A Time for Mission

Samuel Escobar

Description

Christian mission in the twenty-first century has become the responsibility of a global church. The heart of 'mission' is the drive to cross geographical, cultural and social barriers in order to share the good news of Jesus Christ with all peoples.
Drawing on his involvement in missionary work over many years, Samuel Escobar explores how the church spreads the Christian faith. God's Word forms the foundation for his reflections, while he uses insights from theological and historical studies as well as from the social sciences to gain a clearer understanding of the church's missionary calling. His stimulating and challenging analysis contributes significantly to a global evangelical dialogue on mission today and in the future.

Informations

• Publié par: Langham Creative Projects
• Date de parution: 14 juillet 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783680788
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Challenge for Global Christianity
Samuel Escobar
Series Editor: David Smith
Consulting Editor: Joe Kapolyo
Global Christian Library Series

© Samuel Escobar, 2003
Published 2013 by Langham Global Library
an imprint of Langham Creative Projects
Langham Partnership
PO Box 296, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA3 9WZ, UK
www.langham.org
ISBNs:
978-1-907713-02-6 print
978-1-907713-58-3 Mobi
978-1-907713-57-6 ePub
Samuel Escobar has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or the Copyright Licensing Agency.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. First published in Great Britain in 1979. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton, a division of Hodder Headline Ltd. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a trade mark of International Bible Society. UK trade mark number 1448790.
First published 2003 by InterVarsity Press, ISBN: 978-0-85111-989-2
This edition 2013 by Langham Global Library
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Escobar, Samuel, 1934-
A time of mission : the challenge for global Christianity.
1. Mission of the church. 2. Missions.
I. Title
261.1-dc23
ISBN-13: 9781907713026
Cover & typesetting: projectluz.com

Converted to eBook by EasyEPUB
Contents

Cover


Acknowledgments


1 Christian Mission in a New Century


A global church


The shift of Christianity to the South


Mission from below


Changes in the practice and theory of mission


A missiological approach


Towards an evangelical missiology


2 Mud and Glory


How do you tell the story?


Twenty centuries of missionary advance


A Jewish church in mission


Missionary expansion into the Graeco-Roman world


Evangelizing barbarians and the making of Europe


Empire and mission from expanding Europe


3 A Brave New World-Order


Globalization


Contextualization


Growth of poverty and inequality


The poor, globalization and mission


4 Post-Christian and Postmodern


End of Christendom


A postmodern culture


Religions old and new


Old religions and fundamentalist wars


5 We Believe in a Missionary God


God chooses and God sends: we believe in a missionary God


Missionary existence between two poles: obedience and disobedience


Spiritual revival and mission


6 Christ: God’s Best Missionary


Jesus, the good news of the gospel


Conversion to Christ


A Christological pattern for mission


7 The Holy Spirit and Christian Mission


Pentecostal growth


Missiological explorations


The Holy Spirit and mission


Looking ahead


8 Text and Context: The Word through New Eyes


The Bible in mission


Bible and culture: the Word through new eyes


9 Mission as Transforming Service


Christian mission: human and social transformation


Evangelicals rediscover holistic mission


Biblical patterns of service


Word and deed hand in hand


10 A New Way of Looking at the World


From mission to theology


Beyond provincialism


New partnerships for mission


The new humanity in biblical perspective


11 For Further Study


Dialogues


Reference books


History


Biblical basis


Mission theology


About Langham Partnership

Endnotes
Acknowledgments
The truth of the gospel that gives life meaning is always a word we have received. We do not have it when we come to this world; it is a word someone else passes on to us. And once we have received it we are bound to share it. That privilege and joy is at the heart of Christian mission. Thankfulness is a gift from God who drives us to take our part in what the Spirit is doing in the world, making Christ known and transforming human beings into his likeness.
As I deliver these pages to the readers of this book, I feel it appropriate to thank God for the missionaries who crossed the sea to take the gospel of Jesus Christ to Arequipa in southern Peru, the town where I was born. My father had come to faith through the work of the missionaries from the Evangelical Union of South American known today as Latin Link. Miss Iza Elder had gone to Peru from New Zealand under that mission. Besides my parents she was the expert teacher who first explained the gospel and the way of true life to me. I want this book to be a tribute to them.
My special thanks go to John Stott who encouraged me to complete this project as we walked in the quiet yard of All Nations Christian College near London, and the busy streets of Lima. Thanks also go to David Smith for his editorial advice. He was an able host at the workshop in which the first chapters of this book took final form and has been an encouraging editor along the way. I am also grateful to Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary for the sabbatical term that allowed me to complete the project, and to International Ministries of the American Baptist Churches that support my present missionary work in Spain. I have owed much to Inter-Varsity Press since my university days! It is a privilege to have them as publishers.
Samuel Escobar
Valencia, Spain, August 2002
1
Christian Mission in a New Century
Not far from the central area of the German city of Hanover is a Baptist church that houses a Spanish-speaking congregation under the pastoral care of José Antonio González. Like many young people from Spain in the 1960s José Antonio left his beautiful town in Galicia and emigrated to Germany in search of a job. There he was befriended by Mrs Pinto, a Bolivian lady whose family had also gone to Germany in search of economic security. She not only provided José Antonio with good spiced soups but also insisted on sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and praying for him. As a nominal Catholic, José Antonio had never thought that this story, part of the folk-song heritage of his native Spain, could have any relevance for an aspiring student of industrial design. Eventually the story of Jesus started to make sense to José Antonio and he became a Christian believer. What he could not have dreamed was that he would eventually discern a call to the ministry and, after seminary training, become a pastor and preacher. I do not know how the gospel crossed seas to reach Mrs Pinto in distant Bolivia, the heart of South America, but I am thrilled by the fact that when this simple Bolivian migrant housewife crossed the sea to go to Germany she became a missionary.
Christian mission in the twenty-first century has become the responsibility of a global church. As the missionary facts of our time make us pause in wonder, I begin with doxology by giving thanks to God for the mystery and glory of his gospel. Jesus Christ, God’s son incarnate, is the core of the gospel, which as a potent seed has given birth to innumerable plants. We can locate Jesus in a particular culture at a particular moment in history, for ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us’ (John 1:14 NRSV ). He lived and taught in Palestine during the first century of our era. After that the story of Jesus has moved from culture to culture, from nation to nation, from people to people. And something strange and paradoxical has taken place: though he was once an obscure peasant from Palestine, Jesus has since been welcomed and adored throughout the world, and people in all cultures and languages have come to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Moreover, men and women everywhere feel that he is ‘theirs’ and artists from the past and present have proved the point by representing Jesus in their own cultural terms. At this point in history the global church stands closer than ever to that vision of the seer in Revelation: ‘A great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb’ (Rev. 7:9).
I cannot but wonder in amazement at the fact that the message of Jesus Christ is ‘translatable’. This means that the gospel dignifies every culture as a valid vehicle for God’s revelation. Conversely, this also relativizes every culture: no ‘sacred’ culture or language is the exclusive vehicle that God might use, not even the Hebrew or Aramaic that Jesus spoke, because the Gospels we possess are already a translation from Hebrew or Aramaic into the Greek that was the koinē