GOD’S WORD: AN
INSTRUMENT OF GOD’S MISSION
Anyone who lives in Kleefeld knows that to plant a garden
there will be challenges. We live in what used to be a swamp, so there are
trees and underbrush to contend with. Then there are the rocks that seem to
float upwards in the soil whenever you remove the top layer of rocks. Not to
mention the beloved oak trees that suck up most of the moisture: you have to
fell a few of those. When you finally get around to tilling you may find a
layer of gravel only inches beneath the topsoil.
Reading
and studying the Bible today resembles planting a Kleefeld garden. Our view of
the Word has become overgrown with assumptions and practices that make it
difficult to see the bigger picture of God’s mission. Many of us read the Bible
looking for personal encouragement and inspiration for the day ahead. And
that’s fine until we read the parts that don’t apply to “me” directly. Then the
Bible becomes irrelevant to the individual seeking comfort. While the Bible is
about “you,” it’s not all about you. We need to clear the ground if we are
going to read the Bible missionally.
David
Bosch asked, “Did the NT give rise to mission or did mission give rise to the
NT?” We might say it was the first, but Bosch rightly says it is the second.
After the Holy Spirit filled the believers at Pentecost, the church had no NT
but it moved out to do mission – from Jerusalem onwards. So where did the NT
come from? In what context did it arise? It arose in the context of mission –
mission to the nations. The first Christians did not automatically possess a
NT, study it in their homes for personal devotion, and then discover that its
main theme was the mission of God. Instead, they went out with the gospel to
many places and thought out loud about that mission. One form of that thinking
out loud was the NT.[i]
But what
was the root of their missional thinking? Where did it come from? The first
Christians found their motivation for mission in the rediscovery of God’s
mission in the OT. A small piece of that discovery is found in Deut. 31.
1. God’s Word is a Sacred Trust handed down
Moses has neared the end of his sermons for the people of
Israel. He confesses that he is 120 years old and about to die. So he takes
time to appoint a successor, Joshua, and to offer one last encouragement: Read
the Word.
Israel
does not have an OT at this point. All the communication from God to the people
came through Moses. God met with Moses in the tent of meeting and gave His
instructions; Moses told the people what God said. But Moses also wrote it
down. And as he wrote he was conscious of the fact that this was God’s law, not
his own invention.
What
makes the Scripture sacred? The source. God. Moses warned the people “…carefully follow all the words of this
law, which are written in this book…” (28:58). This book we call
Deuteronomy was part of the five-book collection titled the Books of Moses or
the Pentateuch. To Israel it was the very words of God. Moses was just the
scribe.
The
sacred value of this book was emphasized by where it was kept. Moses told the
Levites, “Take this Book of the Law and
place it beside the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD your God. There it will
remain as a witness against you” (31:26). In plain language, this book was
placed beside the most holy place. It was not put in the ark but beside it.
This underlined two things: how special the book was, and that it was to be
accessible.
What
Moses passed on to Joshua and to the priests and to the elders (community
leaders) was a sacred trust. This book was the key to honoring the God who
delivered them from bondage, who rescued them from their enemies, who was their
salvation. This book taught them how to participate in God’s mission for the
world.
The
context of Moses’ last words before his death and the passing on of this sacred
trust sound familiar. The Apostle Paul knew his death was imminent as well, and
before he died he wanted to pass on encouragement to another leader, Timothy. “And the things you have heard me say in the
presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified
to teach others” (2 Tim 2:2). Paul was speaking of the gospel of the
crucified Lord.
This
sacred trust in both cases was meant to be handed down to others. It was meant
to be protected as sacred truth but not hoarded. We are called to make it
accessible and visible. We are the recipients of this book. And unlike any
generation before us, we have access to God’s Word. Do we read it? Do we study
it? Do we give it a sacred space in life?
2. God’s Word provides the Foundation for Worship
Moses commanded the priests and elders to read this book
every seven years. The occasion was the Feast of Tabernacles, when debts were
cancelled and slaves set free. All Israel would gather at the Tabernacle before
God during this feast. On that occasion the whole book of Deuteronomy would be
read to all the people (10-11).
You
might be thinking “We only need to do church once every seven years.” Forget
it. Or we only need to read the Bible together every seven years. NO! Then we
misunderstand what’s going on.
The
public reading of the law as a nation was intended to be a renewal or reminder
of what the people agreed to do for God. It was a national worship service. The
book was the basis of their identity in Yahweh; it was a reminder that Yahweh
was their God and the responsibilities involved in that. The Word in this sense
had a central place in worship.
That
does not mean they only read it or thought about every seven years. In this
same book Moses taught the people to meditate constantly, daily, persistently
on these words (Read Deut. 6:6-9). So the Word had a central place in the
family too. If the nation was going to be dedicated to God and His law,
communities, tribes, and yes, families needed to meditate on the Word of God.
What
place does the Word, the Bible have in our church? Is reading the text for the
sermon enough? Why do we not read whole chapters together? Are we hearing God
speak? Do we realize that when someone reads the Scripture that we are hearing
God’s own voice? Somewhere in the course of events we developed the feeling
that we need to shoot through the scripture reading so we can get to the
sermon.
When
Layton Friesen and I were pastoring together at Crestview, he challenged me on
one occasion. He said that I read my Scripture references too fast, as if I was
in a rush to get to my own words, as if God’s Word were not important. From
that time on I slowed myself down and put more feeling into my Scripture
reading. It was a good challenge.
The Word
of God speaks on its own when we read it. The Word is cause for worship when we
realize what kind of God we serve, that He loves me (yes) and He loves you
and He sends us to others to tell
them He loves them too.
3. God’s Word shapes His people to be Missional
Moses believed that the words he wrote down, the very
words that God gave to him, would shape the people into a community that God
could use. He said, “Assemble the people
– men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns – so they
can listen and learn to fear the LORD your God and follow carefully all the words of this law” (12).
I see
four important purposes for God’s Word emerging from this verse:
a) Corporate
reminders – The people gathered together to be reminded of their purpose.
What are we here for? Why are we called by God’s name? For this reason they
recited the covenant.
Over the
past several weeks we have studied the content of this book. We know that it
contains the Ten Words (Commandments). We know that it tells the people what
God wants for a community called by His name (laws). And we know that this
covenant, as it was called, was never meant to be solely for God and Israel,
irrespective of the rest of the world (4:6-8). Israel was chosen by God to be a
light to the world. To forget this missional aim of the covenant was to forget
what it was about. It is as though the postman were to imagine that all the
letters in his bag were intended for him.
b) To Fear the
LORD – It strikes me how inclusive this command is: men, women, children
and foreigners are invited to hear the Word. This Word of God is for everyone
who will stop and hear it. But its purpose is to teach the listener why and
what it means to fear the LORD.
To fear
the LORD, as you know, is not to hide or run away in terror. Yes, we tremble
before the living God when we realize how awesome He truly is, but we run
towards Him in obedience. A healthy fear of God leads to obedience. Moses makes
this clear in Deut. 10:12-13 (read). This obedience includes the Ten Words and
the laws, but more importantly it includes loving God and loving your neighbor.
c) To be a model
community – A model community is certainly the result of obedience. This
book of Moses didn’t just happen. God didn’t redeem the people of Israel and
then whip out a book saying, “Hey, I just happen to have a book that might be
useful for devotional purposes.” The books of Moses arose out of the context of
God redeeming a people for a missional purpose. “This,” He says, “is who you
are and this is what you are called to do.”[ii]
As Moses said, “These are not just idle
words for you – they are your life” (32:47).
Jesus
echoed this same mission of God for His followers when He told them, “You are the light of the world. A city on a
hill cannot be hidden” (Mat. 5:14). Just as Israel was fashioned to be a
model community, the Church has been chosen to be the community that is the
sign, instrument, and foretasted of God’s in-breaking kingdom, a kingdom that
reveals the old order of things making way for the new order under the King of
kings, Jesus Christ, who makes all things new. In this model we are not merely
saved for heaven; we are saved to be examples of the transforming power of
Jesus Christ in the lives of those who believe. We are different.
d) To join God’s
mission – Israel failed to be the model community; they failed to be
covenant-keepers. But upon Israel’s failure Jesus takes their calling to be the
light of the world and lays it on His own shoulders. And through His teaching
and the cross, He calls a community to be with Him and shows them how to truly
be the light of the world. In His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus deals
with the sin of the world, including the sin of Israel, so that they can
fulfill their calling. The new covenant people of God are “humanity renewed in
Christ.” And Jesus sends them to continue His own mission begun in Deuteronomy.[iii]
This is
how Jesus saw the Scriptures. Remember the Road to Emmaus story? Jesus comes
upon two sorrowful disciples walking away from Jerusalem. He begins talking
with them and when they confess their unbelief of the resurrection, Jesus gives
them an OT lesson. “And beginning with
Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the
Scriptures concerning himself” (Lk 24:27). You can believe that Jesus went
to Deuteronomy to reveal Himself and God’s mission to these two disciples. Luke
then records that Jesus surprises the Eleven with His resurrected self. He eats
a piece of fish to show He is no ghost and then says, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of
Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms” (44b). Then he opened their minds so
they could understand the scriptures.
If we
take Jesus seriously in Luke, it is not only the NT that is to be read in light
of the mission of God but the OT as well. The Church is not given a new mission
but the same mission that Moses preached in Deuteronomy, if we read the Bible
as one whole story and not in pieces.
If the Word of God is the instrument of God’s mission,
then we must begin anew to read it from the beginning. I am not saying we have
read it wrong per se all these years. But then again, perhaps we have read the
Bible from the wrong perspective.
Christopher
Wright illustrates the heart of the matter when we read the Bible without
missional lenses. We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” But
the Bible asks a different question, “Where does my life fit into the story of
God’s mission?” We wonder, “Does God have a purpose tailored just for me?” when
we should be asking, “What would it mean for my life to be wrapped up in the
great mission of God?” Or again, we say, “How does the Bible apply to my life?”
Isn’t the missional question, “How does my life apply to the Bible?” And “What
kind of mission does God have for me?” should be “What kind of me does God want
for His mission?” Finally, in the age of church vision statements, we ask,
“What kind of mission does God have for our church?” But we ought to ask, “What
kind of church does God expect for His mission?”[iv]
Reading
the Bible missionally is not something we force on the Scriptures. It has been
there all along. We just might not have seen it. But if we read the Bible like
Jesus did in Luke 24:25 we should begin to see what God’s purposes really were
from Genesis to Revelation. We have our favorite passages that encourage us –
what if we read those same texts in the light of God’s mission for the world?
Would they read differently?
Reading
the Bible missionally is not simply a cool new idea to replace your tired old
study habits. Rather, Jesus in Luke 24 demands that we read Deuteronomy this
way. If we do, we will find that God’s Word is an instrument for God’s mission.
It is a sacred trust handed down to us to know God and to shape us into a
people for God.
AMEN
[i]
David Bosch, Transforming Mission:
Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1998) as
quoted by Robert Lynn in his blog “In all the Scriptures: Reading the Bible
Missionally.
[ii]
Robert Lynn
[iii]
Michael Goheen, A Dialogue with N.T.
Wright – Jesus: A Public Figure Making a Public Announcement. (email me for
further info)
[iv]
Christopher Wright in Robert Lynn’s blog. (see above)
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