by Dr Kang San Tan, Head of Mission Studies, Redcliffe College, reviews Chris Wright’s The Mission of God: From A Missiologist’s Perspective
"In 1999, at the WEA Iguassu Consultation, I first heard Chris Wright express his critique that David Bosch, in Transforming Mission (1991), devoted rather limited space to the study of Old Testament texts for mission theology. In his new book, Wright devotes about two-thirds of his discussion to Old Testament texts."
"Wright begins by asking the question of whether a missional reading of scripture can be applied to the whole of the scriptures. What happens when Christians read the Bible as a grand narrative of God’s mission? Instead of proof-texting and basing the whole of Christian mission on a few selected New Testament passages, Wright offers a missional reading of the whole Bible. This particular (missional) way of reading the scriptures is based on the assumption that “the whole bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation” (p.51). Rather than developing a biblical basis of mission, Wright offers a missional apologetic for the Bible; that behind the church’s mission is a God with a mission as revealed in the whole of the biblical narrative. Wright’s missional hermeneutic seeks to include global Christian voices, “the multiplicity of perspectives and contexts from which and within which people read the biblical texts” (p.39). Beyond contextual and postmodern readings of scripture, Wright argues that the Bible offers a particular story of God’s action through Israel with a universal claim among the nations. Missionaries reading this book will benefit from a more coherent and biblical framework for mission. As a result, readers are invited to discover mission in almost every book in the bible. In my view, this modelling of reading the bible missiologically is the most important contribution of Wright’s The Mission of God."
"In 1999, at the WEA Iguassu Consultation, I first heard Chris Wright express his critique that David Bosch, in Transforming Mission (1991), devoted rather limited space to the study of Old Testament texts for mission theology. In his new book, Wright devotes about two-thirds of his discussion to Old Testament texts."
"Wright begins by asking the question of whether a missional reading of scripture can be applied to the whole of the scriptures. What happens when Christians read the Bible as a grand narrative of God’s mission? Instead of proof-texting and basing the whole of Christian mission on a few selected New Testament passages, Wright offers a missional reading of the whole Bible. This particular (missional) way of reading the scriptures is based on the assumption that “the whole bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation” (p.51). Rather than developing a biblical basis of mission, Wright offers a missional apologetic for the Bible; that behind the church’s mission is a God with a mission as revealed in the whole of the biblical narrative. Wright’s missional hermeneutic seeks to include global Christian voices, “the multiplicity of perspectives and contexts from which and within which people read the biblical texts” (p.39). Beyond contextual and postmodern readings of scripture, Wright argues that the Bible offers a particular story of God’s action through Israel with a universal claim among the nations. Missionaries reading this book will benefit from a more coherent and biblical framework for mission. As a result, readers are invited to discover mission in almost every book in the bible. In my view, this modelling of reading the bible missiologically is the most important contribution of Wright’s The Mission of God."
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