A Christology for Frontier Mission: a Missiological Study of Colossians by Brad Gill
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Households in Focus A Christology for Frontier Mission: A Missiological Study of Colossians by Brad Gill Editor’s Note: This article was presented to the Asia Society for Frontier Mission, Bangkok, Thailand, October 2017. would like to reaffirm our strategic cooperation in frontier mission by examining a rather uncommon portion of scripture for missiological reflec- tion. Cooperation emerges from the objects we love, those purposes and goals we share, and I believe that in the epistle to the Colossians the Apostle Paul I 1 offers us a christological vision that grounds our mission in a common love. Colossians as a Missiological Statement Recently I was plowing through a new book by John Flett entitled Apostolicity: The Ecumenical Question in World Christian Perspective.2 The author explained how the growing pluriformity of world Christianity should reorient our understanding of the apostolic continuity of the church. I don’t usually read books on ecumenical unity, but this one had come in the mail (since I’m an editor) and something in the review had caught my eye: that the rationale for ecumenical unity over the past century had placed limits on cross-cultural engagement and the appropriation of the gospel. Those words have missio- logical implication. At one point towards the end of his book, in his chapter on Jesus Christ as the ground of our apostolic mission, he refers the reader to Colossians. If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (Col. 3:1-4, NASB) This particular portion of Colossians had never occurred to me as a basis for mission, and if it were not for the previous 320 pages of Flett’s book, those Brad Gill is Senior Editor of the International Journal of Frontier few verses would not have made any new impression on me. But it became the Missiology. After assisting in the genesis of my personal study of Colossians for some weeks, and I now see it founding years of the U. S. Center for World Mission in Pasadena, now contains a fundamental orientation for the extension of God’s kingdom into Frontier Ventures, he served in North sensitive inter-religious frontiers. So, I would like to offer this article as a short Africa for 13 years. He is currently President of the International Society missiological reading of Colossians, one that respects both sound exegesis and for Frontier Missiology. a realistic grasp of the religious challenges we face in our modern world. International Journal of Frontier Missiology 34:1—4 2017•93 94 A Christology for Frontier Mission: A Missiological Study of Colossians The Colossian Predicament of philosophy and religious elements German church fell under the spell of Let me refresh your memory on this that Paul had confronted on other a Nazi ideology, or the way in which epistle. The entire letter has a typical occasions, such as the invitation to ad- 18th and 19th century American Pauline flow from initial theological dress a group of Epicurean and Stoic churches in the South built a seemingly statements to more practical guidance philosophers on that hill in Athens biblical rationale for chattel slavery. for the local believers, with a particular (Acts 17). Philosophical speculation Paul is addressing believers in Colossae, passage in 3:1–11 acting as a hinge and skepticism had created a religious but their context highlights a religious passage between Paul’s theology and vacuum in the Greek world, one not vulnerability common to us all. Paul’s pastoral injunctions. too different from our own modern pluralistic age. Oriental religions of all The Relevance to In chapter 1, Paul introduces an apologet- sorts were rolling in and generating Inter-Religious Contexts ic that includes one of the highest chris- new religious sects. Temples were on tological statements in all of scripture. every corner, and idolatry was norma- I was in China this year for the wed- And He is the image of the invisible tive. Paul’s concern was that this young ding of my second daughter, and in God, the first born of all creation. For Colossian fellowship of disciples preparation for that trip, I read widely in Him all things were created, both would be susceptible to false religious on developments in China. One in the heavens and on the earth, vis- orientations which could easily attach author, Ian Johnson in his book The ible and invisible, whether thrones or to their old and familiar worldview. Souls of China, surveyed what he calls dominions or rulers or authorities–all “The Return of Religion After Mao.”3 things have been created through Something false but resonant with Maybe those of you with ministries in Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold Asia have witnessed firsthand this rise together. He is the head of the body, of religious interest. I had been trying the church, and He is the beginning, to follow the growth of the Christian the first-born from the dead, so that movement in China, but this was my He Himself might come to have first first introduction to the way Buddhist, place in everything. For it was the They were being pulled Taoist and Confucian dogma and Father’s good pleasure for all the rituals were attracting a new gen- fullness to dwell in Him, and through into a new alchemy eration. On one occasion, I watched Him to reconcile all things to Him- young people streaming into the Lama self, having made peace through the of religiosity. Temple, the Yellow Hat Tibetan Bud- blood of His cross. (Col 1:15—20a) dhist temple in Beijing. The theory Paul establishes both the supremacy that religion is being inundated and and the fullness of Christ in response swallowed up by the flood of secularist to news that has arrived with Epaphras. ideology seemed completely inaccurate It’s apparent that certain alternative as I stood there watching hundreds religious notions are growing in Colos- their cultural ethos had a certain of Chinese young people earnestly sae and their propagation is “deluding” plausibility—“the appearance of participating in Buddhist rituals. On (2:4), “capturing” (2:8), and “defrauding” wisdom”—and they were being pulled the borders of churches across Asia, (2:18) the believers there. A cultural and towards a new alchemy of religiosity, Africa, and the Americas, are popula- religious blend of philosophy, tradition one with severe body rituals (2:23). tions where religious hunger is inten- sifying. Due to the modern diaspora of and stochia—those “elemental principles These stochia, these “ABC’s of world- peoples, we find new religious com- or spirits of the world”—have dimin- view,” were culturally specific to that munities on our doorsteps. The global ished the place of Christ (2:8, 20), and Hellenistic context, but every cultural religious landscape is changing and Paul is concerned for the discipline and world has them. It can be argued that requiring a fresh application of our stability of their faith (2:5). our modern Western world and its biblical hermeneutic. As you, therefore, have received Christ economic globalization represents a Jesus as Lord, so walk in Him, having more materialistic set of stochia. Our So, I want to examine this Colos- been firmly rooted and now being biblical hermeneutic should at the very built up in Him and established in your sian predicament through a lens faith, just as you were instructed, and least suggest to us that any and every more relevant to frontier ministry. overflowing with gratitude. (Col 2: 6,7) fellowship of believers is vulnerable to As you know, there are new incarna- the more familiar stochia of its own tional movements emerging within Colossae was a fairly typical cosmo- socio-religious world. Examples spring other religious worlds (e.g., Hindu, politan city, with a Hellenistic blend to mind: the way in which a mature Muslim, Buddhist). Like that young International Journal of Frontier Missiology Brad Gill 95 group of believers in Colossae, these movements must contend with the aul’s primary orient ation here is “above,” to “elemental principles” of their own that which is “beyond.” He wanted to ground traditional socio-religious worlds. And this young church in the risen Christ. herein lies the genesis of the suspicion P of these movements today. There is a fathers pulled out what was one of the hidden with Christ in God (3:3). “Set skepticism and a fear among certain initial handheld GPS sets being sold your mind on the things that are above, churchmen and missiologists that in the commercial sector. I had never not on the things that are on the earth” these new believers, who remain situ- seen one. As we stood there overlook- (3:2). It’s a transcendent orientation, ated in their old socio-religious worlds, ing the Los Angeles valley, he was a direction that a secular age finds ir- will be unable to withstand the pull looking at his instrument, and he said, relevant, but across the world there are of their original religious worldviews. “My car is parked 12.3 miles in that both old and new stirrings of religious They must get free of them. They must direction.” Wow! That was a new kind life that actually share this same tran- extract themselves out of that socio-re- of orientation for me! scendent orientation.