Missional Musing - 11-15-2012

The great 20th Century theologian John Stott wrote: "Our mandate for world evangelization is the whole Bible. It is to be found in the creation of God (because of which all humans beings are responsible to him), in the character of God (as outgoing, loving, compassionate, not willing that any should perish, desiring that all should come to repentance) in the promises of God (that all nations will be blessed through Abraham;s seed and will become the Messiah's inheritance), in the Christ of God (now exalted with universal authority, to receive universal acclaim) in the Spirit of God (who convicts of sin, witnesses to Christ, and impels the Church to evangelize) and in the Church of God (which is a multinational, missionary community, under orders to evangelize until Christ returns)."

We therefore err if  we limit our missional praxis to any portion of the Bible, any particular thread of Scripture, or any single ideas about what mission should be today. We need to recalibrate around the whole Council of God and rethink the whole Gospel, whole Church, whole World through the lens of the whole Bible, once again. But how do we live that out? All that Stott tells us is "of God" needs to be reviewed through the "Kingdom of God" (which is the realization of all that the Church of God is empowered to do through the Spirit of God, due to the completed work of the Christ of God, toward fulfillment of the Promises of God, to display the Character of God, for the redemption and restoration of the Creation of God.) That does kind of rule out placing limitations of how we understand the Mission of God.