Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God

by K. Rex Butts

Publisher:

Wipf and Stock

, 2022

Many people realize that the cultural landscape of North America has shifted significantly. With such changes, new challenges for how churches live as a proclamation of the gospel have and continue to emerge. These challenges are related to the church's participation in the mission of God and particularly how local churches live faithfully to God while remaining relevant to such challenges. Because Scripture is revered as God's word, this matter also pertains to the way churches read Scripture, since the Bible does shape how churches embody the gospel. Gospel Portraits addresses the intersection of mission and hermeneutics for churches within their local contexts. Believing the gospel calls the church to follow Jesus and bear witness to the kingdom of God, this book proposes that churches should read the Bible as a Christ-centered and kingdom-oriented narrative. This reading of Scripture allows churches to reimagine how they might embody the gospel within their local contexts. Discerning what a contextual embodiment of the gospel involves, churches portray God's new creation in ways that are coherent with the biblical story and relevant to their local context. In doing so, churches live as Christ-formed and Spirit-led communities portraying the gospel.

Praise for Gospel Portraits

“How do we interpret Scripture, integrate it into our lives, and then minister in a way that reflects the kingdom of God within our contemporary culture? This most significant book on hermeneutics (the interpretation of Scripture) helps us understand this question.”

—Gailyn Van Rheenen, author of Missions



“If you are anything like me, you love to read books about Jesus. While we see the church continuing to struggle with our place and identity in North American culture, K. Rex Butts gives us a compelling picture of what it means to combine our Christology and ecclesiology. It turns out the two can’t be separated!”

—Joshua Graves, author of How Not to Kill a Muslim



“In Gospel Portraits, K. Rex Butts bids us come to the Bible with new and fresh eyes, so that we might see Jesus at work in our lives, our context, our world. Very personal and well researched, from a pastor who is a scholar, this book offers us a fresh invite to think through scriptural hermeneutics for the formation of Christian mission.”

—David Fitch, author of Faithful Presence



“As an experienced practitioner in local church ministry, Rex Butts explains the significance of missional hermeneutics for the life of the local church as it reads the Bible together. . . . This invitation to read the Bible through the lens of God’s mission provides a hopeful path to renewal in the local church.”

—John Mark Hicks, Lipscomb University

Product Details

• Title: Gospel Portraits: Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God
• Author: K. Rex Butts
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Print Publication Date: 2022
• Logos Release Date: 2022
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Ebook
• ISBNs: 9781666796315, 9781666737165, 9781666796308, 166679631X, 166673716X, 1666796301
• Resource ID: LLS:9781666796315
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2022-09-29T20:00:15Z

About the Author

K. Rex Butts serves as the lead minister/pastor with the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, Delaware. He holds a doctor of ministry in contextual theology from Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois, and a master of divinity from Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee. He is married to Laura, and together they have three children.