Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World
Overview
This engaging study provides a new way of looking at Scripture—one that takes seriously the biblical idea of mission. Richard Bauckham shows how God identifies himself with particular individuals or people in human history in order to be known by all. He is the God of Abraham, Israel, and David and, finally, the one who acts through Jesus Christ.
Bauckham applies these insights to the contemporary scene, encouraging those involved in mission to be sensitive to postmodern concerns about globalization while at the same time emphasizing the uniqueness of Christian faith. In doing so, he demonstrates the diversity of Christian faith around the world. This book will be rewarding reading for pastors, lay readers, and students of Scripture, mission, and postmodernism.
Key Features
- Explores the rich theme of mission in the Bible
- Addresses the nature and challenges of Christian missions
- Taken from lectures delivered by Richard Bauckham beginning in 1999
Contents
- A Hermeneutic for the Kingdom of God
- From the One to the Many
- Geography–Sacred and Symbolic
- Witness to the Truth in a Postmodern and Globalized World
Top Highlights
“A metanarrative is an attempt to grasp the meaning and destiny of human history as a whole by telling a single story about it; to encompass, as it were, all the immense diversity of human stories in a single, overall story which integrates them into a single meaning.” (Page 4)
“Socially, then, mission is a movement that is always being joined by others, the movement, therefore, of an ever-new people.” (Page 15)
“Spatially, then, mission is movement towards ever-new horizons.” (Page 14)
“Mission is a sending from the one human person Jesus Christ into all the world as his witnesses. Mission takes place on the way from the particularity of God’s action in the story of Jesus to the universal coming of God’s kingdom.” (Page 10)
“If the Bible offers a metanarrative, a story of all stories, then we should all be able to place our own stories within that grand narrative and find our own perception and experience of the world transformed by that connexion.” (Page 12)
Praise for the Print Edition
The events and aftermath of 9/11 have renewed the case against missionary activity, which so many critics already relegated to the dark corridors of church history on account of the Crusades, the deployment of Christian mission in the service of imperialism, and the more recent valuing of pluralism and diversity. Without minimizing the force of these criticisms, Bauckham nonetheless urges that the narrative of Christian Scripture is inescapably missiological and sets out to show us how to read the Bible so as to take seriously its missionary direction. The result is a programmatic reading of Scripture, by one who is fully at home in its pages, that exemplifies the craft of wise engagement with Scripture in relation to a postmodern, globalized world.
—Joel B. Green, Asbury Theological Seminary
How do biblical concepts of the universal mission of God’s people engage today’s ‘cultures of progress’? I warmly commend this beautifully brief but utterly masterful and penetrating guide.
—Max Turner, London Bible College
There are many books that take a biblical look at mission. There almost none that take a mission-centered look at the whole Bible, but that is exactly what Bauckham does here, with outstanding clarity. This is a book of biblical hermeneutics from an angle you may never have considered before and with powerful contemporary relevance.
—Chris Wright, International Ministries director, Langham Partnership International
Product Details
- Title: Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern World
- Author: Richard Bauckham
- Publisher: Authentic Media
- Publication Date: 2004
- Pages: 126
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Topic: Missiology
Richard Bauckham (1946– ) was professor of New Testament studies at St Mary's College, University of St Andrews. He retired in 2007 from this position in order to concentrate on research and writing. He currently is the senior scholar at Ridley Hall in Cambridge and visiting professor at St. Mellitus College.
Bauckham earned a PhD at the University of Cambridge and was a fellow of St John's College. He taught theology for one year at the University of Leeds and for 15 years at the University of Manchester before teaching at the University of St Andrews. He is a fellow of the British Academy and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Bauckham is known for his commentary on Jude and 2 Peter in the Word Biblical Commentary and his book Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church.