Summary Reflection

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Recommended: What is the mission of God according to Mark

Introduction
The last section of our course focused on the missional theologies of Paul, the Synoptic (Matthew and Mark) Gospels, Luke-Acts and John. The following paragraphs reflect the points of interest discussed in class and gleaned through the weekly readings.

Paul’s Theology of Mission
The event of the Spirit baptism recorded in Acts chapter 2 it is one of the New Testament signs of God’s universal reach following the Great Commission. However, Paul’s life, testimony and writings serve as a vivid example of the soterilogical expansion of the Gospel -not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. Paul recognizes this as ‘the mystery that has been hidden’ (Col. 1:26). It is through Paul’s ministry, recorded in Acts and in the epistles, that the mission to the Gentiles takes center focus. According to Wright, there is no greater passage that testifies to this than Ephesians 2:11-12. He states, “The passage goes on to show how the Gentiles have been become citizens of God’s country … member of God’s family … and the place of God’s dwelling.” (Wright, 523). Hence, the centrality of Paul’s writing, apart from underscoring themes like the Christ event, salvation, apostleship, ecclesiology, eschatology and the importance of One God,(Pachuau) is his how God’s salvific work manifested in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ reaffirmed the universal call for other nations, the Gentiles, to enter into a covenant with Him.

Synoptic – Matthew and Mark Theology of Mission
There has been a tension among scholarship regarding Mark’s missiological contribution. According to Köstenberger and O’Brien ‘The prominence of discipleship failure’ and the ‘the absence of a final commissioning’ questions if Mark is interested in the...

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... only Christ is creator, but is sent in love as the Savior of the world. Third, John stresses the immediate connection between Jesus the revealer of God’ mission and the sending/breathing upon the disciples (Jn. 20:21-22). Even though the un-relatedness between Luke and John (in terms of time and space), it seems that the gospel of John prepares the reader towards the events of the in-coming of the Spirit and the church’s missionary task.

Conclusion
Throughout the course we have been reminded of the centrifugal and centripetal tension that exists as we read the Bible through a missiological lens. This tension is once again felt as we have read each of the previous New Testament books. Yet, when see Scripture as a metanarrative (Wright) it becomes clear that God is not drawing people in or spreading people out, but both. Missions is from everywhere to everywhere.

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