The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible's Grand Narrative (Hardcover)

by Christopher J. H. Wright (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. But Christopher Wright boldly maintains that mission is bigger than that there is in fact a missional basis for the Bible! The entire Bible is generated by and is all about God's mission.

Beginning with the Old Testament and the groundwork it lays for understanding who God is, what he has called his people to be and do, and how the nations fit into God's mission, Wright gives us a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture. This new perspective provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission. Wright emphasizes throughout a holistic mission as the proper shape of Christian mission. God's mission is to reclaim the world and that includes the created order and God's people have a designated role to play in that mission.

Market/Audience

• Students and professors of missions
• Missionaries
• Pastors and missionaries
• Seminary students and professors

Endorsements

"This book should be a required text for theologians and exegetes, pastors and students, missionaries and Christians in general." Eckhard J. Schnabel, author of Early Christian Mission, and professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

"This marvelous book is all I hoped and expected, and more. . . .We are so fortunate to have the mature fruit of a lifetime's reflection on the missional nature of the Bible by this outstanding teacher, scholar and missionary theologian." John Goldingay, author of Old Testament Theology, and professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological Seminary

Features and Benefits

• Offers a groundbreaking missional hermeneutical perspective on Scripture.
• Expands our understanding of mission to include the Old Testament.
• Gives numerous new insights into familiar biblical texts.
• Provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 581 pages
• Publisher: IVP Academic (November 30, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830825711
• ISBN-13: 978-0830825714
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,716 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Monumental Work, December 19, 2007

By	J. Korsmo (Moorhead, MN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

What is the Bible all about? Is it a random collection of writings about people who have experienced God? Is it one story about Israel and another somehow connected story about Jesus? In this masterful work, Christopher Wright sets out to demonstrate that the Bible, from start to finish, can be read as focusing on God's mission: in both the Old and New Testaments, God is on the move.

The depth of Wright's book is too much to summarize here, beyond surveying the ground he covers and discussing a few of the high points along the way. He begins by discussing hermeneutics, that is, how we read the Bible and what we see when we do, and the argument he makes there is that instead of mining the Bible for insights about "missions," we should instead look for God's mission that permeates the pages of the Bible. It's not about searching for texts that tell us to go to the nations, but instead about being attuned to what God is doing and finding our part in it.

To flesh out this them, and to demonstrate how it is one way of showing the unity of the Bible, Wright begins with God, looking at who God revels himself to be and what God reveals himself to be doing in the world. This involves especially the fundamental notion of God's uniqueness, the foundation of biblical monotheism. The second foundational idea about God is that God wants to be known by that which he has created. God has revealed himself in many and various ways. The final investigation Wright undertakes with regard to God's identity is an extended investigation into the theme of idolatry, a major theme especially of the Old Testament, where he demonstrates that the constant prohibitions of idolatry over and over show God's desire to be known and Israel's conviction (though often forgotten) that God is the only true God.

After establishing who God has revealed himself to be, Wright goes on in part 3, the most substantial part of the book, to look carefully at "The People of Mission." This begins with the programmatic and foundational text of God's covenant with Abraham, with special focus on God's commitment to bless Abraham and bless the world through him. This statement of God's intention really sums up what God is doing, and signals a major shift after the rather dismal happenings in Genesis 3-11. After humans have broken their relationship with God and utterly messed up God's good creation, God steps in on a mission, a mission of blessing. And the way God goes about it is through Abraham. God makes a particular choice, of Abraham and his descendants, but God is not playing favorites. Instead, God chooses the particular for the sake of the universal. Abraham is a man with a mission, he is a man whom God chooses to use to begin the reconciliation of the whole world. Wright investigates these themes, and especially the two poles of universal and particular, as he goes on to discuss election and the people of Israel as God's missional people. He then goes on to investigate God's redemption of his people, through the programmatic story of the exodus, and God's model for restoration, the Jubilee year. Wright then gives special attention to the covenants of God with his people, in Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the New Covenant, showing how they trace God's mission throughout Israel's formative statements. He then concludes his discussion of God's people with a look at the ethical implications of God's mission and election, with a discussion of the role of the law as the instrument of God's purposes and blessing in the world. Each of these topics could warrant a full discussion, and some of them will probably warrant revisiting, but, in short, Wright traverses the span of the Old Testament showing that God is up to something, and Israel is where it begins, but certainly not where it ends. Through it all, there is always at least an eye to the nations (God's eye, if not always Israel's).

In the final part of the book, Wright broadens his scope to what he calls the "arena" of God's mission. Where is this mission situated, and who is involved. He begins with the whole earth, with a sustained and insightful discussion about the care of the earth, integrating creational responsibility into missional activity. He steps into what is often a sensitive issue in many evangelical camps with a clear and balanced call to take note of God's whole creation, and to care for it as part of God's mission, all the while noting that this doesn't mean a divinization of that creation. Instead he shows how care of creation is a part of our mission, how it fits with the larger picture of what God is doing in the world, and how it embodies the mission we as God's people are supposed to have to the world. He then goes on to discuss humanity as the field of God's mission, beginning with a discussion of humanity in God's image, demonstrating that we have been made for relationship with God, and that is God's intention for all people. He concludes the chapter with an insightful look at the Wisdom literature of the Bible, investigating how it incorporates the "wisdom" of other cultures (always critically) and can demonstrate how to create an international or cross-cultural bridge in our proclamation of God's truth. He also has a very insightful and important excursus in the middle of this chapter on the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the mission of God's people in the world. It provides a clarion call to take note of opportunities to be part of what God is doing here on Earth and to note the opportunities to undertake God's work. Wright then concludes his discussion of the arenas of mission with a look at the "nations" in first the Old Testament and then in the New Testament. The Old Testament has a persistent eye on the nations, with Israel declared to be a nation of priests for God, but the fullness of God's plan for the full incorporation of the nations isn't fully made known until the New Testament, when this persistent vision of inclusion and universality is given God's means, in Jesus Christ. Finally, God's eschatological promises of the gathering of the nations, of the universality of God's blessing, are made known and are under way.

Christopher Wright's book, The Mission of God, is a spectacular work of theology. He achieves his goal of showing that God's mission is the underlying "grand narrative" of the Bible, from first chapter to last. Wright goes far beyond a "theology of mission" to demonstrate that "mission" itself is what God is all about, and it is God's mission that we need to take not of. Our "missions" are derivative and secondary, even as they are important.

Wright, as an Old Testament scholar, focuses especially on the Old Testament texts, but this is, I think, one of the greatest strengths of the book, for he demonstrates the broad sweep of who God is and what God is doing, painting a coherent and continuous picture from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22. In fact, this book would be well used as an exercise in Old Testament Theology, as well as a book investigation the whole Bible, for he illumines most of the major themes of the Old Testament, creation, covenant, election, ethics and law, and fits them together into an elegant mosaic of God's purposes.

The Mission of God is technical at times, but still highly readable, and I recommend it enthusiastically. It helps bring to life the Old Testament, showing that it isn't just dusty literature with a few important prophecies, but that it is the very heart of God's revelation, brought to completion (not obscurity) in Jesus Christ. Wright does Christians a service, in showing what the Bible is all about, and I think he succeeds in showing that God is on a mission, and that this theme unifies the narrative of the Bible.

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb !! An absolute masterpiece of excellent , comprehensive and deep biblical teaching !! Learn from it !!, January 27, 2007

By	David Stump - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Written by a serious bible scholar, who has done his homework, this is a major new work on what the bible is all about. I have read plenty about bible studies and such (see my reviews), and I think this is truly a ground breaking book. Completely biblical, thoroughly thought out! A wealth of perspective!! Phenomenal! Get it, get it, get it!! A heavy weight exploration of what is going on in the bible and with God's plan of redemption as layed out throughout the bible. This is way way more than knowing if your invisible soul/spirit will go to heaven when you die. Here is just a tidbit of thinking typical of this book's train of thought:

The biblical scope of God's plan of redemption is cosmic in scope, the hope of biblical salvation is that there will be a new creation, a new heavens and a new earth made free from sin, decay, and death, and wherein God himself with dwell with his people. For instance see Romans 8:19-21 with 2 Peter 3:13 and Revelation 21:1-5. From this overarching theme of scripture flows the biblical ethic, purpose and mission.

This book's wide and complete scope of biblical teaching will have to be reckoned with by serious students of the bible and it's message of God's plan of redemption found in and through Jesus. The Publisher, Intervarsity Press has a website where you can look this book up and see the table of contents for it and some book description. Thanks Dr. Wright for the lifelong learning you have made available in this work. A sort of similar work, but on a smaller scale is: The Drama of Scripture by Craig Bartholomew. It is also extremely helpful for grasping what the bible is all about.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best, February 20, 2007

By	Waldron Scott - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Excellent, although not for the casual reader. It is the best theology of holisitc mission I've read since the early 1990s when Bosch's "Transforming Mission" came out. Bosch, you will recall, worked almost exclusively from the New Testament. Wright rectifies this imbalance and puts the Great Commission in its place. This book is a valuable corrective also to contemporary presentations such as David Hesselgrave's "Paradigms in Conflict" which understand the Great Commission in the narrowist of terms.