THE GREAT STORY AND THE GREAT
COMMISSION: Participating in the
Biblical drama of mission
By Christopher J. H. Wright
Baker Academic. 156 pages, £19.99
ISBN 978 1 540 966 162
The author, the globally well-regarded author and speaker, and accomplished Bible-scholar, Christopher Wright, aims in this new book to place Christian mission in a whole-Bible context.
He succeeds admirably and enthusiastically, especially in the early chapters. His thoroughly convincing perspective is that mission is God’s ‘Great Story’, the mission perspective of the entire Scriptures, and thus His Great Commission to His people.
This is not new, of course – the Reformers’ ‘Scripture interprets Scripture’ commenced the recovery of this vital Bible-interpretation principle that even the smallest Bible nugget should be interpreted in the light of the overarching Biblical story. Wright fulsomely and superbly finds and demonstrates that the Bible is the record of God’s mission, the ‘entire counsel of God’, in what he finds to be a seven-act drama from Creation then Rebellion, Old Testament Promise, Christ, New Testament Mission and Final Judgment through to New Creation. It goes without saying, of course, that the whole- Bible perspective is missional, but Wright says it persuasively and winsomely.
Much less convincing to me is Wright’s attempt to echo the 1988 Lambeth Commission’s ‘five marks of mission’, briefly stated as: Evangelism, Bible-teaching, Compassion, Justice, Creation-care.
Clearly the first two accrue directly and explicitly from the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19 20, and are mandated thereby for all Christians, and are gospel mission. But I was not persuaded by Wright’s attempt to find the last three in the same text.
Unreservedly, of course, I and surely all right-thinking Christians endorse them as being binding on all humanity, for every human being is created in the image of God – and society around us often commits to these vital obligations just as well as we do, sometimes better. But society doesn’t and cannot do gospel mission. Here is the rub: evangelism and growing disciples by teaching is surely Christian gospel mission, as per Matthew 28, and I commit to them because I am Christian. But compassion, justice and creation-care are obligated because I am human, alongside all of society around me, and because godliness in its zillion components, reflecting God’s character, is my heart’s desire; but they are creation mandate, not gospel mission.
Wright tries to find these in Christ’s Great Commission, but I found the attempt very strained, although Wright’s clearly compassionate heart, yearning for justice and creation care, is exemplary. Yet conflating gospel mission with creation mandate is surely unsafe, exemplified in one church I know, where a fair-trade stall monthly gets huge attention, but where I have never seen anyone looking at the small overseas mission display board in the vestibule, not ever. When held in parallel, as being in the same category, the one usually overpowers the other.
Nonetheless, Wright’s thoroughgoing treatment of making disciples by evangelism, and then growing them by teaching, as per the Great Commission, is masterly, to say the least. I commend it (chapter 5) unreservedly, and the whole book cautiously.
