The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative

by Christopher J. H. Wright

Publisher:

IVP Academic

, 2006

Overview

Most Christians would agree that the Bible provides a basis for mission. But Christopher Wright boldly maintains that there is a missional basis for the Bible! The entire Bible is generated by and all about God’s mission.

In order to understand the Bible, we need a missional hermeneutic, an interpretive perspective in tune with this great missional theme. We need to see how the familiar bits and pieces fit into the grand narrative of Scripture.

Beginning with the Old Testament and its groundwork for understanding who God is, what he has called his people to be and do, and how the nations fit into God’s mission, Wright gives us a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture. This perspective provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission. God’s mission is to reclaim the world—including the created order—and God’s people have a designated role to play.

Key Features

• Examines the missional theme of Scripture
• Features a new hermeneutical perspective on Scripture
• Provides a solid and expansive basis for holistic mission

Contents

Part I: The Bible and Mission

• Searching for a Missional Hermeneutic
• Shaping a Missional Hermeneutic

Part II: The God of Mission

• The Living God Makes Himself Known in Israel
• The Living God Makes Himself Known in Jesus Christ
• The Living God Confronts Idolatry

Part III: The People of Mission

• God’s Elect People: Chosen for Blessing
• God’s Particular People: Chosen for All
• God’s Model of Redemption: The Exodus
• God’s Model of Restoration: The Jubilee
• The Span of God’s Missional Covenant
• The Life of God’s Missional People

Part IV: The Arena of Mission

• Mission and God’s Earth
• Mission and God’s Image
• God and the Nations in Old Testament Vision
• God and the Nations in New Testament Mission

Top Highlights

“They are nothing in relation to yhwh; they are something in relation to their worshipers.” (Page 139)

“The primary purpose of the jubilee was to preserve the socioeconomic fabric of multiple-household land tenure and the comparative equality and independent viability of the smallest family-plus-land units. In other words, the jubilee was intended for the survival and welfare of the families in Israel.” (Page 295)

“The cross was the unavoidable cost of God’s mission.” (Page 312)

“No, obedience to the covenant was not a condition of salvation but a condition of their mission.” (Page 333)

“to remove the barrier of enmity and alienation between Jew and Gentile” (Page 313)

Praise for the Print Edition

This marvelous book is all I hoped and expected, and more. It threatens to revolutionize what people usually mean by the missional aspect of the Scriptures. And it also threatens to revolutionize understandings of the Scriptures by its demonstration that they are, through and through, a missional document.

—John Goldingay, David Allan Hubbard Professor of Old Testament, Fuller Theological

A rich and most impressive work. It is a splendid exposition of a comprehensive biblical theology of mission, and will have to be taken seriously by every student of the subject.

—Andrew F. Walls, Centre for the Study of World Christianity, University of Edinburgh

Wright has truly laid a cornerstone in the edifice of mission, one on which a biblical theology of mission would be wise to build.

—Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, June 2009

Product Details

• Title: The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative
• Author: Christopher J. H. Wright
• Publisher: IVP
• Publication Date: 2018
• Pages: 582
• Resource Type: Biblical Theology
• Topic: Theology

About Christopher J. H. Wright

Christopher J. H. Wright (PhD, Cambridge) is international ministries director of the Langham Partnership, providing literature, scholarships, and preaching training for pastors in Majority World churches and seminaries. He has written many books including commentaries on Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Ezekiel, The Mission of God, Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit, Old Testament Ethics for the People of God, and Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament. An ordained priest in the Church of England, Chris spent five years teaching the Old Testament at Union Biblical Seminary in India, and thirteen years as academic dean and then principal of All Nations Christian College, an international training center for cross-cultural mission in England. He was chair of the Lausanne Theology Working Group from 2005-2011 and the chief architect of The Cape Town Commitment from the Third Lausanne Congress, 2010.