Theology: God and Work

Okay, I've updated the study notes with the new information. Here are the updated notes:

• Exam 2 covers Weeks 4-5, including some Week 3 content from the Theology of Mission Study Guide.
• Exam format includes multiple choice, true/false, and matching questions.

God and the Public Square (Chapter 13 of Chris Wright)

• Wright argues against separating spiritual life from the public square.
• God cares about the public square.

God and Work

• Work comes from God, as shown in Genesis 1-2.
• God is portrayed as a worker who thinks, chooses, plans, executes, and evaluates.
• Humans were tasked with ruling (Gen 1) and serving/keeping (Gen 2).
• Work is essential to human nature from the start, not just a consequence of the curse; this is called the Cultural Mandate.

God's Auditing Role

• God serves as the independent judge in the public sphere.
• Old Testament references portray YHWH seeing, knowing, and evaluating actions (Ps 33:13-15).
• Israel was reminded to uphold justice in public spaces.
• God values activity "in the gate" more than religious sanctuaries (Amos 5:12-15).
• God listens to the intentions of corrupt people (Amos 8:4-7).
• God watches what goes on in public (Jer 7:9-11).
• Samuel calls God as his witness (1 Sam 12:1-5).

God's Governance

• It can be easy to think market forces or political actions are independent of God but everything in the marketplace falls under human action, choice, and responsibility, which in turn, falls under God's sovereign government.
• The Bible balances human choice with God's ultimate control.
• Illustration: Joseph's story in Genesis 50:19-20 shows how God's plan can use human intentions for good.
• Isaiah 19:1-15 states God's judgment covers all of Egypt, including religion, irrigation, agriculture, and politics.
• Ezekiel 26-28/29-32 and Daniel 4:30 mention God's focus on the economic and political power of marketplaces. Nebuchadnezzer needed to learn that God governs everything.
• God's verdict is that oppressing the poor and making money is not ok (Dan 4:26, 32), He is a sovereign governing all.

Redemption

• God intends to redeem all creation due to compassion (Ps 145:9).
• This includes redeeming creation through the cultural mandate.
• OT and NT vision = redemption and restoration of creation, not obliteration or replacement.
• God purges and redeems the public square instead of destroying it.
• Isaiah 65:17-25 illustrates the new creation with new heavens and earth.
• Revelation 21:24-27, builds on Isaiah 60 and tells a vision of God living with humanity in a restored creation, with civilization's achievements brought into God's city.

God's People

• People should engage constructively because God loves and values the world.
• People should also confront the world because it is in rebellion and faces God's judgment.
• Challenge = to live with both constructive engagement & courageous confrontation

Missional Confrontation in the Public Square

• Called to be different/holy
• Differing from cultures is important, like Israel differing from Egypt/Canaan (Lev. 18:3 - 5 & 19)
• Jesus says that the church should be salt and light (Matt 5:13-16)
• Integrity is key to Christian mission; there is no separation between public and private life.
• Called to resist idolatry, which begins with recognizing the world was created by one transcendent God, not seductive gods that crowd the public arena.
• Examples:
  • Paul equates greed with idolatry.
  • Idols include career, status, success, ethnic superiority, national pride, and individual freedom.
• Called to suffer as warfare causes suffering and the Bible tells of many people suffering.
• Jesus states we will suffer and to rejoice about it (Matt. 5:11-12).
• The apostles rejoiced and continued to witness (Acts 5:40 – 42).
• Paul delights in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and difficulties (2 Corinthians 11-12).
• Three points regarding suffering
  • No surprise (4:12)
  • No retaliation (2:21 – 22)
  • no giving up (3:13 17; 4:19)

Missional Prayer

• Prayer distinguishes us from other nations
• Prayer blesses other nations
• Prayer subverts idolatry
• Prayer supports mission work
• Prayer in spiritual warfare

Mobilizing Churches

• Pastors must challenge their churches' members to serve.
• Pastors should support people in their ministry as their mission is outside the church in the world.
• Challenges for pastors:
  • Mobilizing, training, and supporting members for mission as part of their daily lives.
  • Helping Christians understand the world and their work in it.
  • Teaching responsible citizenship.
  • Encouraging believers to improve their communities.
  • Building a biblical worldview.
  • Helping Christians handle ethical issues with integrity and courage.
  • Caring for those facing conflicts.

Jesus and Gentiles

• Jesus showed concerns for the Gentiles.
• Examples
  • The Samaritan woman (John 4)
  • The Centurion's servant (Luke 7)
  • The commission was reinforced (Mark 16:15-16, Luke 25:46-40, Matt 28:18-30, Acts 1:8)

Task to All Nations

• Matthew 24:14 and 28:19-20 as well as John 20:19-22, 30-31 and Acts 1:6-8 tell the task to all nations.
• God wants all people to be redeemed proven by the presence of non-Jewish women (Rahab and Ruth) in Jesus' genealogy

Apostolic Function

• Preaching the Gospel where it is unheard, planting churches, and leading people to faith so they express Jesus in their world and participate in God's mission.

Pentecost

• God's mission continues through the Spirit at Pentecost, empowering the Church to proclaim the good news of Jesus (Acts 1:8)
• Pentecost guarantees Jesus' ministry continues today.
• The mission of the Church depends on witnessing to Christ's ministry through the Holy Spirit.
• Pentecost is a critical redemptive historic event
• Christ's missional intent is best seen in His life.

Theological Intent of Acts

• Luke wrote so that his readers might know the "exact truth about the things they had been taught (Luke 1:4) and to emphasize, not only the "doings," but also the "teachings" of Jesus and the early church (Acts 1:1).

Empowerment-Witness

• Holy Spirit empowers to be Witness of Gospel of Jesus Christ which can be seen in the following:
  • Initial Jerusalem Outpouring (Acts 2:1-4)
    • Spirit-empowered witness (vv. 5-36).
    • Great harvest of souls (vv. 37-41).
    • Dynamic prophetic community (vv. 42-46).
    • Vigorous ongoing witness (v. 47).
    • Illustrated empowerment-witness motif introduced in Acts 1:8.
  • Second Jerusalem Outpouring (Acts 4:31)
    • Immediate and powerful witness
    • Luke's empowerment-witness motif
  • Samaritan Outpouring (Acts 8:14-17)
    • Church was scattered for persecution.
    • Apostles sent Peter and John to pray with believers and they received the Holy Spirit.
    • Another center of missionary outreach was born, and the gospel spread.
  • Damascus Outpouring (Acts 9:15-17)
    • Saul of Tarsus was filled with the Spirit (9:17-18).
    • He proclaimed Jesus in Damascus.

Caesarean Outpouring

• Acts 10:44-47 shows that the door of salvation had been opened to the Gentiles.
• Newly birthed Caesarean church was empowered to witness.
• Two-fold message:
  • Gentiles can experience the gospel.
  • Gentiles can be part of God’s mission.

Antiochian Outpouring

• Acts 13:1-4 = Paul and Barnabas' first missionary journey.
• The Spirit had a role in empowering and directing the missionary enterprise of the early church.

Ephesian Outpouring

• Acts 19:1-7 showed that the Ephesian church was empowered to witness
• Gospel spread quickly

Four Redemptive Structures for Mission

• Voluntary Going
  • Abraham to Canaan (Genesis 12:1)
  • Peter to Cornelius (Acts 10)
  • St Patrick to Ireland
  • William Carey to India
• Involuntary Going
  • Joseph's journey to Egypt (Gen. 38-50)
  • Jonah to Nineveh (Jonah 1-4)
  • Persecution of disciples (Acts 8:1)
  • Christian Roman soldiers sent to England and Spain
  • Christian captives of Vikings evangelize Vikings
  • Filipino contract workers to Muslim world
• Voluntary Coming
  • Naaman comes to Elisha (II Kings 5)
  • Ruth chooses to go to Judah from Moab
  • Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8)
  • Barbarians invade Rome interact with Christianity
  • International students exposed to Christianity
  • Contracted Christian professionals to non-Christian world
• Involuntary Coming
  • Gentiles part of rebuilding of Jerusalem (Nehemiah)
  • Roman soldiers to "Israel" (Acts 10)
  • America's history of African slaves
  • Refugees to developed countries

Structures

• Two structures for God's redemptive plan:
  • Modality and Sodality.
  • Modality: inclusive, nurture oriented, fellowship focused (family, synagogue, church). Focuses on building up and nurturing (Eph 4)
• Sodality is mission focused (rabbinical missional initiatives, apostolic bands, monastic orders, mission societies).
  • There is a second decision to be mission focused to establish churches.
  • In Acts 13 a church in Antioch has a prayer meeting that hears from God to gather and set apart Paul and Barnabas to establish churches and leave.

Mission Eras

• Three modern eras of missions.
• First era personified by William Carey
  • A response to hyper-Reformed theology and the rejection of monastic orders.
  • Pamphlet written called "An Enquiry into the Obligation of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of Heathen"
  • A biblical mandate and an acknowledgement of accessible information
  • First focused on coastal areas, and independent efforts that denominations assume
• Second Era personified by J Hudson Taylor:
  • In inland/interior regions of focused, created faith mission, Saw rise of single woman missionaries, Saw the Student Volunteer Movement.
• Third Era has a geographical focus and is personified by Cam Townsend and Ralph Winter:
  • Questions on how people come to Christ (individually, or on movement), No longer Western and has bridges of God.

Asia

• Earliest Christianity in Asia occurred as early as the 7th century with Nestorian Christian missionaries traveling the Silk Road.
• By era before 1000 AD, there are fragments of psalters and lectionaries, Gaining Christianity
  • Franciscan Italian priests as early as 1254 ◦ Jesuit priests gained the first solid foothold Matteo Ricci in 16th century ◦
• Portuguese missionaries in Japan in 17th century (film is Silence)
  • First missions were led by Robert Morrison in 1807 who translated the Bible in Mandarin.

Drivers of the Expansion of Christianity

• The Age of the Spirit → Power of God has come ◦
• The Holiness movement → Ways people live their life
• Sanctification
• Keswick movement

India

• A presentation in class suggested a new voice from India (Dr Ivan Satyavrata)

1. Massive human migration
2. The deterritorialization of culture
3. Culture shock and religion quake
4. Youth and Old cultures. Secular and Traditions.
5. The shifting center of Christianity
6. The rise of global poverty as a threat to human life
7. Political resistance to traditional missionary activity
8. The explosion of information and technology

The E Scale and P Scale

• E Scale - the cultural distance between the evangelist and the potential hearers
• P Scale - cultural distance between potential converts and the church attempting to reach them
• A missionary is one who is doing E2-E3 evangelism (culturally different from the context they come from)
• Not all evangelists are missionaries

Cross culture

• Regular missions
• Frontier missions

People group

• the largest group within which the gospel can spread without encountering barriers of acceptance or understanding

Group Types

• Unreached people group (UPG)
• Reached people group

Major Cultural Blocks

1. Muslims, Hindu, Buddhist Ethno-religious
2. Non-religious
3. Affinity blocks
4. Ethnolinguistic peoples
5. Sociopeoples

Woodberry refute

• History bears out the when missionaries were independent from state control they moderated, not exacerbated negative effects of colonialism
• countered racial superiority of whites
• countered the “science” of racism
• Literacy efforts led to inevitable democratic movements
• Missionaries were at the forefront of abolition movements in England
• opposed cultural customs they considered immoral
• Missionaries opposed colonial practices "We have to reckon with divine judgment if we neglect this matter. We have wronged China as I believe no nation ever wronged another. “

Facts

• Statistics to consider
• Global Christianity continues to grow presently at 2.63 billion and will surpass 3 billion by 2050. Africa and Asia are the fastest-growing areas. By 2050 Africa will have more Christians than Asia and Latin America combined.
• What percentage of the world's christians
  • 1700s vs today
  • in 1900, 95% of all Christians lived in predominantly Christian nations.
• New windows to the world
• In 1900, 54.3% of the world had no access to the Gospel. In 2024 that has decreased to 27.8%
• 736 languages have an entire Bible
• 1658 languages have a NT
• 1264 languages have some portion
• The geographic location where the majority of UPG’s exist North Africa, Middle East, Asia (The Resistant Belt)

Responding to the Command to Make Disciples of All Nations

• Phase One - Reaching Unreached People through E-2 E-3 efforts
• Phase Two - Evangelizing Reached People Groups with E-1 evangelism
• Phase Three - Christ followers demonstrating individual and corporate lives what the Kingdom looks like