LOCAL PERSPECTIVE І MISSION FOCUSED
Mission AT THE Beginning
By Dr. Michael Allen
D. JAMES KENNEDY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
THE GOSPEL TELLS US that mission is at the very beginning of the Christian story. Indeed, as one understands the way that the whole Bible points to Jesus and the gospel shapes and sustains the whole Christian life, we find that we are inevitably led to point to and participate in his glorious mission to the ends of the earth. Very briefly, I want to link the gospel with this passion for Christian missions, so you can get a sense of why these matters are part and parcel of our DNA here at Knox Theological Seminary. GOD AND MISSIONS First, the God who has all life in himself shares that life with others. It is no small thing that the perfect God – Father, Son, and Spirit, who were without need or want for all eternity past – determined to create and to call others into fellowship. Out of the depths of divine love came intimacy and nearness, peace and joy. The Puritan theologian Richard Sibbes said: “God’s goodness is a communicative, spreading goodness. . . . If God had not a communicative, spreading goodness, he would never have created the world. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost were happy in themselves and enjoyed one another before the world was.” Mission is at the beginning, because the God who was the beginning is a mission-pursuing sort of being. Second, this missional God then gives these men and women a mission as well: to share that life with others, spreading out and filling the whole earth with his glory.
We – from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Mission is at the heart of Christianity, Israel to each of us from every tribe, tongue, because it is at the heart of God. As Karl Barth and nation – have failed in that mission. The confessed so loudly, the God of the gospel eternal Son became incarnate, however, to has chosen to be with us and not without us; make good on that calling and to take the thus, he pursued us in Jesus Christ and by his presence of God to the ends of the earth. In Spirit. That is the kind of being that God is: our place he obeyed and served. In our stead one marked by a “communicative, spreading he sacrificed and loved. In us by his Spirit, we goodness.” That is the beginning of the begin also to obey and gospel. That is the root serve, to sacrifice and “Mission is at the heart of of Christian mission. love. A growing sense At Knox, we believe Christianity, because it is of the love of God that all theology is for at the heart of God.” in Christ inevitably life. It is for knowing leads to a deepening the God who is life in concern for loving God’s children as did himself. It is for living authentic and faithful Christ. Again, Sibbes is helpful in leading us to lives before him and for others. And to pray for a character like our heavenly Father: live genuinely and freely in Christ is to be “Oh that we had hearts to make way for such one caught up in his mission. So we are a goodness as God would cast into us, if we unabashedly mission focused in an age when were as we should be. God’s goodness is a such things may sound presumptuous or spreading, imparting goodness.” dangerous. Full disclosure: we are not mission focused because of a sense of self-importance THE ROOT OF THE CHRISTIAN MISSION or human achievement. Far from it. We are What do we see if we reflect on the mission focused, because our very existence gospel? Mission is not a response or remedy. is testimony to the grace and power of a Mission is not an afterthought or option. mission from another world. We are mission focused because we are gospel driven and Christ centered. We testify to the gospel of God that has pursued us in Jesus Christ from before there was time. Mission is at the beginning, and mission will be our calling to the very end. †
FALL 2012 | KNOX NOW
13