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I arrived back in Central Florida from spending a weekend in Western North Carolina at the Cove Retreat Center. The Faculty and Board of Trustees of Asbury Theological Seminary spent a couple of days together for worship, conversation, breaking bread, and envisioning the future.

I was moved by several key lines in the addresses of current President Ellsworth Kalas and President Emeritus Maxie Dunnam. The themes for the weekend included servanthood and humility:

“Help us to be humble enough to know that we are stupid” — Kalas

“Our life as Christians is a ‘therefore’ life.” — Dunnam

“Most us know that we won’t be the greatest, but we don’t want to be the least.” — Dunnam

These themes were modeled profoundly by the staff of the Cove. One of the staff members issued this statement to a colleague:
“You’re here at God’s banqueting table and I am here to serve you.” Wow…

Psalm 2 asserts the reign of God through the LORD’s anointed. The nations of the earth may rage and rebel against God, but the only way forward is for them to submit to God’s earthly representative of His reign: the King enthroned in Zion. The New Testament rightly deploys the imagery and metaphors description of the Israelite king to interpret the meaning of Jesus as Christ or Messiah.

While we were working on this text together in my Psalms class at Asbury Theological Seminary (Orlando, FL campus), one of my students jokingly asked, “Wow, what would it be like to hear this text if we were one of the nations rather than as God’s people?”
I stopped class immediately and said, “_____, you just asked one of the most important questions that a student has ever raised.”

In our 21st century context, it is crucial for missional leaders to always read the Bible on behalf of the world. Within the Church, we have a tendency to read the Scriptures only from the perspective of insiders. Many preachers and teachers routinely rage and rail against those outside of the walls of the Church. Yet how does such talk serve to advance the Gospel? How does an insider versus outsider mentality help outsiders to become insiders?

The Church exists as a missional community that exists to reflect God’s character in, for, and to the World. Jesus continually leads His church into the world on mission. If these propositions are true, then this should affect the way that we read Scriptures. I call this a missional hermeneutic. A missional hermeneutic approaches Scripture through the lens of mission. It reads Scriptures for the World on behalf of all people. It doesn’t read the Bible as Christians or non-Christians, but as human beings.

This perspective is critical for learning to proclaim the Gospel in our post-Christian context. If we read only from the perspective of the Church, we are forgetting about those on the outside; if we read only from the perspective of non-Christians, we miss the call to realign that the Scriptures continually pronounce to believers. Instead, what is needed is a reading of Scripture that speaks human. One that calls insiders to the Gospel to realign themselves with God’s missional work in the world and one that calls outsiders to align their lives with God’s missional work in the world.

How would such an approach help to illumine the message of Psalm 2?

First, it would recognize that this text is primarily a word of encouragement, security and hope to God’s people. It assures God’s people of the LORD’s sovereignty over the geo-political realm. Nations and rulers may rage openly against God and attempt to thwart God’s aims, but such schemes and intrigues will not prove to be the final verdict over Creation. God’s people can lives daring and bold lives of advancing God’s kingdom through following the lead of God’s anointed one. The NT clearly sees Jesus as the fulfillment of Ps 2’s vision for God’s Son and ruler. Thus, Ps 2 calls its hearers to (re)align their lives around the prerogatives of Jesus who clearly called his followers to follow him into the world on mission (Matt 4:18-22; 16:24; 28:18-20). Live confidently in the world and be fully engaged in God’s mission because the future is firmly in the hands of the LORD.

Second, this text bears witness that the current reality in which the nations are at times in open hostility to the mission of God is not the final verdict. Yes, this text describes God’s response as scoffing (v. 4). This posturing is part of the encouragement to perseverance for God’s people. But vv. 9-12 serve an important missional function. They are an invitation to recognize and submit to the sovereignty of God. This may sound triumphalistic and militaristic, but the concluding beatitude subverts any such misreading:

Blessed/Happy/Fortunate are all who take refuge in him (v. 12c). This text ends with a profound hope for the world. Even the nations who may openly rage against God may enter into the privileged state of blessing. Thus, the text is thorough goingly missional. Ps 2 is not a jingoistic or imperialistic declaration of the LORD’s sovereignty. It is an invitation to the world to enter into a state of privilege as members of God’s people.

How do these observations help to answer my student’s question? They remind of the importance to reflect not merely on the comforts that this text may give to God’s people, but also think about how the words of this psalm serve as Gospel to those outside of the Christian faith.

How would our community of faith be viewed differently by those outside of the faith if we always?

© 2008 Brian D. Russell

IF…..

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

Read other poems by Kipling at the official Rudyard Kipling site.

Paul’s method boils down to a commitment to people for the sake of the Gospel. Paul works to incarnate the Gospel within the particular culture in which he works. Most broadly speaking, this involved two macro-cultures of his day: Gentile culture (Greco-Roman) and Jewish culture (including those living in the Diaspora across the Mediterranean and those living in Jerusalem and Palestine). Paul recognized that Jews and Greeks responded differently to the Gospel (1 Cor 1:18-25). He adapted his lifestyle and method to maximize the impact of the Gospel and to minimize the affect of culture in blurring the Gospel message. This is the meaning of “I have become all things to all people” (1 Cor 9:22).

Paul’s non-negotiable was his commitment to the proclamation of the death of Jesus on the cross (1 Cor 1:18; 1 Cor 2:2) and the announcement of God’s raising Jesus from the dead (1 Cor 15). Without these elements there is no Gospel to share. An incarnational approach to evangelism is sometimes accused of sacrificing truth for the sake of relevancy. Paul models a staunch commitment to the core of the Gospel: the work of Jesus the Messiah on the Cross (1 Cor 2:2) and God’s raising of him from the dead (1 Cor 15:3-5). Yet he intentionally frames this message within the culture, language, and thought world of his target audience. Paul the former Pharisee becomes a boundary breaker and takes the Gospel across former dividing lives to engage in cross-cultural ministry.

1) Place a high premium on people. Love people the way that God loves them (John 3:16). As my colleague Robert Tuttle says, “Pray that God will allow you to see others as if they were your own children.” With eyes such as this, our lives take on new focus and meaning as we seek to reach the all by loving the one in our presence at any given moment.

2) Understand the non-negotiables of the Gospel. Practice a generous orthodoxy around the classical Christian consensus. Separate foundational beliefs from culturally embedded expression.
What do you think?
© 2008 Brian D. Russell

Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, and make it possible.

T.E. Lawrence

Paul’s Missional Methods: Implications for the 21st Century Missional Church

Paul summarizes his approach in 1 Cor 9:22: I’ve become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.

Paul’s missional method is bold and daring, but it is not delusional. If we focus only on the first part of this verse we will miss a key aspect. Paul recognizes that there are limits to the level of success of any missional endeavor. The key limiting factor is the target audience. Paul may engage the culture fully with incarnational practices, clear language, generous acts of love, and compelling argument, but none of this will result in 100% success.

Notice the verse again. It reads all things, all people, all means but save some. Unrealistic expectations are an albatross around the neck of too many leaders.

Earlier in 1 Cor 3 Paul offers insight into the contribution that an individual may make to God’s mission. He writes in a context reflecting on the divisions within the Corinthian church, but his words highlight key principles for understanding our mission:

5What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8 The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. 9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

1) We don’t work alone. We are part of a network and movement of Christ followers who are seeking to advance the Gospel in our day.

2) Our job is to add value at all times. Some plant, others water. The key is to consistently live a missional lifestyle in which we live and serve as clues to the mystery and grace of God. We are committed to people created in God’s image who are imprinted with intrinsic needs that will ultimately point to God.

3) God makes it grow. Ultimately, the decision to follow Christ is made by individuals in response to God’s grace. We can be agents of this grace, but we are not its source—God is. This means the pressure and responsibility of salvation is not in our hands. It is in God’s. We are called to live faithfully and act obediently. This means a full commitment to the radical outreach envisaged in 1 Cor 9 by Paul, but such a mission separates practices and outcomes. We must commit fully to missional practice, but only God controls outcome.

What does “some” mean for you?

© 2008 Brian D. Russell