Reading the Bible Missionally

Reading Christopher J. H. Wright (The Mission of God), Michael W. Goheen (The Core of the Christian Faith), and Timothy G. Gombis (The Drama of Ephesians) this year— for both ministry and Ph.D. work —has deepened in me the conviction that we must read the Bible missionally and understand our own story in light of God’s Big Story as revealed in Scripture. This was one of the key themes I shared during the workshop in Lima, Peru.

As Christopher J. H. Wright explains, when Jesus appeared to His disciples after the resurrection and opened their minds to understand the Scriptures — the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms — He reminded them of what those Scriptures had always spoken about: His death, His resurrection, and that “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:44–47). The unfolding of God’s plan is central to understanding the Old Testament. Jesus then anticipates how the global story of God’s salvation will continue in the New Testament, through the church by the Spirit: “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you” (Luke 24:48–49a). Paul read the Scriptures in the same way. Standing before King Agrippa, he insisted that he was proclaiming nothing beyond what the Old Testament foretold: the suffering of the Messiah, His resurrection, and the proclamation of the good news to the nations (Acts 26:22–23).

Our reading of Scripture, therefore, must be both messianic and missional. These are not separate categories. To understand the Messiah rightly, we must understand the mission He came to fulfill through His death and resurrection — fulfilling God’s covenant with Abraham to extend His blessing to all the nations of the earth. Once we recognize God’s mission through Christ as a central thread in Scripture, we are able to approach missional discipleship and ecclesiology not as strategies, but as the natural and faithful way to understand these biblical themes.