# What is missions? MIssionary? Missional?



## Pergamum (Sep 26, 2008)

David Bosch observes that, “Attempts to define mission are of recent vintage. The early Christian church undertook no such attempts–at least not consciously.”

In 1938 Hendrik Kraemer observed that, “To a shamefully high degree the Church, in the confusion of the times, has become confounded about its nature and mission.”

David Bosch has spoken of “crisis in the church’s understanding of mission.”

Francis DuBose likewise stated that he was “bothered by the lack of a clear biblical definition of mission,” and urged a fresh quest to better understand the meaning of mission.

Bavinck again: “The ancient church conducted missionary work as though it
were self-explanatory; it never asked: Why do we have missions? And so it never subjected its methods to criticism. Its testimony was so spontaneous and natural that it had no need of a carefully thought out basis.”





What is missions? Should it be called missions or Mission?

What about the adjectives "missionary" and the newer one "missional"?


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## mvdm (Sep 26, 2008)

"Missional" is a term popularized by the emergent crowd and is tied up with alot of wasted talk about "contextualization". 

I would highly encourage everyone to listen to this 40 minute message by Paul Washer entitled "A Biblical Vision for Missions":

http://www.heartcrymissionary.com/d...ion-and-Strategy-for-Missions-Paul-Washer.mp3 

One priceless line from the message is as follows: {I write from memory, and thus it might not be exact}

_"I am going to say something here that will make alot of folks mad. We've gotten along for 2000 years without all this anthropologic talk and now you can't go into missions unless you have been astutely trained in all these things. What I believe is that all this talk about contextualization is simply the words of little boys who do not have the power of God on their lives nor the power of salvation in their message, and thus they need to go onto these trifling little matters in order to feel important. Now there. I said it. And I meant it."._


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## Pergamum (Sep 26, 2008)

Maybe we should start another thread about the role of anthropology in missions.


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## Kim G (Sep 26, 2008)

> What is missions? Should it be called missions or Mission?
> 
> What about the adjectives "missionary" and the newer one "missional"?


I have the same questions and look forward to people's responses. I grew up hearing that "everyone has a mission field" and wondered about the difference between my testimony to coworkers as a "mission" and what Pergy does, for example, as a "mission."


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## mvdm (Sep 26, 2008)

Pergamum said:


> Maybe we should start another thread about the role of anthropology in missions.



I posted what I did since you raised a question using the term "missional". I really only wanted to address that term specifically. It is a term that confuses the issues I believe you are seeking to address-- thus I was simply hoping to clear cut that word out of the way for your discussion.


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## mvdm (Sep 26, 2008)

I quickly would add that if you listen to entire Washer message, it will also likely answer the question of "what" missions really is.


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## Pergamum (Sep 26, 2008)

Most defs of mission are not different from evangelism (bringing the message of the cross to people). I am seeking definitions that are more specific than that.

Washer's address is not a postive attempt at formulating a definition but a reaction against negative trends in today's missions, therefore while it is fun to listen to, it is not real helpful and could lead people to denigrate the role of anthropology, linguistics on missions (which HAS helped missions hugely).


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## mvdm (Sep 26, 2008)

I'd note that the learned men quoted in the first post seem to counsel against the need to find nuanced or complicated definitions of "missions". Which is precisely the point Washer was making. 

Washer does not disparage anthropology, but clearly sets it in its proper lesser priority. He demolishes the contextualizers, and deservedly so, and may they repent. He also defines mission *positively* in terms of our submission to God's disposition of salvation through the means of grace.


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## Pergamum (Sep 26, 2008)

mvdm said:


> I'd note that the learned men quoted in the first post seem to counsel against the need to find nuanced or complicated definitions of "missions". Which is precisely the point Washer was making.
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> Washer does not disparage anthropology, but clearly sets it in its proper lesser priority. He demolishes the contextualizers, and deservedly so, and may they repent. He also defines mission *positively* in terms of our submission to God's disposition of salvation through the means of grace.



Based on the sermon, he only has negative things to say. Let's hope he values linguistics and the other benefits that anthropology has given to missions. Also, can all who try to "contextualize" be fit into the same category?

Yes, back to the OP, it does seem that the original quotes tell a lot.


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## mvdm (Sep 26, 2008)

Pergamum said:


> mvdm said:
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Yes, the majority of those who use the term "contextualize" can be lumped together. Most often it is not about simple anthropology, but adjustment of the message itself to fit the culture. A very helpful/enlightening series on "contextualization" by Rev. Phil Johnson is linked below. The entries are set in reverse chronological order, so one needs to scroll down for the first installment:

Pyromaniacs


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## cih1355 (Sep 26, 2008)

Pergamum said:


> Maybe we should start another thread about the role of anthropology in missions.



That would be interesting. It would be helpful for missionaries to know about different cultural practices. For example, missionaries in Japan would need to know that one is supposed to take off one's shoes when going inside a someone's house, that one is not supposed to wash himself inside of a bathtub, and that it is ok to make a loud slurping sound while eating noodles.

Moreover, it would be good to know which cultural practices violate biblical principles and which ones do not.


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## Pergamum (Sep 27, 2008)

mvdm said:


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We can be leery of the bad aspects of contextualziation but we must keep in mind its good and its bad aspects and there ARE good aspects to it.


The transcultural God enters culture. He does so in understandable and culturally meaningful ways. He spoke to Ancient Near East audiences, and they understood. One example, very simply put: God gave Moses his law on Sinai on tablets of stone, not on floppy disk!

God accommodated to human culture, working through social patterns of that day. Meredith Kline and other reformed scholars even point out that the structure of whole books of the Old Testament, such a Deuteronomy, were patterned after Ancient Near East Suzerain-Vassal treaties. 


Douglas Hayward often demonstrates God’s Old Testament divine contextualizing by giving this curious assignment:

_One of the interesting assignments that I give to students in my classrooms is that of asking them to read 50 of the Psalms and to record all of the images of God that they can find. This typically includes terms such as “my high tower, my shield and my sword, a rock and a high place” along with a host of others all indicating mental and cultural images that were important to a pastoral culture and an emerging nation-state. Then I ask them to record all the images of God in the Gospel of John. They discover there that God is spoken of as: the Word, the Way the Truth and the Life, the Door, a Vine and its branches, as well as other images that reflect a mercantile culture...” _

Adequate space prevents all that I could write. Summary: God contextualized. He entered the cultural forms of the Ancient Near East to make His Divine Plan understandable.



The New Testament:

Dean Flemming recently detailed the New Testament occurrences of contextualization in great detail. I’ve listed only a few key examples here, but many more exist, the New Testament being rich in contextualization. The prime example: Christ himself - the Son of God incarnate as a Palestine Jew.


Christ communicated Himself to others in a contextualized way worthy of study. As Hesselgrave writes:

_Though our Lord ministered within the confines of the worldview of Judaism, He nevertheless adapted to interests, needs, and “points of view” within various contexts. He did not communicate with the rich young ruler in terms of the new birth, or with the woman of Samaria in terms of “selling what she had and following Him,” or with Nicodemus in terms of the Water of life. All three approaches would have been valid as concerns God’s eternal truth, but they would not have been valid as adaptations within the respective contexts”. _

Jesus contextualized Himself as a Jew, abiding by Jewish custom and using local language to express truth: “From the beginning the gospel was voiced in local, culturally conditioned forms.” 

Want a divinely penned example of contextualization in action? The ministry of the Apostle Paul is a case study of “Apostolic Adaptation.” Look at Paul in both Acts 14 and Acts 17. These two sermons, studied together, provide an inspired case study of how the Apostle varied his subject matter, manner of address and illustrations - all to make the Gospel meaningful to different audiences. He even quoted local literature – pagan poets - and appealed to local myth. The Gospel writer Luke, of all the sermons which Paul preached, picked these sermons to record. Why? To give a clear model for engaging “foreign” cultures.


The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 drove the nail in the coffin for anyone who values culture over Christ. The resounding verdict: one did not need to first become a Jew in order to become a Christian. The Gentiles did not need circumcision; only those particularly troublesome cultural sins for the Gentiles were forbidden. We need not export “civilization” first before we give “Christianity.” 


The New Testament displays one long record of contextualizing practices. 

The New Testament writers had the habit of “dipping into pagan vocabulary.” Paul paints Jesus as the “pleroma,” a term widely used by the Proto-gnostics (Colossians 1:19). Christ is He in whom all the fullness of God dwells, forever recapturing this word from paganism. Paul quoted pagan poets (the Phaenomena of Aratus the Stoic). The Apostle John redefines the “logos” for Christian use. Ralph Winter concludes “we must not suppose that the message of Christianity, clothed in the new garments of the Greek world, was damaged by this new clothing.”


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## Pergamum (Sep 27, 2008)

mvdm said:


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The Contextualization articles Johnson writes are not balanced. He is lumping all forms of contextualization in with the "off in left field" contextualization examples. 

If you even translate your sermon into another language, this is an example of contextualization (fitting the message into a form that is understandable in its local context). If you preach by sitting around the fire or on a chair instead of standing behind a pulpit you are fitting your practice to local contexts - contextualization.

Contextualization is a good thing if done right.


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## Pergamum (Sep 27, 2008)

cih1355 said:


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Yes, contextualization and anthropology are two big issues. We could start two new threads on these two topics. Can you start'em...


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## mvdm (Sep 27, 2008)

Pergamum said:


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Actually, Johnson's series are very balanced and careful, and in particular anticipates your very argument in the first entry, where he writes:

_People explaining contextualization usually start by making the (obvious) point that in order to cross linguistic and cultural boundaries effectively, we need to translate and illustrate our message in a way that is suited to the understanding of the people or people-group we want to reach. Quite true. And if contextualization entailed nothing more than translation and illustration, the word would be superfluous. It practically always means something more—and that "something more" is what I object to, not the translation and illustration of biblical truths.

The idea of contextualization first gained traction among evangelicals in the realm of Bible translation, and it's easy to see why. Obviously, if you take the word of God to an Eskimo culture where they have no clue what sheep are, you need to find a way to explain all the pastoral references in terms that Eskimos can understand. Something like Psalm 100:3 ("We are His people and the sheep of His pasture") is naturally harder for an Eskimo to relate to than it is for a New Zealander. So in one famous instance, a group of Bible translators working in an Eskimo language translated the word "sheep" as "sea lions" throughout Scripture. (I can't imagine what that does to the 23rd psalm or why it wouldn't be a whole lot easier just to teach eskimos what sheep are, but there you have a classic example of verbal contextualization, showing how it can actually obscure more than it really clarifies.)_


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## Pergamum (Sep 27, 2008)

mvdm said:


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I know, I read his article. Where's his citation for the Eskimo example?


I do not think he is being balanced. 


Everytime the Gospel crosses culture we try to make it understandable - that, simply, is contextualization. Some run away with this concept, but it is a good and valid idea all the same. Fundy over-reaction won't change that.



Here's an example of contextualization that calvinists can agree on:

Adoniram Judson did not have much receptivity at first in Burma. Local teachers would sit in roadside huts made of bamboo (zayats) and teach. Judson finally built his own zayat and would teach the Bible in this native form and this is when the Gospel began to be communicated.


Western style of dress, teaching styles, architecture, need not be imported. There is much flexibility for the sake of the Gospel. The bad practices of some who call for contextualization cause some to over-react.


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