The Two Structures of God's Redemptive Mission

The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission Ralph D. Winter In an address given to the All-Asia Mission Consultation in Seoul, Korea, in August 1973 (the founding of the Asia Missions Associa- tion), Ralph Winter describes the forms that God’s two “redemptive structures” take in every human society, and have taken throughout history. His thesis has two major implications: (1) We must accept both structures, represented in the Christian church today by the local church and the mission society, as legitimate and necessary, and as part of “God’s People, the Church”; and (2) non-Western churches must form and utilize mission societies if they are to exer- cise their missionary responsibility. t is the thesis of this article that whether Christianity takes on Western or Asian form, there will still be two Ibasic kinds of structures that will make up the movement. Most of the emphasis will be placed on pointing out the existence of these two structures as they have continu- ously appeared across the centuries. This will serve to de- fine, illustrate and compare their nature and importance. The writer will also endeavor to explain why he believes our efforts today in any part of the world will be most effective only if both of these two structures are fully and properly in- After serving ten volved and supportive of each other. years as a missionary among Redemptive Structures in New Testament Times Mayan Indians First of all, let us recognize the structure so fondly called in the highlands “the New Testament Church” as basically a Christian syna- of Guatemala, Ralph D. Winter was gogue.1 Paul’s missionary work consisted primarily of going called to be a Professor of Missions to synagogues scattered across the Roman Empire, begin- at the School of World Mission at ning in Asia Minor, and making clear to the Jewish and Gen- Fuller Theological Seminary. Ten tile believers in those synagogues that the Messiah had come years later he and his wife, Roberta, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God; that in Christ a final author- founded a mission society called ity even greater than Moses existed; and that this made more the Frontier Mission Fellowship understandable than ever the welcoming of the Gentiles (FMF) in Pasadena, California. This without forcing upon them any literal cultural adaptation to in turn spawned the U.S. Center for the ritual provisions of the Mosaic Law. An outward novelty World Mission and the William of Paul’s work was the development eventually of wholly Carey International University, new synagogues that were not only Christian but Greek. both of which serve other missions Very few Christians, casually reading the New Testament working at the frontiers of mission. (and with only the New Testament available to them), would He is the General Director of the surmise the degree to which there had been Jewish evange- Frontier Mission Fellowship. See lists who went before Paul all over the Roman Empire—a expanded biographical sketch at movement that began 100 years before Christ. Some of these the end of the book. were the people whom Jesus himself described as “travers- 220 Chapter 35 RALPH D. WINTER 221 ing land and sea to make a single proselyte.” form is not made concrete for us on the basis Saul followed their path; Paul built on their of remaining documents, neither, of course, is efforts and went beyond them with the new the structure of a New Testament congrega- gospel he preached, which allowed the tion defined concretely for us in the pages of Greeks to remain Greeks and not be circum- the New Testament. In both cases, the ab- cised and culturally assimilated into the Jew- sence of any such definition implies the pre- ish way of life. Paul had a vast foundation on existence of a commonly understood pattern which to build: Peter declared “Moses is of relationship, whether in the case of the preached in every city (of the Roman Em- congregational structure or the missionary pire)” (Acts 15:21). band structure which Paul employed earlier Yet not only did Paul apparently go to ev- as Saul the Pharisee, and later, at the time the ery existing synagogue of Asia,2 after which Antioch congregation in Acts 13:2 released he declared, “…all Asia has heard the gos- Paul and Barnabas for missionary work. pel,” but, when occasion demanded, he es- Thus, on the one hand, the structure we tablished brand new synagogue-type fellow- call the New Testament church is a prototype of ships of believers as the basic unit of his all subsequent Christian fellowships where missionary activity. The first structure in the old and young, male and female are gathered New Testament together as normal scene is thus what biological families is often called the The harmony between the modality in aggregate. On New Testament and the sodality achieved by the the other hand, Church. It was es- Paul’s missionary sentially built along Roman Church is perhaps the most band can be consid- Jewish synagogue significant characteristic of this phase ered a prototype of lines,3 embracing all subsequent mis- the community of of the world Christian movement sionary endeavors the faithful in any organized out of given place. The defining characteristic of committed, experienced workers who affili- this structure is that it included old and ated themselves as a second decision beyond young, male and female. Note, too, that Paul membership in the first structure. was willing to build such fellowships out of Note well the additional commitment. Note former Jews as well as non-Jewish Greeks. also that the structure that resulted was There is a second, quite different structure something definitely more than the extended in the New Testament context. While we outreach of the Antioch church. No matter know very little about the structure of the what we think the structure was, we know evangelistic outreach within which pre- that it was not simply the Antioch church op- Pauline Jewish proselytizers worked, we do erating at a distance from its home base. It know, as already mentioned, that they oper- was something else, something different. We ated all over the Roman Empire. It would be will consider the missionary band the second surprising if Paul didn’t follow somewhat the of the two redemptive structures in New Tes- same procedures. And we know a great deal tament times. more about the way Paul operated. He was, In conclusion, it is very important to note true enough, sent out by the church in that neither of these two structures was, as it Antioch. But once away from Antioch he were, “let down from heaven” in a special way. seemed very much on his own. The little It may be shocking at first to think that God team he formed was economically self-suffi- made use of either a Jewish synagogue pattern cient when occasion demanded. It was also or a Jewish evangelistic pattern. But this must dependent, from time-to-time, not alone not be more surprising than the fact that God upon the Antioch church, but upon other employed the use of the pagan Greek lan- churches that had risen as a result of evange- guage, the Holy Spirit guiding the biblical listic labors. Paul’s team may certainly be writers to lay hold of such terms as kurios considered a structure. While its design and (originally a pagan term), and pound them 222 Chapter 35 TWO STRUCTURES into shape to carry the Christian revelation. pattern, and in some cases to force it out of The New Testament refers to a synagogue existence, especially where it was possible for dedicated to Satan, but this did not mean that Jewish congregations of the dispersion to Christians, to avoid such a pattern, could not arouse public persecution of the apparently fellowship together in the synagogue pattern. deviant Christian synagogues. Unlike the These considerations prepare us for what Jews, Christians had no official license for comes next in the history of the expansion of their alternative to the Roman Imperial cult.5 the gospel, because we see other patterns cho- Thus, whereas each synagogue was consider- sen by Christians at a later date whose origins ably independent of the others, the Christian are just as clearly “borrowed patterns” as were pattern was soon assimilated to the Roman those in the New Testament period. context, and bishops became invested with In fact, the profound missiological impli- authority over more than one congregation cation of all this is that the New Testament is with a territorial jurisdiction not altogether trying to show us how to borrow effective pat- different from the pattern of Roman civil terns; it is trying to free all future missionaries government. This tendency is well confirmed from the need to follow the precise forms of by the time the official recognition of Chris- the Jewish synagogue and Jewish missionary tianity had its full impact: the very Latin band, and yet to allow them to choose com- word for Roman magisterial territories was parable indigenous structures in the count- appropriated—the diocese—within which less new situations across history and around parishes are to be found on the local level. the world—structures which will correspond In any case, while the more “congrega- faithfully to the function of patterns Paul em- tional” pattern of the independent synagogue ployed, if not their form! It is no wonder that became pervasively replaced by a “connec- a considerable body of literature in the field tional” Roman pattern the new Christian par- of missiology today underlies the fact that ish church still preserved the basic constituency world Christianity has generally employed of the synagogue, namely, the combination of the various existing languages and cultures old and young, male and female—that is, a bio- of the world-human community—more so logically perpetuating organism.

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