The title of this article comes from a WMPL Fellow Workers article that Bob Andrews wrote over twenty years ago. As background, Bob’s article shared how he witnessed patients in an East Asia hospital ward enthralled with flannelgraph stories of Jesus. The storyteller, who was a foreigner in that land, was able to communicate about Jesus and his love through the culturally relevant art of storytelling.
Bob’s article inspired a reader of the Fellow Workers so much he saved it. He recently sent it to my wife, Lois, asking if there were a better mission statement for WMPL – and the Church – than “Just Tell Them About Jesus.” I appreciated seeing this man’s passion for the proclamation of the Good News. I was also inspired by reading Bob’s article. We can overcomplicate the Gospel and forget the simplicity of it. Or we can get so caught up in implementing various strategies and methodologies that we lose sight of sharing the most important message at every opportunity.
A few years ago, as I made my way through the entrance to LAMB Hospital in Northwest Bangladesh, I saw a similar scene. One of our expatriate nurses was surrounded by several members of an exuberant family. I found out later that the man in the wheelchair had been admitted to the hospital for over a month with reconstructive surgeries on his legs. He brought his family back for a reunion with one of the many LAMB nurses and social workers who had told him Bible stories, prayed with him, and cared for his needs when he was at death’s door. I can’t say if this man later believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but I know he experienced the love of Jesus and was given an opportunity to believe. At WMPL we wholeheartedly endorse and commit to proclaiming the Good News! Telling others about Jesus is what the Bible is all about.
If one asks why we proclaim the Good News, it’s because all Scripture seems to demand that we do. As I studied the Biblical basis for missions at seminary and beyond, I’ve come to believe that the Bible doesn’t just make the case for missions, but God’s mission makes the case for the Bible. Let me explain.
As I read the book The Mission of God by Christian theologian Christopher Wright, I was “God’s mission makes the case for the Bible.” struck by the author’s assertion that we could just as accurately talk of the missional basis for the Bible as the biblical basis of mission. It’s an assertion that he acknowledges could sound exaggerated or conceited. Still, as he presents his case throughout the book, it’s evident that God (YHWH) intends for his Word to be interpreted as missional and meant for all nations. We see Christ throughout the Old Testament Hebrew Scriptures as the Messiah, foretold through specific prophecies.
Wright references Jesus’ talk in Luke 24 with the two on the road to Emmaus and postulates that “Jesus went beyond his messianic centering of the Old Testament scriptures to their missional thrust as well.”1 He further shares these verses from Luke:
Then he opened up their minds so they could understand the scriptures. He told them, “This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance of sins will be preached in his name to all the nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”
Luke 24:45-47
Wright goes on to say, “He seems to be saying that the whole of the Scripture (which we now know as the Old Testament) finds its focus and fulfillment both in the life and death and resurrection of Israel’s Messiah and in the mission to all nations, which flows out from that event.”
This Advent, let’s read the Scriptures as God intended – messianically and missionally, as Wright encourages us. It is necessary for us as a Prayer League and as the Church at large to tell the story of God’s mission to the world: Christ’s incarnation and the salvation we have in Jesus. Jesus went through cities and villages proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God (Luke 8:1) and he has commissioned us to go into all the world to proclaim the Good News and disciple others to do the same (Matthew 28:19). Rather than making it too complicated, just tell them about Jesus and love others the way Jesus commands us to, whether they are our enemies, friends, neighbors, or those on the other side of the world.
- Wright, Christopher J.H. The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s
Grand Narrative, IVP. Kindle Edition, 2013. Chapter 1. ↩︎