mission & evangelism:
International Review of Mission
IRM
January 2002 - Editorial - by Jacques Matthey
BIBLE STUDIES AND MISSION
We seem to have entered a new period in world history. This period did not just begin with the dramatic events of September 11; it probably started at the end of the 1980s. We are now in a time of crisis for classical theological interpretations of world events, explanations related to the meaning of historical developments, and the reading of the "signs of the time". The same is true for several church, mission and ecumenical institutions, not to mention many economic or political organizations. In such a time as this, Christians and churches who want to respond faithfully to their missionary calling, together need to read and interpret the Bible with a renewed intercultural and interconfessional understanding. If Christian mission is not rooted in a biblically inspired spirituality and involvement, it will fail, even if it appears successful from a human point of view.
This issue of IRM is a small and humble attempt to contribute to a biblically based missiology by practising a missiologically based reading of the Bible.
In the world situation we face, three biblical books or traditions appear to be particularly relevant for a renewed reflection on mission: the wisdom tradition of the First Testament, the letter to the Colossians, and Matthew's Gospel. These texts attest to a meaningful dealing by our "ancestors" of questions that are similar to ones we face. The biblical authors can help us deal with postmodern scepticism and the explanations about God and the world it gives. The writers also can help us in the search for a faithful inculturation. Here, I have in mind the tension between the local context and the universal church, and the quest for an authentic relationship between Christians and people of other religious convictions, as well as advocacy and the never ending struggle for justice in an unjust world.
Writing from Indonesia, John Prior shows the astonishing relevance of the writings of Ecclesiastes (or Qohelet) for a renewed questioning of mission in a context qualified by the term "out of chaos". He succeeds in introducing several different “readings” of Ecclesiastes: a liberative, a tribal and a postmodern one. He concludes by recognizing the essential contribution of the book as a “balm against fanaticism and indifference” (p. 20). He sees in it a possibility to nurture a “rooted calmness” among marginalized people (Ibid.), which is a necessary precondition for convincing witness in an unpredictable situation. Danie van Zyl interprets the book of Job as one which "unmasks" in its last chapters the "self-assured knowledge with which wisdom spoke about God" (p. 28). He underlines the significance of such a questioning for the gospel and cultures debate in the West, and the challenges this brings to the current economic system and its justification. Stephen Bennett reads the Song of Songs from his specific context in Aotearoa-New Zealand, and against the background of the contemporary moral and ethical questions with which people struggle. He discerns three persons in dialogue in the biblical poem, the central person being a woman who has to choose between the advances of the powerful King Solomon, and an exclusive love offered by a poor shepherd. Karel Steenbrink's affection goes to the person of the prophet Jonah. Steenbrink has particularly worked on the various interpretations of Jonah's story in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. His paper stresses how such an inter-religious reading can help us grasp something of the "freedom of God, who is behind any definition by which man would like to limit the Divine Essence" (p. 50). Steenbrink's paper concludes the series on the wisdom writings in the First Testament. They are not easy reading, but probably are the most fascinating Bible texts for dealing with mission in our contemporary world context. We hope the interpretations offered may be of some help for people in all parts of the world, and not just those in places represented by the writers.
The second series of papers tackles the situation in which the emerging church found itself in Colossae, which had been evangelized by one of the members of Paul's missionary team, Epaphras. The first article is the result of a group study undertaken in Ecuador. It offers a reading of the letter to the Colossians as seen from the specific struggles of people living on the Latin American periphery of globalization. Helmut Renard and Cristian Tauchner convey the group's understanding of recent trends in economic and cultural developments, as well as the specific problems of inculturation of the gospel in the city of Colossae. Teresa Okure, a Roman Catholic scholar from Nigeria, then digs deeply into the central text of that letter, viz. the baptismal hymn of chapter 1. She develops its missiological significance by underlining the importance of the letter's central christological affirmations for the understanding of Christian identity and mission. Teresa Okure is the coordinator of the Bible study project reflected in this issue of IRM. Her paper, which symbolically comes in the middle of this publication, addresses the core of our faith: the question of the uniqueness and universality of the Christ event. This question emerges anew as a crucial missiological one in our age of religious pluralism and interfaith dialogue.
We then turn to a somewhat more classical Bible text for missionary research, viz. Matthew’s Gospel. Johannes Nissen leads us into questions of hermeneutics. He uses various missiological approaches to Matthew as examples of how interpretation is shaped by the methods and questions we employ when we deal with Bible texts. The article also provides an overall introduction to Matthew’s missiological significance by addressing many contemporary concerns. Francis Oborji bases his sharp critique of traditional mission to Africa on a contextualized reading of the first gospel’s approach to poverty and wealth. He goes on to show how the actual mission-charity trend reveals the permanence of the old myth of a “cursed” Africa in the contemporary images that still present the continent as despised and marginalized. Biblically based evangelization, however, empowers the “wretched of society” and raises their consciousness and dignity. Emmanuel Jacob parallels that analysis by insisting in his overall presentation on the importance of the notion of “kingdom discipleship” in Matthew as a way of life that helps to build another world in a spirit of partnership and faithfulness to God’s own mission. Bob Wielenga reads Matthew’s teaching about mission within an apocalyptic framework, which he considers essential. Taking David Bosch’s work as an example, he shows how that aspect has been neglected in exegesis. Matthew, he says, does not give us a model of mission to be imitated, but a new vision of salvation history. This enables us to live and witness in a world of crisis. My own paper deals with missiological tensions in the first gospel, which may reveal stages on the spiritual-theological journey of the author and his community. In its final shape, Matthew’s Gospel exhorts Christians to be faithful to the specific and unique witness to which they are called throughout the whole world. At the same time, Matthew also tells people to be ready to recognize in other people’s faiths and lives responses which may be more faithful to Christ’s intention than their own. What that means in the end, we must not pretend to know, and that frees us for authentic witness to, and encounter or dialogue with our neighbours.
The
BISAM Interest Group
This issue of IRM is a step on the long journey of the Bible Studies and
Mission (BISAM) Interest Group of the International Association for Mission
Studies (IAMS). After the third international IAMS conference in 1976,
the decision was taken to launch a study project on the Bible and missiology.
This project went through periods of creativity and also setbacks, as
is often the case with international study projects. It was revived in
1996 and tries to “study collaboratively, in a true spirit of mission,
the various ways in which the Bible is used today in mission, and the
multi-faceted questions which it raises among peoples of different race,
sex, class, culture, creed, faith and social location.” This quotation
is from the book To Cast Fire Upon the Earth edited by Teresa
Okure, SHJC, from Nigeria, the coordinator of the BISAM interest group
and the author of the article on the famous Colossians’ hymn1.
The project has three major dimensions: First, it will deal with interpretation in the contemporary situation, i.e. how the Bible is used in various communities all over the world as a resource for and in mission. Second, there is the intention to do some research on the hermeneutics used during the main classical missionary eras from the 14th to the 20th centuries as well as in the patristic period. Third, there is a plan also to study missionary hermeneutics in the Bible itself, the texts of which are embedded in several cultural contexts.
The current phase of the BISAM interest group’s journey was decided during the general assembly of IAMS at Hammanskraal in January 2000. The project is being pursued in close cooperation between the interest group and the Mission and Evangelism Team of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which has carried for many years the concern to read the Bible in context. Together, we hope to be able to make a significant contribution to Bible studies and to the search for necessary new paradigms in mission. It is the hope of the coordinator of BISAM, the editor of IRM and all the authors that this issue of the Review may encourage intercultural dialogue on the interpretation of the Bible, shaped by a common involvement in mission. At the end of January 2002, most of the authors represented in this issue will meet in Geneva, together with other scholars or missiologists, for a critical dialogue on the approaches documented in this publication, and the consequences of them for the shape of the churches’ witness. The gathering will also plan the next steps of the collaboration between BISAM and the WCC.
Jacques MATTHEY