Missions v. Missional Part 4
This perspective of a missional church starkly contrasts the typical church today that sees itself as a church that has missions. In these churches, missions are always done by a specially called person who is a missionary. Missions is always done in a foreign country. Missions is a program or ministry that is run by a committee in the church. The church goes on mission trips, has a missions fund, and has a missions bulletin board in the foyer with a map of the world with colored pushpins in it. Missions is completely separate from the church and exist out of the church. The church has missions.
Whereas a missional church understands the opposite—the mission of God has a church. This perspective changes everything. This means that the mission field is where the church is. We are all missionaries. There is no missions program. Instead, every program and ministry is a missional program. The church doesn’t run missions—the mission runs the church. The church doesn’t have a mission. The mission has a church. This is what it means to be a missional church. Being missional isn’t the next catchy fad, but instead it is being caught up in the mission of God.
Missions v. Missional Part 3
The word missional also gets its meaning and understanding from John 20:21 when Jesus tells his disciples, “As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” We must understand that the Father sent Jesus. God is a missionary God. God is on a mission to reconcile the entire world to Himself. Therefore, the Father sent Jesus into the world to usher in the Kingdom of God in order to begin this reconciliation. This is what theologians call the Missio Dei (Latin for Mission of God).
Jesus then tells his disciples that he is sending them on the same mission. Jesus calls his church to go into the world and to share that the King has come and that we can be reconciled to the Father. Being a missional church means that you understand that the church is sent on mission as an instrument and as a sign of the Missio Dei. Although the word missional has only been used for a few years, the concept has been around since the 1950s. Darrell L. Guder and Lois Barrett tell us the following:
By mid-century, the emphasis in mission thought shifted toward a theocentric approach that, in contrast, stressed the mission of God (Missio Dei) as the foundation for the mission of the church. The church became redefined as the community spawned by the mission of God and gathered up into that mission. The church was coming to understand that in any place it is a community sent by God. “Mission” is not something the church does, a part of its total program. No, the church’s essence is missional, for the calling and sending action of God forms its identity. Mission is founded on the mission of God in the world, rather than the church’s effort to extend itself.[1]
A missional church exists because of and for the mission of God.
[1] Darrell L. Guder and Lois Barrett, Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 82.
Missions v. Missional Part 2
The word missional’s meaning is rooted deeply within the understanding of the church’s purpose. This purpose displays itself in three different ways. The church is a missionary sent on mission as a sign and instrument of the Missio Dei. The first area in which we are called to be missional is as a missionary in our own culture. The general idea of a missionary is a person in a foreign country in a completely non-Christian culture. But in reality, today all Christians live in non-Christian cultures. Tim Keller gives insight into this reality by focusing on the missionary Lesslie Newbigin:
The British missionary Lesslie Newbigin went to India around 1950. There he was involved with a church living ‘in mission’ in a very non-Christian culture. When he returned to England some 30 years later, he discovered that now the Western church too existed in a non-Christian society, but it had not adapted to its new situation. Though public institutions and popular culture of Europe and North America no longer ‘Christianized’ people, the church still ran its ministries assuming that a stream of ‘Christianized,’ traditional/moral people would simply show up in services. Some churches certainly did ‘evangelism’ as one ministry among many. But the church in the West had not become completely ‘missional’—adapting and reformulating absolutely everything it did in worship, discipleship, community, and service—so as to be engaged with the non-Christian society around it. It had not developed a ‘missiology of western culture’ the way it had done so for other nonbelieving cultures.
Even if you are in a “Christianized” culture, the reality is that we still need to view ourselves as missionaries. Every culture needs some amount of contextualization of the gospel. This means that you have to be missionary to do the contextualization needed to present the gospel.
Missions v. Missional Part 1
What is the difference between a church that has missions and a missional church? This seems to be the question that everyone is asking lately, and it has been one that I’ve been developing a personal answer to for a while.
There always seems to be a new buzzword in Christian circles every few years. The words enter our vocabulary quickly and leave just as fast. People reword mission and purpose statements around them, and some even restructure their entire church around them. “Seeker-sensitive,” “purpose-driven,” “organic,” and “emerging” are just a few, but the newest to be added to the list is the word “missional.” It is the new buzzword of our day. There are missional churches, missional small groups, missional preaching, missional books, missional degrees, and even missional missiology.
But what does “missional” mean exactly? Most people use it without even stopping to determine what it means. Worst yet, some simply make it mean what they want it to mean to give themselves license to do idiotic and irrelevant acts. This is a sad thing, because the word missional has a deep and beautiful meaning for our churches today.
What is the local church?
For one of my classes last semester, I had to define what the local church is. Fo the fun of it, I thought I would share with you what my definition came out to be.
This definition is heavily based on Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears, Vintage Church: Timeless Truths and Timely Methods (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2009), 38. I took a considerable amount of time studying the different elements of their definition and added where I personally thought it might be lacking. Since I am a member of Mars Hill Church, I wanted to stay as close to Mars Hill Church’s definition of a church and only tweak it a little bit.
The local church is a community of confessing and covenantal believers of Jesus Christ who are organized under Biblically qualified leadership. They regularly gather physically for preaching and worship, and scatter in the unity and power of the Holy Spirit to carry out the mission of God by evangelizing and caring for people everywhere. They observe the Biblical sacraments of baptism and communion, and are disciplined to maintain the purity of the church in order to live out the Great Commandment and the Great Commission to the glory of God.
What do you think? Would you change anything? Do you have a working definition of the church?
I’m truly humbled.
For those of you that don’t know, one of my blog posts was featured on theResurgence.com yesterday. I was approached a few months ago to see if they could use the article on their site and they posted it yesterday. I have to say that I am truly humbled that they would ask me and actually post it. It’s crazy to see my post on the same blog of author’s like Dave Craft, Ed Stetzer, Justin Holcomb, Winfield Bevins, Mark Driscoll, Jonathan Dobson, and Charles Spurgeon. These guys have been a huge blessing in my life, and I am in awe that I would be published by their side.
Thanks to Mike Anderson and Jordan Buckley for asking and for all you hard work at theResurgence.com. You and your team do amazing work, and it’s a true blessing to me personally. If you’re not subscribed to theResurgence.com, you need to go there right now and check out all their stuff. Once again thanks.
Christ in Colossians – Conclusion – It’s all about Jesus!
There are several more themes about Jesus that Paul presents in his letter that we don’t have time to cover here. Paul presents Jesus as the mystery of the Father,[1] our proclamation,[2] the resurrection,[3] our mediator,[4] the fulfiller of Old Testament law,[5] and our sanctifier.[6] It is clear, though, that as you read the correspondence from Paul to the Colossians, you see that they were receiving a clear, concise, complete, and authoritative teaching on several themes that would help form their (and our) understanding of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Paul writes the letter as an “apostle of Jesus Christ…to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae” (Col. 1:1). He gives thanks for their “faith in Christ Jesus” (Col. 1:4). Paul goes on to give them deep doctrinal truths about the person and work of Jesus.[7] He speaks of his own ministry for and in Jesus.[8] He helps the Colossians see the errors in the heresies about Jesus.[9] Lastly, he ends his letter by helping the Colossians see what a life lived in Christ looks like.[10] The letter to the Colossians was written by a minister of Jesus, to a people of Jesus, to give a better understanding of Jesus, so that the Colossians could learn to walk in Jesus. From start to finish, Paul’s letter to the Colossians is all about Jesus.
[1] Col. 1:27; 2:2; 4:3
[2] Col. 1:28; 4:3
[3] Col. 2:12; 3:1
[4] Col. 3:17
[5] Col. 2:16-19
[6] Col. 1:28; 2:7; 3:16
[7] Col. 1:9-22
[8] Col. 1:23-19
[9] Col. 2:1-23
[10] Col. 3:1-4:18
Christ in Colossians – Part 13 – Atonement – Jesus is our Reconciliation
Of all the ways that Paul presents Jesus’ atonement, he devotes most of his attention to Jesus being presented as the Colossians reconciliation. Colossians 1:19-22 states:
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him….
Grudem defines reconciliation as “the removal of enmity and the restoration of fellowship between two parties.”[1] It is through Christ that the relationship that God once had with humanity in the Garden of Eden is restored.
Paul tells the Colossians that they were alienated. MacArthur explains that “Apallotrioo (alienated) means ‘estranged,’ ‘cut off,’ or ‘separated.’ Before their reconciliation, the Colossians were completely estranged from God.”[2] There was no relationship between them and God. As we’ve already seen, this wasn’t an estrangement in which God was simply ignoring them though. Instead, they were cut off from God and under His wrath.
This estrangement went two ways though. Paul continues to write that the Colossians were “hostile in mind” (Col 1:21). Stott says, “True, we were ‘God’s enemies,’ hostile to him in our hearts. But the ‘enmity’ was on both sides. The wall or barrier between God and us was constituted by our rebellion against him and by his wrath upon us on account of our rebellion.”[3] The Colossians’ estrangement from God was their choice as they were hostile towards God and chose to do “evil deeds” (Col. 1:21). God in his righteousness could not be in their presence because of their sin and had to separate himself from them.
Paul shows the Colossians are no longer estranged from God though. The relationship has been restored, and it is Jesus who reconciles them by “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20). Jesus “has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death” (Col. 1:21). Reconciliation happens by the blood of Jesus on the cross. Hendriksen explains what this reconciliation means:
Through the blood of the Son of God’s love peace had been made. He, meaning this Son of God’s love, in his body of flesh (that was the sphere of the reconciliation), and through his death (that was the instrument) had brought about a return to the proper relation between the Colossians and their God. A return, not as if there had been a time, many, many years ago, when these Colossians had been Christians, but rather in this sense, that the establishment of peace between the Father-heart of God and the soul of the sinner is for the latter a going back to the state of rectitude in which God originally created man.[4]
Jesus pays the penalty for their sin and cleanses them from it, allowing the Colossians to have the close, intimate relationship that man once had with God.
In this passage, Paul also speaks of Jesus’ reconciliation of all of creation. This isn’t reconciliation in the same sense that is spoken of for the Colossians. Paul isn’t presenting a doctrine of universalism. Instead, Paul is referencing back to the preeminence of Christ in creation that is stated in verse 16 as Paul says, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” MacArthur clarifies that “there is a sense in which even fallen angels and unredeemed men will be reconciled to God for judgment – but only in the sense of submitting to Him for final sentencing. Their relationship to Him will change from that of enemies to that of the judged.”[5] Paul is speaking of a reconciliation that brings all things under the rule of Jesus Christ.
[1] Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1253.
[2] MacArthur Jr., Colossians and Philemon, 60.
[3] Stott, The Cross of Christ, 197-198.
[4] Hendriksen, Phillippians / Colossians / Philemon, 83.
[5] MacArthur Jr., Colossians and Philemon, 59.
Christ in Colossians – Part 12 – Atonement – Jesus is our Expiation
In the same way that Paul presents Jesus as their propitiation, he presents to the Colossians that Jesus is their expiation. On the Day of Atonement after the high priest had sacrificed the goat and sprinkled its blood on the mercy seat as Israel’s propitiation, he performed a ceremony with another goat:
And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins. And he shall put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness (Lev. 16:21-22).
Whereas the first goat paid for the sins of the people, the second goat actually removed those sins from the people. This cleansing from their sin is what we call expiation.
Paul reminds the Colossians that they were “doing evil deeds” (Col. 1:21). The Colossians are reminded of their “old self with its evil practice” (Col 3:9, NASB). They were a people that were marred by their sin, but Paul also reminds them of the expiation of Jesus. Jesus “has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him” (Col 1:22). Through the cross of Christ, their sins are “set aside” (Col 2:14), and they are presented to God as holy. This is only possible because Jesus acted as their expiation, cleansing them from the filth of their sin.
Christ in Colossians – Part 11 – Atonement – Jesus is our Propitiation
In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, it is clear that he wants them see that Jesus is their propitiation. Wayne Grudem defines propitiation as “a sacrifice that bears God’s wrath to the end and in so doing changes God’s wrath toward us into favor.”[1] This is a concept that would have been familiar to Paul’s Jewish readers in Colossae. Every year on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would offer a goat as a sacrifice for the sins of the people in order to deter the wrath of God.[2]
Paul clearly shows the Colossians that they were under the wrath of God because of their sin. Paul tells them to “put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming” (Col. 3:5-6). The earthly things that are in them, their sin, will lead to nothing more than the wrath of God. Wright clarifies:
Destruction, indeed, will be the result for those who disregard the warning: because of these, the wrath of God is coming. It is not the case that God happens to dislike this sort of behavior and so has decided as it were arbitrarily, to punish it. On the contrary. ‘The wrath of God’, it hardly needs saying, is not a malicious or capricious anger, but the necessary reaction of true holiness, justice and goodness to wickedness, exploitation and evil of every kind.[3]
Paul wants the Colossians to know that their sin will lead to the wrath of God. On the other hand, Paul doesn’t simply present the wrath of God. He also presents Jesus as their propitiation.
Paul tells them that God the Father is “making peace by the blood of [Jesus’] cross” (Col. 1:20). In the same way that a goat’s blood was offered on the Day of Atonement for the sins of Israel to hold back the wrath of God, it is that Jesus’ blood is offered on the Colossians part to bring peace with God. Unlike the goat’s blood though, Jesus’ sacrifice was done once and for all “by canceling the record of debt…nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:14). It is through the cross that Jesus becomes a propitiation for the Colossians taking the wrath of God upon himself.
[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995), 1252.
[2] Lev. 16:8-9, 15
[3] Wright, Colossians and Philemon, 135.
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