Book Review: Mission of God

Wright, Christopher J. H., 2006. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press.

The Rev. Dr. Chris Wright (b. 1947), an ordained Anglican minister, is currently the International Ministries Director of the Langham Partnership International (http://www.langhampartnership.org/) a position held previously by John R.W. Stott. Wright has served as pastor for a local parish church, taught at a top seminary in India, and served as President of a key Christian college. Wright serves as Chair of the Lausanne Committee’s Theological Education Commission and as Honorary President of the TEAR Fund in the UK. He has a passion to bring to life the Old Testament to Christian mission and ethics. He has written several books. He loves preaching and teaching the Bible.

The purpose of Wright’s book, The Mission of God, is that the whole Bible can be read out of a framework of the mission of God (and the participation in it by God’s people). For Wright, Mission is the key that unlocks the whole grand narrative of Scripture. He writes:
“The whole Bible itself is a missional phenomenon. The writings that now comprise our Bible are themselves the product of and witness to the ultimate mission of God. That Bible renders to us the story of God’s mission through God’s people in their engagement with God’s world for the sake of the whole of God’s creation. The Bible is the drama of this God of purpose engaged in the mission of achieving that purpose universally, embracing past, present and future, Israel and the nations, ‘life, the universe and everything,’ and with its center, focus, climax, and completion in Jesus Christ. Mission is not just on of a list of things that Bible happens to talk about, only a bit more urgently than some. Mission is, in that much-abused phrase, ‘what it’s all about’” (Wright, 2006, 22).

The Mission of God is contained in four parts. In part one “The Bible and Mission,” Wright establishes the argument for a “missional hermeneutic.” He begins this section with consideration given to Luke 24:45-47, where the risen Christ Jesus retells the story of the scriptures to two disciples on the road to Emmaus stating: “The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (NIV). Wright makes the case that Jesus set the “hermeneutical orientation and agenda” of his followers who should read their Scriptures “messiancally and missionally” (Wright, 2006, 29). Wright, in this section, deals with important issues that arise in the process of developing a missional hermeneutic. In Part 2, “The God of Mission” Wright presents at length the God who “makes himself known” in Israel, in Jesus Christ, and in confrontation with idolatry. The third section (Part 3), “The People of Mission,” Wright explores God’s elect people, beginning with Abraham, who are chosen for blessing, as well as the themes of particularity and universality that fill the Old Testament and represent the agents of mission. He then explores God’s model of redemption (the Exodus) and God’s model of restoration (the Jubilee) which are God’s comprehensive and holistic vision for all humanity including the political, economic, social, and spiritual spheres. This third portion of the book concludes with a discussion of the span of God’s missional covenant throughout the ages, and the life of God’s missional people. Wright gives particular attention to missional ethics in the Bible and the implications for God’s people today. Part 4, “The Arena of Mission,” begins with sections on “mission and God’s earth” and “mission and God’s image” which focus on the role of a missional people in creation care and the role of missional people in light of multi-faceted dimensions of evil in the environment of human life. Wright spends some time in discussion of the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a paradigm for evil and then the contours of mission in a response to it. Part 4 concludes with an exploration of God and the Nations both in Old Testament and New Testament mission.

Wright’s work is enormous. It is a comprehensive work on mission and larger than any I have ever encountered. Wright highlights the large number of references in the Bible pointing to God’s desire “to be known among the nations.” God’s self revelation is a major force in Scripture providing support for Wright’s thesis. I love the holistic view of God’s mission that Wright captures. His study of the multifaceted nature of redemption and restoration (as found in the Exodus and the Jubilee) and the implications for a missional church are helpful for one seeking to live in partnership with God’s mission in the world today. I was intrigued by Wright’s discussion of the paradigm of evil as seen in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I appreciated the handling of the “ultimacy of evangelism” (439) as opposed to the normal assumption that death is the ultimate. Thank God for His story of life, hope and “good news.”
In the book’s conclusion, Wright asks, what would happen if the church were to read the Scriptures missiologically? He suggests that this kind of worldview “constituted by putting the mission of God at the very center of all existence” offers
“a very healthy corrective to the egocentric obsession of much Western culture—including, sadly, even Western Christian culture. It forces us to open our eyes to the big picture, rather than shelter in the cosy narcissism of our own small worlds” (533).

As a pastor of a small congregation in a Western context, I know that way I read and preach the Scriptures will be significantly shaped by the “missional hermeneutic” I embrace. Wright has introduced me to new insights. His book will be a valuable resource as I seek to re-tell the Story of God’s mission in a way that reaches the lives of people as partners and participants is this grand narrative.