The Biblical Narrative of the Missio Dei: Analysis of the Interpretive Framework of David Bosch’s Missional Hermeneutic Girma Bekele

his article examines David Bosch’s missional herme- ment. The life and agenda of Jesus of Nazareth is the standard Tneutic, using it as an entry point into his understand- for authentic . The task of the church in every ing of the biblical foundation of mission. Until his tragic death generation and in every sociopolitical and historical context, in 1992 in a car accident, Bosch was chair of the Department of then, is “to test continually whether its understanding of Christ at the University of South Africa. He studied New corresponds with that of the first witnesses.”4 Testament under Oscar Cullman at the University of Basel. The In formulating his case for the emerging postmodern mission development of his theological thought was also shaped by his paradigm, Bosch presents a missiological reading of Jesus and experience as an Afrikaner, as an ordained minister of the Dutch his followers as an absolutely necessary hermeneutical key to Reformed Church (DRC), and as a in the Transkei. comprehensively unlocking the biblical foundation of mission. The sociopolitical and theological setting of South Africa during A variety of missions can be found in the New Testament, but apartheid was, as it were, the anvil against which he hammered the authors spoke about the same Jesus to people within the out his ideas of the vocation of the church within the world. His specific contexts of their own communities. Likewise, our task, vision of missionary self-understanding and of the church as the within our context, is to speak about Jesus—but not in just any “alternative community” is rooted in a strong conviction that the way we might choose. The “speaking” is limited, not only by our New Testament must be read as a missionary document. own context, but also and “fundamentally by the community’s Bosch follows the same general outline in both Witness to the ‘charter of foundation’, the event of Jesus Christ. The events at World (1980) and Transforming Mission (1991): first, a discussion the origin of the Christian community—the ‘agenda’ set by Jesus of mission crisis (this section is brief in the latter work), followed living, dying, and rising from the dead—primarily established by a scriptural foundation of mission, an overview of historical the distinctiveness of that community, and to those events we too perspectives on mission, a presentation of the emerging mission- have to orientate ourselves.”5 The integrity of our mission must ary paradigm, and development of a relevant of mission. be judged against this background. Thus Christocentrism, as A certain understanding, interpretation, and application of the Bosch’s former student Charles Fensham observes, is embedded Scriptures characterize each paradigm of Christian missionary in Bosch’s hermeneutic as he describes the missionary founda- history as it engages with its own particular context. Bosch is tion of the church.6 convinced that the task of each generation is to unlock, as if with Bosch argues that this does not mean establishing a one-to-one its own time-conditioned key, the biblical foundation of mission correspondence between the lives of Jesus and his followers and and the biblical narrative of the missio Dei. He insists that, since our contemporary lives in order to define mission and attempt the New Testament is “essentially a missionary document . . . it to solve our current problems. Quoting Gustavo Gutiérrez, he is incumbent upon us to reclaim it as such.”1 argues that to adopt such one-to-one literalism “would be to succumb to ‘the temptation of concordism, which equates the Missional Hermeneutics: An Ecumenical Task social groups and forces within first century Palestine with those of our own time.’”7 While recognizing that there are “no immutable and objectively correct ‘laws of mission’ which exegesis of Scripture [can] give The Bridge us,” Bosch argues that a faithful reading of the New Testament prevents any church in any historical context from seeing itself How do we bridge the gap between “mission then” and “mis- apart from the missionary enterprise, for “the history and theology sion now”? How do we begin to build our biblical foundation of early are, first of all, ‘mission history’ and ‘mission of mission—do we start from the Bible itself and adapt it to our theology.’”2 If the theology of Karl Barth “offers a much-needed situation, or do we work in the other direction? There is no uni- purification of Christian thinking,”3 given the liberal context to versal answer; each generation must answer this for itself. Bosch which he had to respond, Bosch offers in comparable fashion a proposes what he calls a creative critical hermeneutic, which is rediscovery of missionary hermeneutics of the New Testament, based on the following three assumptions. First, we must admit in response to the postmodern missionary crisis. Bosch affirms that a single, universally valid missionary policy is impossible to Martin Kähler’s famous saying that “mission is the mother of construct—the attempt not only would be naive but also would theology.” He traces the roots of mission to the very person, be unfair to an authentic reading of the Bible, for it would involve life, mission, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the seeking biblical precedents to justify everything that the church community that he established, as recorded in the New Testa- calls “mission” in the contemporary world. Bosch argues that “we usually presuppose far too readily that we may summon the Bible Girma Bekele, a mission and church leadership consul- as a kind of objective arbitrator. . . . In this way we are blinded to 8 tant who grew up in Ethiopia, is Adjunct Professor of the presuppositions lurking behind our own interpretations.” Missions at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto. For Bosch, the Bible remains fundamental, and the quest to find He lives in Toronto with his family. its deeper message on mission remains a never-ending task for —[email protected] every church in every generation. Christian disciples need to be vulnerable, to lay aside all forms and ideals about mission, and to genuinely retain the will to be challenged, to repent, and to grow continually.

July 2011 153 Second, our attempt to understand the self-definition of the Senior and Carroll Stuhlmueller, who argue against a perception biblical authors and their first readers is tinted by our own socio- of the New Testament as merely a “confessional” history or col- political, cultural, and economic context. As Bosch commented to lection of documents on internal Christian doctrinal struggles and his students, “Every one of us reads the Bible from a particular in favor of the view that “the mission question is intrinsic to the vantage-point which colours our interpretation. Factors include: Bible.”13 On this premise, Bosch seeks to bridge the gap between (a) our church tradition; (b) our culture; (c) our personal experi- the art of theological/biblical scholarship and the missiological ences and the way we experience religion; and (d) our social vocation of the community of faith. His goal can be described as position, such as whether we belong to the privileged or the under- the homecoming of wandering theology, for theology has long privileged sector of society.”9 That is, one cannot read the text sought to establish itself independently from the missional life of the Bible impassively, nor approach it as a neutral reader and of the community of faith. For him, theology has “no reason to objectively claim to know the mind of the author. Theo Sunder- exist other than critically to accompany the mission Dei.”14 At the same time, Bosch wants to bring scholarship to mission study in order to free it from overly specific articulations of mission on Bosch argues persuasively the basis of “particularity and preference.” Biblical scholarship can fail to see the missionary mandate of the Bible, but “com- that an authentic pared to biblical scholars, missiologists in particular will have to hermeneutics is always acknowledge that they tend to let the texts say what they want them to say.”15 Both disciplines—biblical and missiological—are missional. necessary. Biblical scholarship guards against the tendency to read one’s own preconceptions into the text without regard for its original meaning, while missiology pushes biblical studies meier provides a personal elucidation of Bosch’s view, saying that away from a fixation on the ancient context so as to be open to such a task is “intrinsically impossible. . . . No matter how far I what the Bible means today. advance in understanding, I always encounter my understand- While recognizing that there is no easy or fixed way to move ing of the text. I never find the plain, irreducible meaning of the from the New Testament to contemporary missionary practice, text.”10 The fact that there is one Bible but many traditions attests Bosch proposes what he calls “a critical hermeneutic” in under- to the fact that there are various interpretive frameworks, with standing the always-relevant event of Jesus as it is recorded in varying degrees of validity, but each with its own blind spot! the New Testament. In doing so, he recognizes that there will Third, the only hope for Christian unity lies in continuing to always be a plurality of self-definitionsboth in the Bible and in seek proper enlightenment from the Bible itself as the common the history of the church. “The critical hermeneutic approach ground for ecumenical dialogue. The Bible tells us about missio Dei; goes beyond the (historically interesting) quest of making explicit without it, we have no mission. A search for unity should motivate early Christian self-definitions, however. It desires to encourage us toward a mutual and faithful hermeneutic. Bosch recognizes dialogue between those self-definitionsand all subsequent ones, that the West is wrong to claim hermeneutical and theological including those of ourselves and our contemporaries. It accepts supremacy. He also observes that the Enlightenment principle that self-definitions may be inadequate or even wrong. . . . It that truth is truth only insofar as it can be objectively discovered assumes that there is no such thing as an objective reality ‘out has had an ambiguous impact on theology. The shortcomings of there’, which now needs to be understood and interpreted. Rather, the historical-critical method are rooted in the objectification of reality is intersubjective; it is always interpreted reality, and this truth and meaning that the Enlightenment insists on, and in its interpretation is profoundly affected by our self-definitions.”16 interpretive framework, which claims the ability “to discover the Pleading as he does for a critical hermeneutic, Bosch warns original meaning of a text, in other words the meaning the author against any narrow approach. In his early works he points out wanted to communicate to his first readers.”11 Bosch points out the limitations of two broadly defined hermeneutical traditions, that there will always be differences in understanding of missions, describing the evangelical tradition as “deductive” and the ecu- since diverse interpretive frame-works emanate from differing menical one as “inductive.” He notes however, that in the real contexts. Imposing one’s own view and definition of mission as world there is “no such thing as a purely deductive method. ideal, exclusive, or indeed the “gold standard” is presumptuous Evangelicals are deceiving themselves for . . . [one] reads the Bible and presupposes a false claim that one has the only key to bibli- in terms of [one’s] own context.” He also criticizes the inductive cal interpretation. For Bosch, biblical interpretation is the honest, method, favored by ecumenicals, because “context can become communal, and never-ending task of the whole people of God, more than just a ‘hermeneutical key.’ It could come to determine for the Bible is the book of the universal church of Christ. We everything, to such an extent that Scriptures ultimately can do continually need to seek clarity on Scripture, hoping “to formulate little other than simply accede to the demands of the context.”17 . . . approximations of what mission is all about.” We must “learn In any interpretative framework, we should not routinely to listen to each other and begin to see the relativity of our own expect to find an antithesis between the meaning of the biblical contexts.”12 Such an approach will lead to humility, continued text in its own time and what it means now; rather, we should treat conversion, repentance, mutual correction, ongoing learning, the meaning then and the meaning now as interdependent forces and the strengthening of Christian unity. in a creative tension. Understanding the constancy in the meaning of the text as well as the contingency of its subsequent meaning Authentic Hermeneutics in history requires a dialectical process. Through a deliberate act of hermeneutical conversation, we can progress to an accurate Bosch argues persuasively that an authentic hermeneutics is understanding of the text on its own terms that also speaks to always missional, which means that the New Testament, itself a our context. For Bosch, this challenge is a constant one, and he product of missionary engagement with the world, must be read appeals to Walter Brueggemann as he concludes, “There are no from the vantage point of mission. He affirms the view of Donald simplistic or obvious moves (from the Bible) to contemporary

154 Intern ation al Bulletin of Mission ary Resear ch, Vol. 35, No. 3 missional practice.”18 Having a biblical foundation does not mean 18:19). Understanding Israel as the vehicle for the coming of the possessing a direct, one-to-one correlation with the Bible, but it Messiah, the hope of all humanity, and understanding the mes- does require overall consonance with what the biblical text said sianic promise as having been realized, first and foremost, in the and meant. In the same way, the New Testament writers made birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and, secondarily, creative use of the Old Testament, as opposed to providing mere in the establishment of the church as continuation of Jesus’ re- citations. Bosch is persuasive in arguing that “good exegesis is demptive work reveal the entire sweep of salvation history to be produced where the exegete’s own horizon has been opened interconnected aspects of the one mission of God. A missiological in the way the biblical author’s horizon was opened. The text reading of the Old Testament, then, must go beyond the narrow remains the firm point of orientation. But understanding it is sense of “sending” in English; as Andreas J. Köstenberger rightly not merely a reproductive process but a creative one.”19 This contends, “Bosch vastly exaggerates the discontinuity between means, as Fensham elucidates, that “grasping this ‘consonance’ the Testaments.”28 Bosch’s overattention to the “sending” aspect comes from and leads to an attitude that assumes provisionality, of mission may have led him to overlook the missiological sig- vulnerability, creative tension and weakness.”20 nificance of some major themes in Genesis, John,29 Hebrews, 1 Peter, and Revelation, as well as other books of the Bible. In Analysis this particular sense, Bosch falls prey to his own criticism of theologians who are self-servingly restrictive in their selection Bosch’s vision of missional hermeneutics is not without its own of texts while trying to justify a too narrow theory of mission. shortcomings. The first and most obvious weakness is his lack Second, Bosch’s understanding of Scripture as an interpreta- of interest in the missiological reading of the Old Testament, tion, rather than a record, of divine revelation stands in need of which is particularly apparent in Transforming Mission.21 This critical appraisal.30 This principle is one of the presuppositions weakness accentuates his heavily Christocentric accent. He that Bosch offers in articulating his view of the biblical founda- devotes less than 4 pages to the Old Testament, compared with tion of mission. But he cannot have it both ways. Critics such 163 pages for the New Testament. “It might be asked whether as J. G. Du Plessis have a valid point when they protest that one should not begin with the Old Testament in the search for an Bosch cannot sustain his conviction that all subsequent missions understanding of mission. This is a legitimate question. There is, should be assessed on the basis of the model of the Scriptures, for the Christian church and , no New Testa- and particularly of the New Testament, while at the same time ment divorced from the Old. However, on the issue of mission diminishing the Scriptures’ revelatory essence. Bosch recognizes we run into difficulties here. . . . There is, in the Old Testament, the difficulty of finding universally agreeable criteria to determine no indication of the believers of the old covenant being sent by the validity of mission, and he warns against an interpretive God to cross geographical, religious, and social frontiers in order hubris that forces one’s own contextual reading into the text. He to win others to faith in Yahweh.”22 also wants to protect his intersubjective basis for mission from Bosch then extends tentative approval to Horst Rzepkowski’s both relativism and absolute contextualism. He does this by assertion that “the decisive difference between the Old and the appealing to the Reformed tradition, in which he stands, of sola New Testament is mission.”23 Although he recognizes that the Scriptura. He believes that “we should judge every context by stories of Ruth and Naaman and the universalistic expressions establishing what is and what is not divine, true and just in that in the Psalms, in Isaiah 40–66, and in Jonah all have significant context”; for him, “it is Scripture (and if we wish, tradition) that implications for the idea of mission as frontier-crossing, he relates us and our context to the church and mission of all ages, describes their significance as “genuine gold nuggets” that one and we cannot do without this.”31 Bosch’s “third way” intends could find only with “persistency among the rocks and rubble.”24 to take into account both (1) the historical-critical and theologi- This statement is not only too brief, it also (unintentionally) cal approaches and (2) the whole inspired thrust of the biblical neglects the missiological continuity between the Old and the New Testaments and, as Senior and Stuhlmueller correctly put it, the way that the latter’s taproot of universalistic missionary thrust can be traced to the former.25 Bosch’s limited usage of the Bosch’s reading of Jonah is Old Testament—the very book that he uses to build his case for severely limited, focusing Yahweh’s compassion as the foundation of Christian mission on the prophet’s resentful and, by extension, of the core of Jesus’ ministry—is self-invali- dating.26 His reading of Jonah is severely limited, focusing on the missionary attitude. prophet’s resentful missionary attitude. While Bosch is correct in his interpretation that Israel was not expected to go out into the Gentile world, it was expected, by its very being, to be holy message; but he weakens one dimension of that very dialectic and set apart for a purpose higher than mere survival.27 “Being” when he promotes an understanding of the Bible as the authors’ is as important as “doing,” if one is to fully explain mission in interpretation of divine revelation, as opposed to the Bible itself the broadest sense. By placing the emphasis on the “sending” as being a revelatory record. As Du Plessis puts it, “To speak of aspect of mission, Bosch discounts a missiological reading of the the Bible as interpretation of revelation and not a recording of it Old Testament. This tack in his analysis is surprising, since Bosch only suspends the question of its status.”32 explicitly dismisses any attempt to define mission too narrowly A third weakness in Bosch’s argument appears in the or on the basis of only one criterion. unwitting vagueness he created by trying to be faithful to the The overall thrust of the Old Testament as the movement historical-critical approach while also critiquing it for its entrap- of missio Dei to the world originates, first, in the motif of God’s ment within the negative forces of Enlightenment. His alternative self-disclosing creation and, second, in the call of Abraham, approach—the creative missional hermeneutic, which insists on a which encompasse the choice of Israel, his descendants, “to keep dialogue between our self-definition and various self-definitions the way of the Lord by doing and justice” (Gen. of historical Christian communities dating back to the time of

July 2011 155 the New Testament—suffers from vagueness. He argues for to endless uncertainty. It is true that any definition of mission what he calls “a fusion of horizons,” where the meaning of the has some gray areas. Perhaps the analogy that Bosch himself text in its original context meets its meaning today. He has not, used to interpret the “signs of the times” is helpful. He writes: however, adequately provided criteria, at least at a macro level, “Even if we are not equipped to decide between absolute right for determining what the text meant for the original readers and absolute wrong, we should be able to distinguish between and for finding a meaning consonant with that in the present. shades of grey and choose, ‘for the light grey and against the dark He does not provide a clear starting point, nor does he answer grey.’”33 Analogically, a biblically justified missionary mandate whether the starting point should be our horizon or that of the (however gray it might be) can be perfected through the faith- biblical authors. Instead, he wants both but shows greater incli- ful effort of churches in any generation, taking their context nation toward the Eurocentric approach to the Bible by remain- seriously. It is also imperative to recognize that the truth-giving ing faithful to the historical-critical method. While he makes a work of the Holy Spirit, which Bosch sees working outside of the case for a connection between the biblical evidences for mission walls of the church, applies also to illuminate Scriptures within and contemporary missionary praxis, his approach—the third the walls of the church. As Köstenberger puts it, “Without this way—leaves itself open to a hermeneutical misreading of the confidencein our Spirit-aided ability to apprehend the teaching Bible from the vantage point of the rich and the powerful, who of Scripture, we would sink into utter despair, into a relativism can easily appeal to the Bible to spiritualize their privilege and where any knowledge of absolute truth is excluded, and into a their hold on power. He has failed to be consistent in his insis- kind of epistemological solipsism (the autonomy of self in the tence that the Bible is to be read from the so-called theology of process of arriving at knowledge) where human existence is weakness, since vulnerability and failure cannot have the same ultimately absurd.”34 meaning for both the oppressed and the oppressor. For the latter, this theology could easily provide an escape from both a moral Conclusion and a theological dilemma. Bosch’s ambivalent stance, combined with his understand- Despite these criticisms, the Bible remains the core foundation of ing of the Bible as the interpretation of (or information about) mission for Bosch, and he argues strongly that any mission must a revelation, but not itself a revelation, creates an unintended take seriously the central thrust of the message of Scripture—the sense of uncertainty, particularly for the church of the poor and Heilsgeschichte. Bosch’s accomplishment in this regard is, in one way, a fulfillment of the question that he left unanswered at the end of his review of major works on biblical foundations of mission. The unanswered question that he posed was whether Bosch provides an excellent the church’s missionary activities today “bear any resemblance exegetical missiological at all to what biblical scholars call ‘mission’ and also if and how analysis of the biblical it can appeal to scripture for its missionary service. Perhaps we need a book written by a theologian who is both a missiologist books he chooses to study, and a biblical scholar—if such an animal exists.”35 He attempts to but he remains too selective be that animal in his later work, notably in Transforming Mission. Bosch argues persuasively for missional hermeneutics as an in his choice of books. open-ended process, and he begins his contribution by identifying key self-definitions that undergird various paradigms and accents within the New Testament. He provides an excellent exegetical oppressed. Such “enlightened” uncertainty may even deprive the missiological analysis of the biblical books he chooses to study, church of biblical justification for its understanding of mission. but he remains too selective in his choice of books. His concern The notion that the New Testament writers’ self-definition can is to avoid the danger either of defining mission too broadly, as if be critically deconstructed, since their works are constituted by there were no clear guidelines from the Scriptures, or too narrowly, “human limitations of perspective” in addition to divine provi- by taking a single biblical term “as a unifying hermeneutical key sion, has far-reaching consequences. Primarily, though Bosch for mission studies.”36 Nonetheless, while Bosch has legitimate does not intend to do so, it raises a question about the reliability reason to reject any mission theology that claims to be absolute of the Scriptures and thereby creates a sense of uncertainty. rather than contextual, he does not seem to be free from the same Jesus and his mission become what subsequent readers decide criticism that he directed toward Senior and Stuhlmueller, for for themselves as they unpack the “sayings” of Jesus’ contem- he himself has not adequately answered “how the Bible may be poraries. The danger of this approach is that it opens the door appealed to for the very justificationof mission itself today.” 37 to an almost infinite range of subjective interpretations of Jesus. Could these shortcomings be the unintended result of his deci- Finally, Bosch leaves the distinct impression that the best sion, in his theological method in general and in his missional one can get from Scripture is missionary models, rather than hermeneutic in particular, to walk a fine line between what he a biblically justified mandate. Such a notion can open the door calls the danger of relativism and the danger of absolutism?38 Notes 1. David Bosch, “The Scope of the BISAM Project,” Mission Studies 6, 4. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 22. no. 1 (1989): 63. 5. Ibid. 2. David Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of 6. Charles Fensham, Emerging from the Dark Age Ahead: The Future of the Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991), pp. 9, 15. North American Church (Ottawa: Novalis, St. Paul Univ., 2008), p. 31. 3. See Hendrik Kraemer, The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World 7. Bosch, Transforming Mission, pp. 23–24. (London: James Clark, 1961), p. 116. 8. David Bosch, Witness to the World: The Christian Mission in Theological

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Overseas Ministries Study Center To purchase a copy and to see color versions of these book covers, go to http://secure.omsc.org/books (203) 624-6672, ext. 315 Perspective (Atlanta: John Knox Press; London: Marshall, Morgan & what Bauckham calls “the way of the least,” the mission that Christ Scott, 1980), p. 44. inaugurated through his life, death, and resurrection, a mission 9. David Bosch, Theology of Mission: Missiology and Science of Religion, to all humanity in solidarity with the poor and the marginalized MSR 201 Study Guide (Pretoria: Univ. of South Africa, 1980), p. 24. (Bauckham, Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World 10. David Bosch, “Missiology Yesterday and Tomorrow,” Missionalia 18 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003], pp. 27–54). (April, 1990): 263. 26. Bosch, Witness to the World, p. 53. The index of biblical references in 11. David Bosch, “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Witness to the World shows sixteen books, compared with only five Mission,’” Mission Studies 3, no. 2 (1986): 71. in Transforming Mission. Given this limitation, Bosch cannot sustain 12. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 9. his own fundamental argument for the New Testament to be read as 13. Donald Senior and Carroll Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for a missionary book, even as he neglects the missiological significance Mission (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1983), pp. 2–6. of the Old Testament. By his own admission, the New Testament 14. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 494. authors have reread and given new meaning to the Old. In their own 15. Bosch, “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Mission,’” context, they were indicating a paradigm shift in the movement of p. 70. missio Dei, both in radical continuity and in discontinuity with the 16. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 24. Old Testament. 17. Bosch, Theology of Mission, p. 25. Bosch crystallizes his criticism of these 27. Bosch depends on Senior and Stuhlmueller (the former is one of the two hermeneutical methods by calling both of them fundamentalist, writers most quoted in Transforming Mission) to discuss mission in arguing that “we may neither . . . force the context into the straitjacket the Old Testament. There mission is said to have a centripetal force, of what we perceive the text to say, nor treat the text, Rorschach- while in the New, “centrifugal forces surging within the Scriptures like, as a normless blob into which we project our context-derived break out into the non-Jewish world.” They offer four key themes interpretations of what mission should be. . . . Missiology’s task is that help us to understand mission in the Old Testament: (1) God not a purely pragmatic one” (Transforming Mission, p. 497). creates—thus mission starts with the creation motif; (2) the people 18. David Bosch, “The Bible and Mission: Some Interdisciplinary of God understood God as sovereignly involved both within Israel Implications for Teaching,” Missiology 10, no. 4 (1982): 408; Bosch, and in secular world history; (3) God is the one who directs history; “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Mission,’” p. 77. and (4) the religiosity of Israel is fundamentally different from that 19. Bosch, “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Mission,’” of the world (Senior and Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for p. 76. Mission, pp. 317–18). 20. Fensham, Emerging from the Dark Age Ahead, p. 33. 28. Andreas J. Köstenberger, “The Place of Mission in New Testament 21. Elsewhere Bosch provides a brief but powerful argument that Theology: An Attempt to Determine the Significance of Mission a missionary mandate cannot be derived from a few isolated Within the Scope of the New Testament’s Message as a Whole,” universalistic passages. He provides some helpful keys: (1) that Missiology 27, no. 3 (1999): 11. Yahweh reveals himself as the “One who champions the cause of the 29. Although Bosch makes some allusions to Abraham and to the people weak, the afflicted and the oppressed”; (2) that the Old Testament of Israel, he inexplicably omits both Genesis and John from his emphasizes “Yahweh’s compassion for the downtrodden” and that otherwise magnificentwork. Such omission, in effect, opens Bosch “the religion of Israel was a historical religion”—a movement of to the serious charge of working with a “truncated canon,” an issue the history of salvation; (3) that Israel was called to be a “kingdom beyond the scope of this article. For a discussion of the missionary of priests” and a holy nation set apart for God; and (4) that Israel significance of the Gospel of John, see Lesslie Newbigin, The Light Has was not summoned to mission but to “Yahweh himself,” and in Come: An Exposition of the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, becoming true to its summons, Israel becomes the “centripetal” 1982), p. 2; and Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain, Father, force that attracts the pagans (Bosch, “The Why and How of a True Son, and Spirit: The and John’s Gospel (Downers Grove, Ill.: Biblical Foundation for Mission,” in Zending op Weg naar de Toekomst. InterVarsity Press, 2008), particularly pp. 149–64, which deal with Feesbundel aangeboden aan Prof. Dr. Johannes Verkuyl, ed. T. J. Baarda a Trinitarian mission theology. et al. [Kampen: Kok, 1978], pp. 37–45). 30. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 182. 22. Bosch, Transforming Mission, pp. 16–17 (emphasis mine). 31. Ibid., p. 498. 23. Ibid., p. 17. 32. J. G. Du Plessis, “For Reasons of the Heart: A Critical Appraisal of 24. Bosch, Witness to the World, p. 46. David J. Bosch’s Use of Scripture in the Foundation of Christian 25. Senior and Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for Mission, p. 2. Mission,” Missionalia 18, no. 1 (1990): 83. Richard Bauckham also provides a helpful analysis arguing for a 33. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 431. reading of the Bible in its entirety as a missionary book that is rooted 34. Köstenberger, “The Place of Mission in New Testament Theology,” in one metanarrative, one story, but constituted from various stories. p. 3. He divides this narrative into four strands: (1) the trajectory that 35. David Bosch, “Mission in Biblical Perspective,” International Review moves from Abraham to all the families of God; (2) the trajectory that of Mission 74 (October 1985): 538. moves from Israel to all the nations, which is the trajectory of God’s 36. Bosch, “Towards a Hermeneutic for ‘Biblical Studies and Mission,’” revelation of himself to the world; (3) the trajectory that moves from p. 68. God’s enthronement of David in Zion to the ends of the earth; and 37. Bosch, “Mission in Biblical Perspective,” p. 537. finally (4) the trajectory from Christ himself to the world through 38. Bosch, Transforming Mission, p. 428.

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