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                                                         "A LIGHT TO THE NATIONS"
                              The Nature of Mission in the Old Testament

                                                                                                - Waldron Scott

THE MISSION IS UNIVERSAL

The opening chapters of the Bible, which set the stage for the drama that follows, focus exclusively on God's relationship with the nations. They tell the saga of man's creation, rebellion, fall, and alienation from his Creator. They record his early cultural achievements, his moral degradation, and his commitment to violence. "Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled with violence" (Genesis 6: 11).
Yet in this biblical preface God's loving disposition toward the human race shines through. His gracious provision of clothing for shame-filled Adam and Eve, the protective mark he placed on the forehead of murderous Cain, his covenant with Noah and the accompanying rainbow-remembrance: all these, especially the latter, testify to God's benevolent attitude toward the nations.

And God said [to Noah], "This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I set my bow in the cloud. . . . When the bow is in the clouds, I will look upon it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. (Genesis 9:12-16)1

To this very day all mankind lives by the grace and mercy of God. That is why Calvin says that faith is not so .much a matter of our knowing that there is a God as in our understanding of what he is to us. "For it is not of so much importance to us to know what he is in himself," insists Calvin, "as what he is willing to be to us." Yet man also lives under God's judgment. "His condemnation hangs over him like a sword."3 The rainbow was followed by the perversity of the Tower of Babel-man's presumptuous endeavor to take heaven by storm. God replied by confusing and scattering the nations (Genesis 11: 1-9).
The story of Babel has a deeper significance, however, than merely portraying man's inveterate rebellion. As Professor van Leeuwen has shown, the Babel narrative, together with the Creation account, marks the beginning of the biblical onslaught against all mythologies that undergird civilization but enslave man. It marks the beginning of a long process of desacralization (that is, secularization) by which God, who aims at liberating humanity from the bond- .The of false religions and ideologies, invades the nations through Israe1.4

Here is raised the protest against the religion of cosmic totality, against the 'sacralizing' of all being, against the supremacy of fate, against the divinizing of kings and kingdoms. Here a break is made with the everlasting cycle of nature and the timeless presentness of myth. Here history is discovered, where the Covenant between Creator and creation, between the Lord and his people, bursts open the solid oneness of the universe. Here there is proper room for man and here the taste of freedom. The world is now radically secularized, becomes creation moving forward to regeneration, is made the arena of history, is in much pain and travail, waiting for the redemption and consummation of all things.  One does not have to accept van Leeuwen's thesis en toto (it has been derided as "Barthianized Toynbee") to value every evidence of the liberating will of God in the desacralizing events of history. St. Paul queries the Galatians in these very terms with reference to their experience in Christ. "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bond- age to beings that by nature are no gods; but now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits, whose slaves you want to be once more?" (Galatians 4:8-9).
Missio Dei, the mission of God (and it is God's mission; he is the chief actor in the drama of salvation; we are merely "bit players") has its roots therefore in the very character of God. His righteousness requires that some action be taken on man's behalf, else all is lost. But his love impels him to take that action himself, to move out forcefully in redemptive, liberating mission. What follows, the election of Israel through the call of Abraham, has the blessing of all nations:

Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves. (Genesis 12: 1-3)

Abraham is promised a blessing, but it is not for him- self alone. It is for all the families of the earth. As Bishop Lesslie Newbigin points out, "Those who are chosen to be bearers of a blessing are chosen for the sake of all. The covenant of Noah is not revoked. The promised blessing is, in the end, for -all the nations."6 St. Paul refers to this universal blessing as "the gospel" (Galatians 3:8).
God's gracious purpose for all mankind permeates the entire Old Testament. Professor Bavinck writes, "It is in it- self striking how often the Old Testament discusses the future of these peoples and interests itself in the salvation that will one day be their lot."7 King David, for example, looked to the day when" all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him" (Psalm 22:27). The prophet Isaiah fore- saw the Lord of hosts on Mt. Zion making "for all peoples a feast of fat things" and destroying "the veil that is spread over all nations" (Isaiah 25:6-7). His colleague, Joel, heard God promise to "pour out my Spirit on all flesh" in the latter days (Joel 3:28). When the Lord employed Gog8as an instrument of judgment on sinful Israel, the prophet Ezekiel saw even that chastisement in terms of its revelatory impact on the peoples of the world: "So I will show my greatness and my holiness and make myself known in the eyes of many nations; then they will know that I am the Lord" (Ezekiel 38:23).
Down through the ages men of God have always recognized the universality of God's redemption. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators, continually challenged us to "get a world vision!"9 World vision, he would insist, is merely "getting on your heart what God has always had on his heart-the whole world."

THE MISSION AIMS AT JUSTICE
The full import of Abraham's selection as the channel of God's blessing to all nations becomes more apparent in the famous discussion between God and Abraham regarding Sodom and Gomorrah.10 Prior to the discussion, in a soliloquy, God had purposed to judge the two cities, "Because the outcry [of the oppressed, see below] against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave" (Genesis 18:20). Note that the sin of the twin cities was not limited to deviant sexual behavior, as some have supposed. Rather, as Ezekiel clearly tells us, they also had "pride, surfeit of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy" (Ezekiel 16:49).
In his soliloquy God asks himself whether, in view of Abraham's mission of blessing to all nations, he ought to hide from Abraham his intention of executing justice on  Sodom and Gomorrah. He answers in the negative, "for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord-by doing righteousness and justice" (Genesis 18: 19).
Two observations must be made here. The first is that "righteousness and justice" in the Hebrew language (tsedeqah umishpat) is a hendiadys; that is, a figure of speech in which two words connected by a conjunction are used to express a single complex idea. Theologians also call it a technical phrase and as such, it is synonymous with social justice.  This has been established by a careful reading of the thirty-one instances of the phrase,12 as well as the twenty- three instances where the two words occur in poetic parallelism,13 and thirty-two other instances where they are paired together.14 One of the better-known examples of this phrase in poetic parallelism is Amos 5:24:

But let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.


The context of this couplet-which includes references to trampling upon the poor and turning aside the needy- makes it clear that God is concerned about social justice, not mere private morality.
The second observation is that God's specific blessing for the nations through Abraham's descendants is the restoration of social justice. It is "by doing righteousness .and justice," that Abraham and his household will "keep the way of the Lord." After Abraham's descendants had been liberated from slavery in Egypt and were in the process of establishing their own nationhood in freedom, the Lord commanded them, "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. If you do afflict them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry" (Exodus 22:21-23). As the children of Israel moved into the land of Canaan, Moses declared, "Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God gives you" (Deuteronomy 16:20). King David, we are told, "administered justice and equity to all his people" (2 Samuel 8: 15). In the early stages of his career, King Solomon awed the populace "because they perceived that the wisdom of God was in him, to render justice" (1 Kings 3:28).
The Old Testament authors consistently emphasize that social justice reflects the very character of God: "He loves righteousness and justice [tsedeqah u mishpat] (Psalm 33:5); "For the Lord loves justice" (Psalm 37:28); "Mighty King, lover of justice!" (Psalm 99:4). It comes as no surprise, there- fore, that "to do righteousness and justice [tsedeqah u mish- pat] is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice" (Proverbs 21:3); and that "when justice is done, it is a joy to the righteous, but dismay to evildoers" (Proverbs 21:15). But men are sinners and live in an unjust world: "If you see in a province the poor oppressed and justice and right violently taken away, do not be amazed at the matter; for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them" (Ecclesiastes 5:8). In the corrupt system of the Preacher's day, each official spied on the one beneath him in the hierarchy in order to obtain part of the spoils of taxation and graft.15 Not much has changed over the past three thousand years.
God's people are called to collaborate with him in a mission of rectification: "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; '" seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow" (Isaiah 1: 16-17). The vision of a radically changed world was held out before Israel:
                When the oppressor is no more,
                    and destruction has ceased,
                    and he who tramples under foot
                    has vanished from the land,
                then a throne will be established
                            in steadfast love,
                    and on it will sit in faithfulness
                in the tent of David
                            one who judges and seeks justice
                and is swift to do righteousness. (Isaiah 16:4-5)
                    This blessing of justice is not meant for Israel alone;
                    on the contrary, it is for many nations: Listen to me, my people,
                            and give ear to me, my nation;
                        for a law will go forth from me,
                            and my justice for a light to the peoples.
                    My deliverance draws near speedily,
                            my salvation has gone forth,
                        and my arms will rule the peoples;
                                the coastlands wait for me,
                        and for my arm they hope. (Isaiah 51 :4-5)

Because of this emphasis on social justice, salvation in the Old Testament has a strong social and this-worldly flavor in Contrast to the predominantly individualistic and otherworldly understanding of salvation that many evangelicals have today. The popular modem conception of individualism owes much more to Greek thought than to the Bible. It may even be regarded as anti-biblical.l6 Professor George Eldon Ladd comments, "The Old Testament no- where holds forth the hope of a bodyless,nonmaterial, purely 'spiritual' redemption. . . ."17 Passages such as Deuteronomy 11:26-32 and Zechariah 8:9-13 illustrate this well, as do Exodus 14:13 and Isaiah 25:6-9.
This difference in emphasis is important to keep in mind. Equally important to note, however, is that this difference does not amount to a dichotomy. As we will see in chapter 8, both emphases are complementary within the context of the total biblical mission. For evangelical missionaries the difficulty comes in perceiving and maintaining a balance relevant to the needs of real people at a specific historical moment.

THE MISSION IS MEDIATED
Although God indicated on numerous occasions his intention to bless all nations, his universal purpose was not to be realized by a universal revelation to all mankind. Instead, as we have seen, God chose to effect it through the mediatorship of Abraham and his descendants.
This choice of Abraham and the nation of Israel to be the bearers (not merely the benefactors) of blessing is a stumbling block to many. To assert that a devout worship- per in India or China is dependent on the agency of another religious tradition-and not necessarily the most impressive-in order to receive salvation is highly offensive to sincere Hindus and Buddhists. Sensitive Christians-especially those who have had intimate contact with other cultures- also have difficulty understanding it.
Referring to our own time, Professor Dawe decries the idea that "the church is the covenanted people. of God and can provide the only means of salvation."18 Gerald Anderson, with ten years of missionary experience in the Philip- pines, calls this a "dead-end concept of 'radical discontinuity.' "19 Minor Lee Rogers calls it a Christian Koran, "a moral, spiritual and intellectual problem that is crucial for the continuing vitality of the Christian community."2O In this connection Bishop Newbigin has a helpful discussion.21
Newbigin points out that at the heart of this protest against dogmatic triumphalism is the conviction that "my own identity and my own destiny are, in the final analysis, mine alone."22 It is no accident, he says, that this protest is most clearly articulated in India since, according to Hinduism, salvation concerns the soul as a pure monad, a simple, indivisible, indestructible unit. A monad requires neither other persons nor a created world for the achievement of its true destiny. For the Hindu-and this was true also for classical Greeks-man is ultimately spiritual. Thus the world of things and of other persons is marginal to his eternal destiny.
The biblical view of man's nature and destiny contrasts sharply with this. In the Bible the human being exists only in relationship with other persons and only as a part of the created world. God did not create Adam alone. Humanity, as theologian Karl Barth notes, exists in the double form of man-and-woman.23 "So God created man. . . male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). Human life is the life of shared relationships in a world of living creatures and created things.24 With these contrasting anthropologies in mind Newbigin concludes with this insight:

  If each human being is to be ultimately understood as an independent spiritual monad [as in the Indian religions] then salvation could only be through an action directed impartially to each and all. But if the truly human is the shared reality of mutual and collective responsibility which the Bible envisages, then salvation must be an action which binds us together and restores for us the true mutual relation to each other and the true shared relation to the world of nature. This would mean that the gift of salvation would be bound up with our openness to one another. . . . It would come from the neighbor in the action by which we open the door to invite the neighbor in. But the neighbor would have to be sent (Rom. 10:14). There would have to be one called and chosen to be the bearer of the blessing. The blessing is intended for all. But the blessing itself would be negated if it were not given and received in a way that binds each to the other. God's way of universal salvation, if it is to be addressed to man as he really is and not to the unreal abstraction of a detached" soul," must be accomplished by the way of election-of choosing, calling, and sending one to be the bearer of blessing for all. The biblical doctrine of election is fundamental to any doctrine of mission which is addressed to men and women as they really are in the fullness of their shared life in history and in nature.25

MISSION IS CENTRIPETAL
After Israel's heart-breaking sojourn in Egypt, God renewed his pact with Abraham's descendants:

And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him out of the mountain saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my own possession among all peoples; for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Exodus 19:3-6)

Israel would be an effective instrument for the fulfillment of God's benevolent, recreative, liberating mission to man- kind only if she were authentic. Israel's primary mission (or rather, her primary assignment in God's mission), was to be the people of God. As long as Israel remained true to her covenant relationship with the Lord, obeying his voice and keeping his commandments, she would be blessed by the Lord and, like a magnet, draw all peoples to him. This is what is meant by saying that the Old Testament vision of mission is primarily centripetal.
Professor George W. Peters points out that in order to be a truly priestly nation mediating God's glory among the nations, Israel needed to cultivate her relationship with the God. She was to do this, he says, through high moral idealism, religious discipline, solemn covenant, and communal worship.26 "Israel became the people of God in the sovereign and gracious call of Abraham without any conditions attached to it. To become the servant of God to the nations of the world, however, is circumscribed by rigid divine regulations and conditioned by absolute and voluntary commitment and by implicit obedience."27
Above all, Israel was to cultivate her relationship with God and express her servanthood to the nations by the pur- suit of social justice. "Is not this the fast that I choose [says the Lord]: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?" (Isaiah 58:6). Dr. Klaus Bockmiihl sees this verse and the chapter in which it is embedded as "extremely important" for evangelical social ethics.28
In this connection we must briefly note God's institution of "Jubilee Economics" in Leviticus 25. The Lord instructed Moses to tell the people, "You shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his family" (v. 10). Every fifty years, all land was to go back to the original owners without compensation, for the land (the Israelite's basic capital in an agricultural society) was actually the Lord's. Men were merely his stewards (v. 23). On no account was the rich man's ability to buy land to have priority over the common man's right to earn his living from the land (vv. 24-28). To guarantee this right, and to avoid having to depend on the dubious charity of the wealthy, God instituted the Jubilee. Significantly, the Jubilee year began on the Day of Atonement (v. 9).
It is important to note that whenever the Bible speaks of righteousness and justice, it does so in the context of the Covenant. Argentinean theologian Bonino observes that "For the Bible, in fact, the practice of justice isn't a mere inter-personal relationship or social virtue; it is the very nature of the covenant, because it is a covenant with the Lord who practices justice, with him in whom 'the orphan finds ref- age'. Engaging in this course of conduct within the bond of ,the covenant is to honor Yahweh in the only way in which He can be honored."29
In the process of cultivating this covenant relationship with God, Israel's kings and prophets, as well as her priests, made insignificant contributions. David's role as a messianic symbol for Israel is well known. So also is the role of the major and minor prophets who, during crises, adamantly reminded Israel of her true destiny. The chronicling of the mighty acts of God, the production of psalms, wisdom literature, and prophetic oracles were all designed to shape ,this people into a kingdom of priests capable of being" a !light to the nations" (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6).30
Israel's ability to be God's chosen nation among the nations depended ultimately on God's grace. A temple psalm sung at the Feast of Pentecost, which upon first hearing light seem ethnocentric, recognizes this and actually reveals a more catholic motive: "May God be gracious to us and  bless us, and make his face to shine upon us, that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving power among all nations" (Psalm 67:1-2).
King Solomon showed a similar awareness of the tri- N.1~ connection between God's blessing of Israel, Israel's reverent response, and the salvation of the nations. At the dedication of the great house of the Lord in Jerusalem, an event which probably marked the high point of Israel's experience as a nation among the nations, Solomon prayed: Likewise when a foreigner, who is not of thy people Israel, comes from a far country for thy name's sake (for they shall hear of thy great name, and thy mighty hand, and of thy outstretched arm) when he comes and prays toward this house, hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and do according for which the foreigner calls to thee; in order that all the peoples of the earth may know of thy name and fear thee, as do thy people Israel. (1 Kings 8:41-43)

Note that Solomon expects the foreigner to come to Jerusalem. This centripetal movement, according to Bengt Sundkler, is one of the controlling features of the Old Testament's concept of Israel's mission to the world.31 God's people in the days before Christ understood mission more in terms of "coming" than "going." Isaiah's eschatoiogicaP2 vision reflects this drawing power:

It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come and say: "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths. (Isaiah 2:2-3)

Zechariah's vision was equally magnetic:

Many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts: In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, "Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. (Zechariah 8:22-23) )

It is fascinating to note that this vision of the nations gathering to Jerusalem exerts a powerful hold on many of the newly independent Christian churches springing up in Africa today.33 The largest of these indigenous denominations is the Church of Christ on Earth of the Prophet Simon , Kimbangu (also known as the Kimbanguist church). Its holy place is N'Kamba in Zaire. In his booklet The Beloved City "Solomon Dialungana, brother of the founder of the Kimbanguist church and custodian of its holy place, writes: "We must therefore love the new Jerusalem (N'Kamba) just as Israel loved ancient Jerusalem. It is the city of Kimbangu just as Jerusalem was the ancient city of David. It is the city, of blessing, with its Pool of Bethesda (John 5).34 It is the city to which all nations are making their pilgrimage [emphasis mine], where God is praised night and day [and] where no witchcraft can penetrate."35
According to the German scholar Joachim Jeremias, When one reviews the Old Testament material relating to centripetal aspect of missions, five features emerge.36  First, the Gentile nations expect God to reveal himself in his glory. "The coastlands wait for me, and for my arm they hope," the Lord tells his people (Isaiah 51:5). Second, once God has revealed himself he calls the gentiles to salvation "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth" (Isaiah 45:22). Third, God's call is followed by the pilgrimage of the Gentiles to Jerusalem. "At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem" (Jeremiah 3: 17). Fourth, the goal of the pilgrimage is worship. "For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples" (Isaiah 56:7). Finally, the Gentiles participate with Israel in the fellowship of God's global banquet, a symbol of the establishment of his Kingdom:
On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined. And he will destroy on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all the nations. He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth; for the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 25:6-8).

The centripetal aspect of missions revealed in the Old Testament is important to us today. It reminds us to be authentic witnesses who communicate the gospel by deed as well as word. And it demonstrates the drawing power of just societies ordered under the God who desires for all men and nations that comprehensive salvation described by the prophets as shalom-peace, wholeness, and well-being.

1. Italics mine, here and henceforth in all Scripture quotations.
2. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. John Allen (philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Christian Education, 1936),1: 602.
3. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, vol. IV, book 3, trans. G. W.Bromiley (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1962), p. 465.
4. An example of how this works in today's world can be found in Kosuke Koyama, "Points of Theological Friction," in Asian Voices in Christian Theology, Gerald H. Anderson, ed. (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, I 76),pp. 65ff. In this chapter
5. Arend Th. van Leeuwen, Christianity in World History, trans. H. H. Hoskins (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964), pp. 331ff, Cf. Harvey Cox, The Secular City, revised edition (New York: 'Macmillan, 1966), chapter I, "The Biblical Sources of Secularization," pp. 15ff. Also Bernard Eugene Meland, The Secularization of Modern Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).
6. Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978), p. 34. That a few are chosen with a view to the blessing of all does not mean that all people will necessarily be saved. This is not a case of pars pro toto (the part standing for the whole) as in Hans ReudiWeber's "God's Arithmetic," Mission Trends No.2, Gerald H. Anderson and Thomas F. Stransky, eds. (New York: Paulist Press and Grand Rapids:Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1975); rather, it is a case of the part being used by God
as a channel of blessing, irrespective of whether the blessing is emraced.
7. J. H. Bavinck, An Introduction to the Science of Missions, trans. David Hugh Freeman (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1960), p. 6.
8. Probably to be identified with Gyges, king of Lydia, about 660 B.C. See J. D. Douglas ed., The New Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1962), p. 480.
9. Cf. Betty Lee Skinner, Daws (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974),p.294.
10. Genesis 18:23-33.
11. See Jose Porfirio Miranda, Marx and the Bible, trans. John Eagleson (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1974), p. 93.
12. Genesis 18:19,2 Samuel 8:15, 1 Kings 10:9, Isaiah 9:7,33:5, Jeremiah 4:2, 9:24, 22:3, 22:15, 23:5, 33:15, Hosea 2:19, Ezekiel 18:5, 18:19, 18:.21, 18:27, 33:14, 33:16, 33:19, 45:9, Psalm 33:5, 89:14, 97:2, 99:4,119:21, Proverbs 1:3,2:9,21:3, Ecclesiastes 5:8, 1 Chronicles 18:14, 2 Chronicles 9:8. (These references, and those in the following two notes, are supplied by Miranda, though I have corrected them in a number of Instances where Miranda's verse references do not coincide with those in the Revised Standard Version.)
13. Isaiah 1:27, 5:7, 5:16, 28:17, 32:16, 54:17, 56:1, 59:9, 59:14, 37 os 5:7, 5:24, 6:12, Micah 7:9, Psalm 36:6,47:6,72:1, 99:4,106:3,Job 35:2, :23, Proverbs 8:20, 16:8.
14. Leviticus 19:15, Deuteronomy 1:16, 16:18,25:1, 1 Samuel 12:7, Samuel 15:4, 1 Kings 8:32, Isaiah 1:26, 11:4, 16:5,43:26,51:5,49:4, Jeremiah 11:20, Ezekiel 23:45, Psalm 7:9, 7:11, 9:4, 9:8, 35:24, 50:6, 51:4, 58:11,82:3,96:13,98:9, Job 9:15, Proverbs 8:16,31:9, Eccleciastes 3:17,2 Chronicles 6:23.
I5. Cf. Charles F. Pfeiffer and Everett F. Harrison, eds., The Wycliffe I Commentary (Chicago: Moody Press, 1962), p. 590.
16. Cf. H. L. Ellison, Ezekiel: The Man and His Message (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1967), p. 72.
17. George Eldon Ladd, Jesus and the Kingdom (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), p. 55. Dr. Ladd may overstate his case in saying "nowhere" (d. Job 19:25-27 and Daniel 12:2), yet the few apparent exceptions would only seem to prove the rule
18. Donald G. Dawe and John B. Carman, eds., Christian Faith in a Religiously Plural World (Maryknoll: Orbis Books,1978), pp.18-19.
19. Ibid., p. 106. Anderson's specific reference is to the mission theology of Hendrik Kraemer, whose thought dominated Protestant missionary approaches to non-Christian religions during the 1930s and 1940s and IS still influential today.
d 20. Ibid., p. 7. A koan is a Buddhist saying, frequently mysterious an paradoxical, meant to point others to truth.
Ra . 21. See also Max Warren, I Believe in the Great Commission (Grand rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1976), especially chapters 8-10.
22. Newbigin, The Open Secret, p. 76.
23. See the discussion on Barth's exegesis in Paul Jewett, Man As Male and Female (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1974), pp. 33-48.
24. Edith Schaeffer, "Christians and Animals," in Christianity To- day, February 10, 1978, pp. 38-39. Cf. N. S. Ramaswamy, "India: Amid Virtue, a Scandalous Cruelty," in Asiaweek, May 11, 1979, pp. 48-39. In this article, Ramaswamy documents the cruel relationship of men to animals in one country: "70 million bullocks and 8 million buffalo are struck by whips and sticks, a total of 100 billion times in this holy land in the course of a year." In nineteenth-century England, evangelical Christians founded the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to eliminate this kind of abuse. See Edward G. Fairholmes and Wellesley Pain, A Century of Work for Animals: A History of the R.S.P.C.A. 1824-1924 (London: John Murray Company, 1924), pp. 45-54.
25. Newbigin, The Open Secret, pp. 78-79.
26. George W. Peters, A Biblical Theology of Missions (Chicago:
Moody Press, 1972), p. 112.
27. Ibid.
28. Klaus Bockmuehl, Evangelicals and Social Action, trans. David T.
Priestly (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity Press, 1979), p. 27.
29. Jose Miguez Bonino, Christians and Marxists (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdrnans, 1976), p. 35. Cf. Sidney H. Rooy, "Righteousness and justice, Theological Fraternity Bulletin no. 4 (Buenos Aires, 1978), p. 4.
30. Cf. Isaiah 51:4, "for a law will go forth from me, and my justice or a light to the peoples."
31. Bengt Sundkler, The World of Mission, trans. Eric J. Sharpe (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1965), pp. 15-16. Cf. Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology, trans. John Bowden (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971), p. 247.
32. Eschatology is the doctrine of the last things. It is concerned not only with the destiny of individuals, but also with the direction of history. See the article in Douglas, The New Bible Dictionary, pp. 386-390. Cf. Jiirgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope, cited above; Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979); and Hermann N. Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, trans. H. deJongste, ed. Raymond O. Zorn (Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Re- formed, 1962).
33. For a description of these churches, which number more than SIX thousand, see David B. Barrett, Schism and Renewal in Africa (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1968).
34. A reference to the sacred spring in the city through which many kimbanguists have been healed.
35. Quoted in Marie-Louise Martin, Kimbangu, trans. D. M. Moore rand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1978), p. 154.
36. Joachim Jeremias, Jesus' Promise to the Nations, trans. John Bowden (Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, Inc., 1958), pp. 57-60.

 

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