I found this comment from Kostenberger and O'Brien to be a helpful clarification (Wright's book suffers from conceptual confusions):
The mission of the exalted Jesus is accomplished through the witness of the apostles in the power of the Holy Spirit. The one who is himself sent by God sends his representatives to bear testimony to his salvation, to announce the forgiveness of sins and to make disciples of all nations. In other words, his witnesses continue the mission of Jesus by declaring to men and women everywhere the glorious gospel of the grace of God. As the Father has sent him, so Jesus sends them. Moreover, this testimony to Jesus and his saving work involves a wide-ranging series of activities that result in believers being built up in Christ and formed into Christian congregations. It is not limited to primary evangelism and its immediate results...
And so: good works of all kinds, that flow from the impact of Christ in the power of the Spirit, are rightly ordered to mission (and to ecclesiology, too).
K and O'B do a much better job at a 'Biblical Theology of Mission' I find, partly because they don't overplay the OT to the extent that Wright does.
6 comments:
That sounds a lot like what Vanhoozer argued in his Drama of Doctrine (not saying that Vanhoozer was the first to say it).
So, have K & OB resolved your concern over the Christian distinctiveness of "good works" or their ordering to mission?
;-)
um...
er...
yes.
Ordering them to mission.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more i think you are right that the word 'mission' is itself the problem.
It's just I think that the search for conceptual clarity, and the kind of classifications reflected in standard curricula or library shelves (this is mission or missiology, this is ethics, this is theology...) while unavoidable, can result in unhelpful oppositions IMHO.
Probably a particular problem with mission because of the desire of so many (from a variety of perspectives) to make it the key for understanding Christian life, identity and activity, or Biblical theology. It's a high-stakes game so you want to make sure that your preferences are definitively included (and, on occasion, that the preferences of your opponents are excluded) from what is "mission."
With, as you point out, the result that some may undervalue the action of announcing the 'news' of God's self-giving in Christ and some may undervalue the demonstration of this announcement through being, not merely saying, good news, letting their light shine in darkness.
Is it right to say that K & O'B comment endorses the kind of integral mission that Wright is arguing for (a genuine question since I haven't read K & O'B or Wright) and Sean too in the earlier comment thread, just taking a different approach to the Biblical material?
Also, I don't know what you mean when you say "good works of all kinds... are rightly ordered to mission".
Which probably doesn't matter.
Are you saying that these things "can usefully or properly be considered or included under the category Mission"? Or that they have an ordering of some other kind to a different thing called mission?
I suppose as faith is to works so mission is to justice etc.
You can distinguish them, but not seperate them.
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