly gnaws away at the back of their awareness, the noise and pain can be swamped by the sheer importance of all the things they are busily doing. (Kindle Locations 1727-1730)

That gnawing that he references is huge. I’m sure we have all felt it, but we focused instead on other things to be working on.

It matters little whether you are the mother of active children who drain away your energy, an important executive in a major multinational corporation, a graduate student cramming for impending comprehensives, a plumber working overtime to put your children through college, or a pastor of a large church putting in ninety-hour weeks: at the end of the day, if you are too busy to pray, you are too busy. Cut something out. (Kindle Locations 1754-1757)

I suspect that for most of us, we are able to find time for plenty of other things–movies, music, hobbies, blog posts, etc. But his point stands: if we’re not praying a lot, then we need to find something to take out of our schedule or routine, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Few of us are so crass that we self-consciously reason, “I am too important to pray. I am too self-confident to pray. I am too independent to pray.” Instead, what happens is this: Although abstractly I may affirm the importance of prayer, in reality I may treat prayer as important only in the lives of other people, especially those whom I judge to be weaker in character, more needy, less competent, less productive. Thus, while affirming the importance of prayer, I may not feel deep need for prayer in my own life. I may be getting along so well without much praying that my self-confidence is constantly being reinforced. That breeds yet another round of prayerlessness. What is God’s response? If Christians who shelter beneath such self-assurance do not learn better ways by listening to the Scriptures, God may address them in the terrible language of tragedy. We serve a God who delights to disclose himself to the contrite, to the lowly of heart, to the meek. When God finds us so puffed up that we do not feel our need for him, it is an act of kindness on his part to take us down a peg or two; it would be an act of judgment to leave us in our vaulting self-esteem. (Kindle Locations 1808-1816)

If the first quote wasn’t enough of a smack in the face, this one is even more. Particularly for those of who are by default achievement-oriented multi-taskers, it is all too easy to simply feel–if not think explicitly–that we don’t need God’s help in the various tasks to which we have been called.

I don’t think he’s trying to guilt or scare people into more prayer either. It seems more likely that he’s just observing what he has seen in the experiences of God’s people over time. Of course, the danger with any book like this is to simply read about prayer but not actually pray more. As Paul would say, “May it never be!”

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.

(1) “Living the gospel” seemed like a potentially confusing phrase, given that the gospel is the good news of what God has done for us, not something we do or are.

(2) Some who agreed with point (1) seemed to be inspiring just a little too much in the way of attacks on those who used terminology like “living the gospel” (which is not to say that they intended for that to happen). It seemed to me that most people (at least within my circles, I can’t say outside of that) seemed to be using the phrase to mean simply “live in light of the gospel,” or something to that effect, but we’re being accused—quite unsuspectingly—of perverting the gospel or introducing works into justification.

So my concerns were essentially both theological—speaking correctly—but also pastoral—let’s make sure we understand what people are saying and make sure not to jump all over them when they mean something we totally agree with.

Summarizing the Original Post

Arising from those two concerns, I thought it would be interesting to look at the biblical verbs associated with euaggelion in the New Testament. That is, what guidance might we receive from the way Scripture puts verbs in front of “gospel”?

I encourage you to look at my analysis of the data in the earlier post, but basically, I found that the Scriptures don’t really use phrases like “live the gospel,” and that such a phrase could potentially be confusing. However, I also noted that it uses two verbs (disobey, obey in English) which seem to suggest something like “live the gospel” on the surface. On closer examination in context, they basically mean “believe/disbelieve the gospel.”

And of course, there is Paul’s rebuke of Peter’s behavior in Galatians, in which he says that Peter was living out of step with the gospel. But most of the verbs used in relation to “gospel” had to do with verbal proclamation or belief.

From the data, I basically suggested that yes, we should be careful about the term, as it could potentially be confusing, but that secondly, we shouldn’t necessarily jump all over people who use it, particularly when we can tell that all they mean is “live in light of the gospel.”

One other note about the original post: I wish that I had never referenced Frank Turk’s open letter to Mike Horton on the question (in which he questions the rigidity of the law-gospel distinction in light of the subjunctive mood). It didn’t really aid my point, though I had found it interesting at the time. The whole law-gospel distinction discussion was supposed to be beyond the scope of my post (there’s plenty to be said about it), and that little insertion didn’t do much to help me.

Dr. Clark’s Response and a Brief Reply

Yesterday, I left a comment on a blog post over at the Heidelblog on this topic. I wish that I had worded it differently, as I see my conclusions as basically affirming the substance of Dr. Clark’s issue with the terminology, while yet perhaps wishing for a little bit less stridency on those who use the term without meaning all that he thinks they may mean.

His response (which was much longer than I anticipated, which I appreciate, and to which I replied in the comments), I think misunderstood where I was coming from, as he primarily took me to task for “biblicism.” For those of you who are unaware, the concern is that we would interpret Scripture without a healthy dose of respect for how God has worked through the church in the past. That is, creeds and confessions are important, and we ought to be shaped and guided by them as we interpret Scripture, since by their very nature, we confess that they are faithful summaries of Scripture (well, at least those of us ordained in denominations who have them as doctrinal standards).

I was somewhat surprised, as I would typically describe myself as one who wishes there was a recovery more and more of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms (and other good Reformed confessions). E.g., see my glowing posts on Trueman’s The Creedal Imperative, which was one of the better books I read in 2012.

He saw my post as saying that there’s nothing wrong with “living the gospel,” and that we ought to just jettison how the Reformed have used theological vocabulary because of a quick word study. That was not my point at all.

I just don’t think it’s very helpful in conversations with those who perhaps have not accepted my confessional commitments to tell them that my Reformed heroes from several centuries ago already figured this out so they just need to deal with it. Rather, it’s more helpful to show them how Scripture speaks about these things.

I don’t think that’s biblicism, particularly since I think the Reformed tradition and the brief study I did agree on the basic point. But despite my love for the Reformed tradition and our creeds and confessions, I think it is generally more helpful (within our churches and in broader evangelicalism) if we explain Scripture (of course, in a way that is consonant with what we confess in our confessional documents Scripture to teach, contra the FV crowd) to people rather than explaining others’ explanations of Scripture to them.

When we do that, we can pray that they will see from Scripture the truths that the Reformation recovered for us in such beauty.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, at the heart of all our praying must be a biblical vision. That vision embraces who God is, what he has done, who we are, where we are going, what we must value and cherish. That vision drives us toward increasing conformity with Jesus, toward lives lived in the light of eternity, toward hearty echoing of the church’s ongoing cry, ‘Even so, come, Lord Jesus!’ That vision must shape our prayers, so that the things that most concern us in prayer are those that concern the heart of God. Then we will persevere in our praying, until we reach the goal God himself has set for us.

But given that background, the reasons for it are not ones that I’ve given much thought in quite some time. But one of the beautiful (and sometimes difficult and stretching) things about living cross-culturally is that you are often exposed to perspectives quite outside your own tradition. Learning to think through these things and respond with grace, humility, and yet confidence in God’s word is not learned overnight.

In our current context, the presence of dreams and visions being sent from God to his people in the OT (and to a lesser extent in the early pages of the NT) indicates that we should expect similar things today. My thoughts immediately go to Hebrews 1:1-2 in such a discussion:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

These verses indicate that there is some sort of climactic change with the coming of Christ. But of course it doesn’t mention dreams specifically and doesn’t elaborate specifically on the topic. But I was reading Acts 2 in my own devotions today, and I came across specifically Peter’s use of Joel 2 in his sermon:

¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. ¹⁵ For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.^[b]16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
¹⁸ even on my male servants^[c] and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
¹⁹ And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
²⁰ the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
²¹ And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Don’t get me wrong. There were some aspects of the ordination process that were somewhat less than awesome.

E.g., whether I know the name of Jeremiah’s scribe or not seems to have little or no connection to life, ministry, theology, etc.

But one of the things that ordination forced me to do was to memorize where to find Scripture references that deal with a number of topics. With some of them, I had to memorize the content of the verses themselves, but for many, I just had to be able to summarize the content.

Even in this one, abnormal year of my life since finishing my exams, I have found the incredible value of knowing where to find those Scripture references.

Someone asked me just this past week some tough questions about spiritual warfare, wanting advice from Scripture, not experience, and so thankfully I was forced to know that Ephesians 6 speaks clearly and directly, as does 1 Peter 5, and we have Jesus’ example of resisting the devil with the word of God in Matthew 4. And similar examples regarding other topics have happened many times in the past year.

Of course, ordination also shows you how little you really know about so many topics, but it forces us to have a foundation of knowledge in Scripture. The main thing for those of us who have gone through the process is to continue to grow in our knowledge of Scripture, and more importantly, in our knowledge of our Savior.

But though the process was hard, I am grateful that our denomination deems it important for us to really know the Bible.