Theology of World Missions - Lesson 1

Theology of World Missions
Dr. Peter Kuzmič
wm602-01
Thesis on Theology of Missions
Lesson Transcript

All right. Everybody coming in. Here is what we will do procedurally. I would like to lecture for about 15 minutes to introduce the subject matter in a way that will give you some insights into some theology that we will be pulling together. And then we have to do something that will help us for the rest of the semester. Will be at that point that we will also look at the syllabus. Okay. So if you are making notes, you may want to take notes now as we become a little bit more systematic. We meet Tuesday nights, 3 hours. Next week we will look at the biblical basis of. Missions. Let's ignore that for now. All I want us to do tonight. Is just to throw out a few sentences. Kind of a thesis on theology of missions. Because for many of you, this is the only missions class we will have to bring in some practical aspects and some general surveys of global missions. Because some of you within the end, if you if I teach just theology of missions and I am a theologian by training, you may be just piling on another theology class and fail in the exposure to the global realities that world missions has to deal with. What I am doing here is of a more general nature as we talk about theology of missions. And I would like to spell out six theses. This is actually a chapter of a book that is in the making, but it will give you some pregnant ways of expressing what this subject, this class is all about. But I would like to reverse the order here and start with what is thesis six here and make that the number one God of the Bible is a missionary God and the Church of Jesus Christ is God's missionary people.

We will be elaborating that further as I will try to convince you. And I don't think that should be difficult for in any evangelical seminary where we take the authority and the substance of biblical revelation seriously, that the Christian church, by its very nature a missionary community because the God who made himself known in history through his mighty deeds and words as we find them recorded in scriptures, is a missionary God. And that takes us now back to what I have here as thesis number one. Namely, that mission is not an appendix, not some kind of an addition. But is that the very central of God's plan and divine purpose for human race? So very often missions is treated by churches. I don't know about your church as something added maybe one weekend a year. There is a missions conference and there is an emphasis on missions. And missionaries are treated as some kind of an, you know, foreign force. The cross-cultural specialists that you occasionally see and hear from. And we must change that paradigm and start from the very nature of God. That's what theology is all about. Theology is about God. All of our thinking and all of our practice has to be God centered. We are to learn to think logically about everything, of course, including, if I may put that in a broader sense, including society, including culture, including education. Some of you have educational background, including arts. This is where the development of a Christian mind or a biblical worldview is so important. And remember, in our era of postmodernity, if we don't have a well-developed Christian worldview as a philosophy of life, we don't have a basis for a value system. You do not have ethics without theology.

Okay. Now, this is a theological seminary. This is a graduate professional school. And so it's very important that we as we go through this education, which is not cheap, but above the money and all the other the time and everything else you invest. The most important thing is that you develop a theological mindset, a comprehensive worldview that is scripturally based but not formed and lived in a ghetto in a monastic kind of isolation, but relevant to the realities around us. And when we talk about world missions, of course we mean global realities, not just our neighborhood. We very often and I face that as I travel and speak in churches and conferences around this nation. I hear that theological seminaries and going to Cornwall is one of the premier evangelical theological institutions, do very well in training for pulpits, for expository ministry, because we put a lot of emphasis on biblical languages and exegetical skills, and rightfully so. But sometimes it is noticeable that we don't do as good a job in training for society, in training, not just for church ministry, but so that we can be God's transformative agents in wherever he, in his sovereign will sends us and places us. I have been working quite a bit with political leaders, my having been offered myself both a diplomatic post and a political position, and I was forced to think through what does the doctrine of the Lordship of Christ over all creation, over all reality mean? Does the Lord have something to say to our social order, to our culture, to the tragedy and drama in, say, Rwanda, to violence in Colombia, to integrate the conflict in the Balkans? Do we have a message that is credible and that we can articulate in intelligible terms to our secular culture? What would you say if you were invited to give a lecture to, say, MIT students or down at Harvard Business School or a John F Kennedy School of Government and they ask you to speak about the Kingdom of God, an issue I continually struggle with.

How do the Kingdom of God in the kingdoms of this world intersect? How can cultures be redeemed or renewed so that we are not talking? If I may put it, and I will elaborate that further in these ten three hour sessions that we will have together so that we are not just concerned about saving souls for heaven, but that we have the concern of God who is the creator and the ruler of the universe and who has a concern for all reality. Abraham Kuyper, who was a great theologian. Some of you have seen his principles of sacred theology and other volumes, great philosopher and a great politician, a founder of three, University of Amsterdam, Prime Minister of Holland, etc., etc.. In his in. Inaugural address and the opening of the Free University of Amsterdam. He said there is not one inch. I think he actually said one centimeter centimeter. There are no inches in Europe, no centimeters. Okay. He said there is not one centimeter in us or around us where Christ does not put his finger. Christ the Lord does not put his finger and say, Mine, mine, mine. And there was a newspaper report that said that when Abraham Shepherd is, he truly was a genius. How many of you have heard of Abraham Kuyper? Okay, a few of you. So I will not ask. How many of you have read Abraham Kuyper? Is worth reading, actually. Princeton Theological Seminary has an annual Abraham Kuyper lectureship. Great men. Probably the greatest Calvinist that ever lived after. After John Calvin. Enormous comprehensive mind. I must tell you a story here. When Abraham Kuyper was born, the baby had such a big head that the parents rushed the baby to this Jewish German doctor because they were afraid that it was filled with water.

What do you call it? Hydrocephalus. Yeah. And the doctor examined this baby for a long time and the parents and other relatives waiting in the waiting room. And he finally, when he concluded his examination, he bit his hands up, exited his, you know, the whatever you call the his medical laboratory there and faced the parents and said all this, get here. All let's get here. Which means all brains. All brains. Well, it has proven to be all brains. And we need to look at such great minds where theology, philosophy, strong evangelical commitment and a concern for the social order and fate of the nations meet. Abraham Kuyper k you y. B e r. I would be tempted to talk about Kuyper for a long time, but we don't have time for that. I am trying to challenge you first, not to underestimate this class and say, Oh yeah, missions and I will not be a missionary. I'm an and dead, but I have to meet the requirement. Or those of you who are in missions major to reduce the understanding of the mission just as some kind of a cross-cultural activity, because we owe the gospel to the heathens, as we used to say in the past. At us, we are dealing with something that is central to the very nature of God, central to Christian faith. And so we are saying that in order to understand God and his plan, his purposes for history, we need to understand that his very nature is missionary and that as a result, the church is God's missionary community send into the world to be the light of the nations. They'll be the salt of the earth to be God's transformative agent in the world. This does not take away from personal evangelism, from witness, from using whatever steps from four spiritual laws or whatever other ways you use to introduce the ABCs of Christian faith to those who are biblically literate.

I just want. Don't want us to reduce the understanding of divine mission or what's technically called miss your day to reduce it to just that personal. So let's reflect from the larger standpoint or viewpoint of who God is, what God is like, why Christ came, why he died, and what happened on the third day, and what the consequences of that is. When he says all power, all authority, all ecstasy. How do you translate ecstasy? Maybe dominion in heaven and on earth is given to me. Therefore, as you go, make disciples of all nations, or you go back into the high Christology of, say, Ephesians and Colossians and you see the cosmic dimensions of Christ's redemptive work and of his role. So that's where where we are starting our theological discussions about missions. Now, let me do a little experiment with you, since I mentioned the importance of a well-developed Christian worldview. Christian world view. Germans have a wonderful saying, which is a technical expression. If you read technical theology of time, you'll come across that what valid, unsound world view is viewing the world from a certain point of view. A viewpoint is a view from a point. Right? Sounds like tautology. I know that. Let's try to explain that. You know you have scriptures. Maybe I shouldn't do that. That will take too much time. Remind me. Remind me next session of the beginning to do a little exercise with you on the world view. You will remind me. Somebody will. You will. Thank you. Okay, so we come back to this. Otherwise we'll be running out of time tonight. The thesis. The next thesis. Let's say we call it number three. The Church of Jesus Christ is not the place that collects and conserves people for heaven.

Functioning as a as a waiting room for the hereafter. The Church of Jesus Christ is God's transformative agent in the world. John Stott entitled His commentary in the Bible speaks Today Be a series on Ephesians God's New Society. You see that God's new society, the Epistles, deficiencies, religion and ecclesiology. Call three This God's new Society a communal expression and representation of the Kingdom of God among the kingdoms of this world. You could put it in that in those terms. God's transformative agent in the world. I am saying this because I very often perceive and I know I've struggled with that. I've been a pastor in two different churches and have trained church planters that very often evangelicals think that, you know, the church is the place where you gather sinners who are saved and then you make sure that they remain saints until the Lord calls them and snatches them out of this valley of sorrows, you know. And so we have a kind of a passive isolationist, not very productive ecclesiology and ecclesial practice that doesn't change the world and only snatches a few souls from the world that we bring in now to conserve, say, for heaven that don't we will need to. If if that's where your thinking is, you need a better lawyer. Okay? We need a paradigmatic change about the church and even those simple metaphors that Jesus uses in the Sermon on the Mount, the salt and the light. They speak volumes to this thesis. God's transformative agent in the world. Okay. This is number four. Then, in our new order here would be that our overarching hermeneutic those of you who are new here in a theological classroom, hermeneutic is not a family name. It's not Mr. Hermeneutic, okay? It's the science and art of interpretations.

We use it more narrowly in referring to biblical hermeneutics where you learn the rules. Exegesis and hermeneutics are kind of complementary in this process as we take the text from the study to the pulpit or from the study to the world. Now that we talk world missions, our overarching hermeneutics using the word in a broader sense of interpreting realities, our overarching hermeneutic is a constant search and journey, and it is a two way journey between the text and the context between the world and the world. Now, you are a student at any of Angelica's seminary, and we do specialize in the text, the sacred text. Okay, They inspired scriptures, the Word of God. I would like to challenge you that in this class we should think not only about the text, we must think about the context. Actually, that is what Christian life. Not just ministry. Christian life is a constant journey between the world and the world. To quote my favorite friend and mentor, John Stewart, his book, which in Britain was published. In the series? I believe so. He was I believe in preaching. I think the American title is Between Two Worlds. And if you know that book. Yeah. And what he is basically saying, I'll simplify it a little bit, that a preacher has to be with one foot in the biblical world or a world fully at home and with another word or another foot in the present world, and that we have to be at home in both. So we are bridge builders between the God's holy Word and God's, but alienated and sinful world at which he cares and places rightful claims. And this is, of course, what missions is all about. Bridge builders. Now, you could put it this way, a Christian minister.

Well, in one hand you have the Holy Scriptures and in the other hand the unholy New York Times. And I hope you read both. If you are fanatic New Englanders, read The Boston Globe. But it doesn't match with New York Times or read Washington Post. I find The New York Times and Washington Post the best daily newspapers in this country or on the more conservative when it comes to weeklies, Time magazine and on the more liberal, if that's the right expression. No, This is U.S. News and World Report. Excellent. I thought they had Newsweek here. Yeah, this is excellent also. But I don't know where it is ideologically. I know that if I want to read a more conservative commentary on world events or events in this country every time, and when you want a little bit more creative, more liberal view, I read Newsweek in Washington. They now read The Washington Post or Washington Times, although Washington Times, many evangelicals claim Washington Times. I have some difficulty because of the ownership of that newspaper, but that is increasingly taken as the voice of the conservatives political as well as religious conservatives. Washington Times. While Washington Post is like The New York Times, more liberal. But we have to read both and don't develop. If you are a new student, don't develop the habit. I've been teaching here for ten years now and I'm sometimes worried as I talk with my students and they are able to execute the scriptures in Greek and Hebrew and ready to graduate. But they are ignorant and illiterate about the world events. You have to be able to execute the realities of the world into which God sends us with His word. Because if you ignore the word the world, you betray the word.

The word is not lived or proclaimed in a vacuum and not from a safe distance. The world by its very nature and explicit mandate, calls us and commissions us to engage the world. Of course, if you emphasize the world, but ignore the world as so many of our liberal friends have done, you are in a different and more perilous situation because you have nothing to bring to the world without the world. So it's a continuous permanent two way traffic between the two. Make sure you study boat, but make sure. Well, we as one could put this in different terms. We are citizens of two kingdoms. You are still citizens of this kingdom. Although since you kicked out. What was his name? George King. George. You know it's not called Kingdom anymore. But you know what I mean. And citizens of God's kingdom. And make sure that you don't develop this schizophrenia, but that you are able to bridge that to knowing who you are, your identity in Christ, but also knowing what your mission in the world. Yes. Okay. The next thesis, which I guess would be number five in this small reordering, Jesus expects us. From US boat obedience to the Great Commission. Matthew 28 and the practice of the Great Compassion. I have given that title to Matthew 25. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was naked. I was a refugee. And you did or didn't do certain things to me. And he says, Well, you know, the king on the final accounting days will make certain pronouncement. And the pronouncement, the judgment will depend on how we have treated the little ones or how we have not treated them. So it is not just a question of proclamation, but it's a question of service.

It's a question of authentic living, because humans have not only ears to hear what we proclaim. They are not only souls which we register for heaven. They also have eyes with which they watch how we live. And they have bodies, sometimes hurting bodies that need healing and medical care and empty stomachs that need to be filled before they will hear and properly understand what we are proclaiming. And we will be developing that a little further. And then the last piece is here is that we need a theologically grounded Ms.. Theology and Ms. theologically focused theology. Now, this is where I am in full agreement with the Gordon Convo approach to this. Gordon Convo has not developed a separate school of missions and evangelism like Fuller Theological Seminary, where I was on faculty a long time ago. The former Millennium or Trinity Evangelical Divinity School are. I think Astbury has done the same because then the danger is that you say, okay, study a little bit of social sciences and anthropology, but basically they do the practice of cross-cultural engagement and here is where they do the weighty matters of biblical exposition and and theology and church history. And I say, let no theological seminary put asunder what God has put together. And so we are saying here I am at least saying, and you will hear me repeat that all mis theology has to be theologically grounded. Otherwise. And you've heard the words and criticism of so much of evangelical theology. Like one expression that is floating around is managerial mis theology, or that it has compromised on theology and given into the social sciences, or that it is kind of a money driven religious activity, or that it is, you know, so much anthropologically based that it doesn't have deep theological grounding, etc., etc..

So it has to be theologically grounded. And I will be spending about five or 6 hours on this to show the biblical basis for a theology of missions. But at the same time, all theology should be more theologically focused and we will be showing that through our scriptural study, because if it is not theologically focused, it betrays the Kingdom of God. It's in danger of ending up a kind of a selfish theological academic exercise as an end in itself. And whatever is selfish is sinful. And so theologically grounded means theologically focused. We need to keep them together. Okay. That much about this introductory lecture. And now I want you to look at your syllabus. There are three books that I am requiring that you read of the second one, which is a fashion gift for a well-known theological thinker, Doctor Anderson, who until two years ago was the director of the Overseas Ministries Studies Center in New Haven, just across the street from the Yale Divinity School. In that book, I'm not requiring that you read that whole book. In that book, you will be asked to read certain chapters of your own choice. Now, you're welcome to read the whole book. It's almost like I think somebody introducing that book said, Who's who in evangelical physiology? Excellent chapters. And we will discuss the outline of that book next time. But I'm giving you some choice there, because you may be specializing in certain areas or your interest may be in either topically or geographically, thematically in a certain field. And so you will have some choice there. I will tell you about the book by David Marsh. Next time, bring it with you. But what I want to ask you now is to read John's thoughts book through.

It's a small book. How many pages in it? It's a small paperback. Only 120 pages. I know you're disappointed, but I want you to read that by next Tuesday when we meet. Okay. I read Start, and I hope we can find a few minutes to discuss. Stop. That's a powerful statement on world missions in contemporary world. And the book grew out of a plenary address he gave at the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne 1974. An event will be referring to, and we will be talking about the Lausanne Covenant, too, which is a document, extremely important document. But I don't want to discuss that tonight. I want you to read Stop first. Now, one thing in the course requirements. I think we'll have to change. Because the class is too big. The graduate classes should never be this size. They should be much smaller too. So you can do a seminar type and discuss things and so on. This is very difficult in a class of this size because the third requirement here you will do a research paper 10 to 12 pages on a topic that you and I will agree on. You will do a book review, 2 to 3 pages from one of one of the books from the recommended reading list. I've given you a lengthy recommended reading list. And this again, I give you an opportunity to kind of do a little sub specialization like the reading from the second required book. I am willing to permit you to review another book that may not be mentioned here, but may be of interest because of where you are or what what you want to do in life. Just make sure that that you and I discussed that. But it should not be something that you are reading for Dr.

Tennant. Okay. That would be close to sinning. And we do not do that in Theological Seminary. Right. All right. Thirdly, you will be expected to do a personal mission statement, which we will entitle my missionary cranial cradle. What you believe if we are talking about theology of missions. I want you to summarize succinctly your theological faith under the rubric of mission, beginning from what you believe about God. I believe in God, the Almighty, whatever. But I want you to do that from a theological perspective. And don't start doing that early in the class, because you have to be able, through your reading, through our lectures and class discussions, you have to be able to come to a point of synthesis. Okay. Where do you draw it all together and express it in a in a few pregnant, strong syntactic statements that shape your thinking as a result of our journey together this semester. Now, on the fourth assignment, we will have to change because the class is too big for class presentations. And I did not put in, you know, limiting it to 20 students or whatever. If we were up to 20, we could possibly do that when you would have class presentations and then that would be graded. So instead of that, I will give you, based on your reading, a little quiz. For example, next time I may throw on the board five words and say Define them five key terms, for example, from John Stott. Okay. And then the accumulation of that would be the part of the grade instead of presentation participation in the class. Any questions on that? Yes. You know what? Based on the credo? No. Brief. Brief. No, no, no. Statements of faith should not belong at one side.

Have you read the Lausanne Covenant? And I will distribute that in case. How many of you have read or studied Lausanne? Okay. Several of you will be cheating. No, this is not cheating. But most of you have not. And I will. I will copy it for you. And then there are. There are others. You know, you have the early churches, creedal expressions and so on, which will be a kind of a model of what you ought to do. But from a meteorological perspective, yes. Let's wait with that discussion until the next session. I want this class to be useful. I am a European. The easiest thing for a European is to follow the notes and deliver a well-organized, monotonous, technically elaborate lecture. But that would not be fair to you. And for some of you, it would be too difficult because you are new and your undergraduate studies have not been in Bible and theology. And for some of you, it may not be satisfactory enough because you have a B.A. in Bible from or philosophy or whatever. And then you had a lot of Bible and theology from Wheaton or Messiah. And so you've covered a lot of ground that we would cover here. This is this is my problem with American seminary education. And I go through that every time when I teach this or other classes. I've had a theology of missions class where I had a Ph.D. from MIT and where I have a guy who had a doctorate in mathematics, I think. But these guys have only been Christians for a few years and they've done maybe navigators or some Bible study, but never any theological study or nothing about church history in the same class. You had somebody with a B.A.

from, say, Wheaton or Asbury or Westmont or Gordon or Messiah. And these guys knew so much. And so the guy with a B.A. was so far ahead of the guy with a Ph.D. because they came from different backgrounds. And so the instructor has a problem. At what level do you strike it? What can you assume so that you are not too difficult for those that don't have the background? And at the same time, you are not too easy so that you are MDH, an M.D. of seniors or others who have had an excellent bachelor's degree from a Bible college or or a Christian liberal arts would be bored. That is a dilemma. But I do want to be useful, and I don't want to be boring because 3 hours in the evening is not an easy academic session. So here is what we will do. I will right now give you a little test. Can somebody help me distribute this? When you are done, bring it to the front. Put it here and you are free to go. But I do want you to finish it. Some of you will do it correctly. For some of you, it may take a little longer time.