Some reasons we're excited to go!
Last week I (Wes) read an essay by Christopher J. H. Wright called “Mission as a Matrix for Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology.” It was so helpful for me because it reminded me of the reasons we’re excited to serve at Cameroon Baptist Theological Seminary next year.
Wright taught Old Testament as a missionary in India from 1983-88. He said this about his teaching experience:
“It is the common witness of those, including myself, who have lived and worked in cultures other than their own, that reading and studying the Bible through the eyes of others is a challenging, mind-blowing and immensely instructive privilege.”
In light of this, our team can be sure that we’ll be learning way more than we’ll be teaching next year! Our reading and studying the Bible through the eyes of our Cameroonian students will certainly be our privilege.
Here’s another quote:
“‘Mission studies should remind biblical scholars that many of the writings that we study (often in painstaking and even painful detail) came to be because of the reality of mission. An awareness of, and a concern with, the key issues of mission studies may well help biblical studies find foci that will bring deeper appreciation of the meaning of the Bible.’”
In other words, the documents that make up the New Testament were originally missionary documents. They were written in the context of missions, evangelism, church planting, and discipleship in real human communities. So, by serving in the mission context of CBTS, Charlie, Tommy, and I may gain all kinds of fresh insights into the Bible. That’s definitely our hope!
Ultimately, Wright’s essay makes clear that missions is a matter of God the Father sending God the Son into the world, and then the Father and the Son together sending the Holy Spirit. It is God's activity before it is ours. The amazing thing is that we get to play a role:
“Mission, from the point of view of our human endeavor, means the committed participation of God’s people in the purposes of God for the redemption of the whole creation. The mission is God’s. The marvel is that God invites us to join in.”*
*Christopher J. H. Wright, "Mission as a Matrix for Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology" in Out of Egypt, ed. Craig Bartholomew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 114, 121n28, 137.
Wright taught Old Testament as a missionary in India from 1983-88. He said this about his teaching experience:
“It is the common witness of those, including myself, who have lived and worked in cultures other than their own, that reading and studying the Bible through the eyes of others is a challenging, mind-blowing and immensely instructive privilege.”
In light of this, our team can be sure that we’ll be learning way more than we’ll be teaching next year! Our reading and studying the Bible through the eyes of our Cameroonian students will certainly be our privilege.
Here’s another quote:
“‘Mission studies should remind biblical scholars that many of the writings that we study (often in painstaking and even painful detail) came to be because of the reality of mission. An awareness of, and a concern with, the key issues of mission studies may well help biblical studies find foci that will bring deeper appreciation of the meaning of the Bible.’”
In other words, the documents that make up the New Testament were originally missionary documents. They were written in the context of missions, evangelism, church planting, and discipleship in real human communities. So, by serving in the mission context of CBTS, Charlie, Tommy, and I may gain all kinds of fresh insights into the Bible. That’s definitely our hope!
Ultimately, Wright’s essay makes clear that missions is a matter of God the Father sending God the Son into the world, and then the Father and the Son together sending the Holy Spirit. It is God's activity before it is ours. The amazing thing is that we get to play a role:
“Mission, from the point of view of our human endeavor, means the committed participation of God’s people in the purposes of God for the redemption of the whole creation. The mission is God’s. The marvel is that God invites us to join in.”*
*Christopher J. H. Wright, "Mission as a Matrix for Hermeneutics and Biblical Theology" in Out of Egypt, ed. Craig Bartholomew (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 114, 121n28, 137.
posted by Charlie, Tommy, and Wesley | 8:41 PM
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