If ‘doing good’ does not equate to ‘preaching the gospel without words’ (for the gospel cannot be preached without words!), why is it imperative that God’s people should be ‘eager to do good’ (Tit 2:14)? Why must we ‘not grow weary in doing good’ (Gal 6:9)?
1. Because we love God, and want to be obedient to his command to do good
‘By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and obey his commandments.…
Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert note that although there is consistency between the Evangelists when they record the ‘Great Commission(s)’ of Jesus, they also emphasise different things:
Matthew emphasizes discipleship, Luke-Acts stresses being witnesses, and John highlights the theological nature of our sending…And yet the Great Commission accounts show more similarity than dissimilarity. Together they paint a complementary and fairly comprehensive picture of the mission of the first disciples. We can summarize this mission by answering seven questions:
Who?
Luke 4:16 Now Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 4:17 and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written,
4:18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.…
This question, argue Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert, prompts a whole raft of further questions:
…‘The question is deceptively complex and potentially divisive. For starters, what do we even mean by mission? And if that can be settled, we then face more difficult questions. Is the mission of the church discipleship or good deeds or both? Is the mission of the church the same as the mission of God? Is the mission of the church distinct from the responsibilities of individual Christians?
Over the past 50 years, evangelicals have debated whether the church’s mission is, or should be, primarily or even exclusively that of evangelism, or a combination of evangelism and social action.
At the forefront of this debate has been the distinguished evangelical leader and teacher, John Stott.
In The Contemporary Christian (chapter 20), Stott articulates his conviction that
‘authentic mission is a comprehensive activity which embraces evangelism and social action.’
In this understanding, the gospel has a vertical dimension (the salvation of souls) and a horizontal dimension (the improvement of society).…
‘There are’ (writes J.A. Kirk) ‘a number of diverse, but intimately related, models or paradigms of mission. Each is vitally important. By stressing one more than the others, different groups of Christians have tended to see them as alternatives. Ideally, there is no choice. The Christian community’s vocation is to ensure that each is fully implemented in its overall life.
‘(1) The care of the environment. This means encouraging a wise and sustainable use of the natural order created by God, by engaging in the numerous aspects of conservation and the elimination of pollution.…
In The Contemporary Christian (356-374), John Stott outlines a Christological approach to mission under the following headings:
1. The incarnation of Christ – the model for mission
In some ways, the incarnation was a ‘mission’ like that the Apollo space flight to the moon was a ‘mission’. Each was a daring journey between two completely different places and situations. But the Apollo astronauts had to bring everything needful with them, whereas Jesus brought nothing but himself. …
John Stott remarks that mission is at the heart each of the five parts of the Bible.
1. The God of the Old Testament is a missionary God, calling one family in order to bless all the families of the earth (Gen 12:1-4).
…‘The tragedy of the Old Testament is that Israel kept forgetting the universal scope of God’s promises. They overlooked the fact that God had chosen one family in order to bless all families.
Why plant churches? Tony Merida answers:
The following forms the substance of a talk given in October, 2020 as part of a webinar from Holy Trinity Church, Norwich.
I am giving it some prominence now (February, 2023) because of its relevance to the challenging situation documented in the series of bulletins entitled “I’ll Walk Beside You”.
The video of the talk may be found here.
Intro
We were being shown round the charming spa town of Great Malvern, in Worcestershire. Our friendly guide pointed out the statue of Sir Edward Elgar, the famous composer. …
