The Mission of God: Studies in Orthodox and Evangelical Mission

SECTION ONE

MISSION

BIBLICAL REFLECTIONS

1. THE CONVERSION OF PETER AND CORNELIUS (ACTS 10, ACTS 11:2-18, ACTS 15:7-12)

Ramez Atallah

The conversion of Cornelius is the basis of the mission to the Gentiles and thus this is the most pivotal incident related to world missions to be found in Scripture. Peter repeated the story to Jewish leaders in Acts 11 and to the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.

The conversion of Cornelius opened the door to the evangelization of the world. We are here today because of what happened in Cornelius’s home on that fateful day.

Similarities Between Peter and Cornelius

•Both were God-fearing.

•Both saw visions.

•Both heard God speak to them.

•Both lacked some basic truths.

•Both needed and had a dramatic paradigm shift (metamorphosis).

What Peter Lacked

•Liberation from understanding Jewish laws as means and not ends.

•Belief in the universality of the gospel.

What Cornelius Lacked

•Understanding of the gospel: it was not enough to be a ‘God-fearer’; he needed to hear and respond to the gospel message.

•Experience of God’s forgiveness through Jesus’ death and resurrection, as well as the personal presence of the Holy Spirit.

Differing Understandings of Conversion

•Most Churches base their ecclesiology on a New Testament model. Because the New Testament churches had varied ecclesiologies, differing traditions are justified in this way.

•The same is true with our understanding of conversion. The New Testament offers differing models – immediate, gradual, indistinct – allowing differing views to be supported from its teachings.

Conclusion

Cornelius’s Spiritual Pilgrimage

•From pagan to God-fearer

•From God-fearer to Christian

Peter’s Spiritual Pilgrimage

•From Jew to Jewish Christian

•From Jewish Christian to Christian

The Engel Scale is a model which tries to explain that we need many ‘metamorphoses’ in our pilgrimage to come to God. Starting from the position where the individual has an awareness of a supreme being but no understanding of the gospel, it shows how that individual moves from an interest in Jesus, via a grasp of the implications of the gospel, to personal commitment, and then on to incorporation into the Body of Christ, changed behaviour, and continual growth and witness.¹

Muslim Conversions

•They are God-fearers.

•They conceive of God in legalistic terms (similar to Jews).

•Their conversion process often includes three elements:

1.dreams and visions;

2.encounters with Christians;

3.encounters with the Scriptures.

•There is little distinction in practice between Evangelical and Orthodox conversions of Muslims!

Conversion is always a paradigm shift to liberate us from the shackles of idolatries which separate us from God.

¹ The Engel Scale, which now appears in many different forms, was first developed by James F. Engel and Viggo Søgaard, and was later refined by Engel, who added several ideas from behavioural science. He published it in his book What’s gone wrong with the Harvest? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1975). The model has been influential in encouraging a process approach to conversion, according to which everyone is somewhere on the scale and can be helped to move forward.

BIBLICAL REFLECTIONS

2. ‘I HAVE NO GREATER JOY THAN TO HEAR THAT MY CHILDREN ARE WALKING IN THE TRUTH’ (3 JOHN 4)

Metropolitan Geevarghese Yulios

Dearly beloved in our Lord, on behalf of the Malankara Orthodox Church, Indian Orthodoxy, we great the delegates of the LOI consultation and express our fraternal love and concerns to the host Church and all participating Churches and organizations.

I do thank God and feel honoured to lead this Bible study, and the verse I have selected is 3 John 4: ‘I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth’. I feel that St John’s exhortation is for all Christians at all times. In other words, the word of God speaks to us today that we should be walking in truth, in Christ, with one witness while we are one in Christ.

Exposition

The Third Epistle of John in the New Testament is attributed to John the Evangelist, traditionally thought to be the author of the Gospel of John and the other two Epistles of John. It is a private letter composed to a man named Gaius, recommending to him a group of Christians led by Demetrius, which had come to preach the gospel in the area where Gaius lived. The purpose of the letter is to encourage and strengthen Gaius, and to warn him against Diotrephes, who refuses to cooperate with the author of the letter. The language of 3 John echoes that of the Gospel of John, which is conventionally dated to around AD 90, so the letter was likely written near the end of the first century. Though the location of writing is unknown, tradition places it in Ephesus. It is found in many of the oldest New Testament manuscripts, and its text is free of major discrepancies or textual variants.

There is no doctrine laid out in 3 John, which is strictly a personal letter, but the overall theme is the importance of hospitality, especially when it comes to men who were working to spread the gospel. 3 John is the second shortest book in the Bible, and is the only New Testament book which does not contain the names ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’!

The context and content of the Epistle is to commend Gaius for his loyalty and his hospitality towards a group of travelling ‘brothers’. The ‘brothers’ are brothers in the faith or missionaries, who, in accordance with Jesus’ command in Mark 6: 8–9, have set out on a journey without any money. The Elder, John the Evangelist, then goes on to request that Gaius provide for the brothers to continue their journey. The Elder next describes his conflict with Diotrephes, who does not acknowledge the Elder’s authority and is excommunicating those who, like Gaius, welcome missionaries sent by him. It is in this context that St John entreats Gaius: ‘Dear friend, do not imitate what is evil but what is good. Whoever does good is from God. Anyone who does what is evil has not seen God’ (v.11). This injunction is reminiscent of several passages in 1 John (2:3–5, 3:4–10, 4:7).

In verse 12, John further introduces another man named Demetrius who, according to the Apostolic Constitutions 7.46.9, was ordained by John as bishop of Philadelphia (now Amman, Jordan). Demetrius was probably a member of the group of missionaries discussed earlier in the letter, and 3 John likely serves as a letter commending him to Gaius. Letters of commendation were quite common in the early Church (2 Cor. 3:1; Rom. 16:1–2; Col. 4:7–8).

The Elder, before ending the letter, says that he has many other things to tell Gaius, and plans to make a journey to see him in the near future, using almost the exact language of 2 John 12. The conclusion, ‘Peace to you. The friends here send their greetings. Greet the friends there by name’ (v.14), reflects the style adopted in contemporary correspondence, with ‘Peace be to you’.

Application

After that short description of the Epistle, let me highlight a few points which may be beneficial in our context.

In this era of soft-mails and SMS (short message service), I feel strongly that the modest style of writing a letter is highly effective; 3 John is a wonderful example for how to communicate in a meaningful manner. It is obvious through the letter, from salutation to conclusion: look at the genuine love and passion expressed by the author.

The greatest joy of a minister of our Lord is that his or her spiritual children are keeping the precepts of our Lord and bearing a good witness in the community. Once John was the youngest disciple of our Lord and ran ahead of Peter to see the resurrected Lord; later he became the eldest of disciples, herald of Christ, wrote the Gospel and other writings in the New Testament, and devoted his entire life to the propagation of the word of God. He maintained his zeal throughout his life and stood for the truth.

St John states precisely that the Christian lifestyle itself is the way of walking in truth. Gaius was probably a secular ruler and not yet officially baptised, but since he was doing humanitarian work to his community and extending hospitality to the missionaries, St John appreciated him and his work.

While we are gathered together as one witnessing community of our Lord, it is our duty to ‘walk in truth’, obey our Lord, and fulfill his mission to the world. Then all our spiritual teachers will rejoice about us. May God bless us all.

BIBLICAL REFLECTIONS

3. WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR? (LUKE 10:25-37)

Femi Adeleye

This biblical reflection follows up some of the issues discussed concerning ecclesiology and mission, as well as reconciliation. It also bears in mind that we shall focus below on ethical evangelism and proselytism.

For our reflection, I want to raise two primary questions. To what extent can we do evangelism or bear witness, indifferent to the realities around us? And in the light of this, who is my neighbour?

Think for a moment about the neighbourhood you grew up – what was it like then? And if it still exists – not replaced by a highway or shopping mall, or bombed out, what is the neighbourhood like today? How did people relate when you were growing up? And assuming the neighbourhood still exists, how do they relate now? What are neighbours like today and who is my neighbour? This is a very important question for today. Let me illustrate. I grew up in Jos, Nigeria, an African context that believed that it takes a village to raise a child. I, like other children, freely roamed the street, played, climbed walls to pluck mangoes (the greatest threats we faced were vicious dogs!). When I went astray, any older person could correct or give me a spanking and my parents would thank them for it. I was in the same neighbourhood in 2013, but there were no children playing on the fields, only gated homes with high walls. Going to church required going through airport-style security.

That is an example of the mutual suspicion, breakdown of trust, and breakdown of community which we see; more significantly, the breakdown of the imago dei in people – for we are created to be relational beings. This is a reflection of the state of our world. Think of the Sudan, where in 2011 there was celebration of the newest nation in Africa – but then the internal demons within the South were unleashed. And so we could go on.

It is in the light of such realities that this passage is significant.

Exposition

‘An expert in the Law stood up to test Jesus. Teacher … what must I do to inherit eternal life?‘ This question surfaced on several occasions (Matt. 19:16–22; Luke 18:18–23; John 3:1–15). The question in this case was suspect, as can be seen from two points in the text:

1.The expert in the Law wanted to test Jesus. He called Jesus ‘Teacher’, didaskale (v.25), Luke’s equivalent of a Jewish rabbi.

2.After Jesus answered the man’s question, Luke records that the man wished to justify himself (v.29).

Jesus answered his first question with two other questions (v.26), driving the legal expert back to the Old Testament Law: What is written in the Law? And how do you read it (interpret it)? Note that Jesus was aware of the challenge of the difference between what is written and how it is interpreted.

The expert answered correctly by quoting from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. One must love God and one’s fellow human being in order to keep the Law properly. Jesus affirmed that if the man did this, he would live.

The expert’s response should have probably been to ask, ‘How can I do this? I am not able. I need help.’ Instead, he tried ‘to justify himself’, that is, to defend himself against the implications of Jesus’ words. So he tried to move the focus away from himself by asking, ‘and who is my neighbour?’ Don’t I already relate to my fellow rabbis, my intellectual class, my religious community? Who is?

Jesus answered by telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. We all know the story well. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho descends over 3,000 feet in about 17 miles. It was a dangerous road to travel, for robbers hid along its steep, winding way. A priest, one expected to love others, avoided the wounded man, probably a fellow Jew. Levites were descendants of Levi but not of Aaron, and they assisted the priests (Aaron’s descendants) in the temple.

Note that both of these men saw the victim but passed him by. Both of them should know what the law said, even concerning other people’s animals: ‘If you see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help the owner get it to its feet’ (Deut. 22:4). Another law said: ‘If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, be sure to return it. If you see the donkey of someone who hates you fallen down under its load, do not leave it there; be sure you help them with it’ (Ex. 23:4–5). If this was required even for animals, how much more should it be for people created in the image of God! However, as always happens in a conflict or oppressive situation, the victims-to-be are dehumanized before being ignored or maltreated. In the era of slavery or apartheid, black people were said to have no souls; during the genocide in Rwanda, the enemy were cockroaches, not human and so on. So, in our text, the priest and Levite came and passed by – although the law expressly required the opposite treatment even of the animals not only of their ‘brethren’, but of their ‘enemy’ (cf. Isa. 58:7).

Then came a Samaritan – one considered ‘the other’ by those like the priest and the Levite; a byword among them for heresy and other things (John 8:48; cf. Luke 17:18). The Samaritans were scorned by the Jews of those days because of their mixed Jewish and Gentile ancestry. It is ironic, then, that a Samaritan helped the half-dead man, dressing his wounds, taking him to an inn, and paying his expenses. The little cash left by the Samaritan indicates a poverty which made his response the more praiseworthy. (There are, of course, many allegorical interpretations of this parable that we need not go into!)

By asking which one was his neighbour (v.36), Jesus was teaching that a person should be a neighbour to anyone he meets in need. The ultimate Neighbour was Jesus, whose compassion contrasted with the Jewish religious leaders, who had no compassion on those who were the outcasts, the nobodies, the lepers of their day. Jesus wrapped up his teaching with the command that his followers were to live like that true neighbour (v.37).

Application

How much of this do we do today? Who are our neighbours? Who are those passed by and left by the road in our world today? Who are the marginalized? Who are the victims of the various contexts we represent here? Aside from prejudice, it is so easy to leave people by the wayside. But could it be that God is bringing us together at such a time as this for a purpose?

Consider the state of our world: Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Russia, Israel, Gaza, the Arab Spring, ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), Al Shabab, Boko Haram, Ebola in West Africa, and so on. One response is to shrug and say that these things will always be with us; the world has seen them before. But what is God calling us to be and to do? Can we afford to continue with debates and mission as we used to? What aspects of our witness are still faithful to the elements of the mission of God to rescue, to impart justice, to provide hospitality? Can we afford to be silent about or indifferent to realities in our world? If we do, we may end with the lament of Martin Niemöller (1867–1956), who survived the Holocaust and became a leading German Protestant theologian:

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.¹

Let me end with two real-life parables.

In 1982, when my car broke down late at night, I was rescued at night by a Muslim, who took me in for the night, fed me, fixed my car, and sent me on my way the following morning.

Ten years later, I was in another bad car situation, with multiple flat tyres. Rescued by a Muslim at night, I was taken to ‘my Christian brothers’ who were vulcanisers, but they would not fix my tyres because it was Christmas Day and they did not work on Christmas Day. The Muslim who took me to them was more shocked than I was. He took me elsewhere and made sure my tyres were fixed before bidding me farewell. Who then was my neighbour?

And who is your neighbour today?

¹ In John Bartlett, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1980; first published 1855), 824.

THEOLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING OF MISSION: VARIATIONS ON A THEME

Archbishop Anastasios

The theological understanding of mission is necessary not solely for theologians and the clergy but is of decisive importance for the entire Church. Every Christian must learn and realize that missionary activity does not constitute a supplement or a branch of our ecclesiastical activities, but is a fundamental expression of our faith. In addition, the faithful Christian must realize that mission does not mean leaving our geographical or social environment for other, unknown, and exotic countries, but the firm orientation toward the centre of Christian experience, as well as the essence of our Christian faith, hope, love and Christian expectations, so that we can understand the mystery of salvation in Christ in its global and eschatological perspective.

In order for us to maintain the missionary vision alive, and its related comprehension vibrant, it is necessary for us to ponder again and again the theological concepts relating to mission. Here, we shall limit ourselves to only three fundamental points.

The Trinitarian Dimension

The content of our faith and the centre of our life is God – as the Holy Trinity, as Love. The starting point of the understanding of Christian mission is precisely in the mystery of the Triune God. God, being love, extends his love to the entire human race, to the entire creation. The starting point of any apostolic activity remains the risen Lord’s promise and command in their Triune perspective: ‘As the Father has sent me, I am sending you … Receive the Holy Spirit’ (John 20:21–22). The Father’s love is expressed by the mission of the Son: ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son’ (John 3:16). The Son, subsequently, gives the command of mission to his disciples, ‘for the scattered children of God, to bring them together’ (John 11:52) to his kingdom. All human beings, who have been created in the image of God, are called to return to the freedom of love, to partake in the life-of-love of the Holy Trinity. The glory of God, which radiates over, and gives life to creation, must transform everything, ‘to be exalted over the entire earth and the heavens’.

The Son’s mission constitutes the starting point and defines more specifically Christian mission. The work of Christ is not simply an announcement but a fact, the definitive fact of world history, which opens the way for the eschaton, the final completion of the evolution of the cosmos. It concerns the reception of human nature, and its re-creation within the life of love of the Holy Trinity. This reception, which is made in love, this continuous conveying of the life of love, this re-creation of everything in the light of God’s glory, continues in time and space through the Church’s mission activity.

Decisive for Orthodox mission remains the conjunction ‘as’ (kathōs) in John 20:21. It is in my footsteps that you all ought to be following, and my example you should be emulating, emphasizes Christ. The Christological doctrine defines the way of the Triune God’s mission which is being continued by the faithful. What is essential in mission is not that which one announces but that which one lives, that which one is oneself. The heart of mission is ‘being in Christ’. And we ‘become’ only by remaining in Christ. Only this kind of human being bears fruit: ‘If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing’ (John 15:5).

The Holy Spirit participates from the beginning in the Son’s mission. The incarnation is made complete, as we confess in our (Nicene) Creed, ‘of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary’. The Holy Spirit works together with what is best in the human race: the All-Holy Virgin who unreservedly and happily submits to the will of God the Father, for the realization of the Son’s mission.

The Spirit, in the appearance of a dove, seals the start of the Son’s public ministry. Furthermore, in the appearance of fiery flames and violent wind, the Spirit constitutes the Church, transforming the fearful disciples into heroic apostles, full of divine illumination, knowledge, and power. The Spirit creates the Church, transforming individuals into a community of persons – an open society with global responsibilities. The Spirit ceaselessly gives life to the Church and to each of the Church’s members, transforming them into living cells of the mystical body of Christ, enabling it to partake in his continuing mission for the salvation of the entire cosmos.

The energies of the Triune God are always personal: from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. Trinitarian faith and thought is at the core of our thoughts and actions.

Mission, like everything else in the Orthodox life, is done ‘in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit’. It is partaking of the life of the Holy Trinity, an essential expression of Orthodox self-awareness – a loud shout through action – for the completion of the will of God on earth, ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. The Trinitarian faith must always be present in the core of our missionary thoughts and actions.

The Ecclesiastical Dimension

The development of an Orthodox missionary conscience contributes to the deeper understanding of Orthodox ecclesiology. The reverse is also true: a deeper understanding of Orthodox ecclesiology strengthens Orthodox missionary conscience. During an era when there existed so many defining terms for various religious communities and groups, the first Christians, in order to define their own self-awareness, choose the term ecclesia which declared the assembly of the entire demos (city-state). In the new reality, in the new eschatological city which was built on the cross and the vacant tomb of the risen Lord, God is the one who issues the assembly call, and the entire world is the demos. This is about the catholic ‘Ecclesia of God’. When that new community, which was called to assembly by the Triune God, was choosing ecclesia as its self-defining term – especially in an era when emperors and kings ruled – it was underlining the responsible participation of all of its members in its life, direction, and evolution.

We belong to the ‘catholic Church’ which embraces everything; all Orthodox mission, whether domestic or foreign, is by nature ecclesiastic. It cannot be thought of as an individual or group activity while being cut off from the Body of Christ. Whoever serves in the Church, it is the Church he or she serves, it is the Church he or she represents; it is the Church life he or she transplants. No one is saved on his or her own; no one offers by his or her own self the salvation which is in Christ. A person is saved in the Church, and acts within the Church, and whatever such a person disseminates is in the name of the Church.

Global Eschatological Perspective

Taking part in mission, we participate in a divine plan which is in progress and which has global dimensions. We are already moving toward the eschata. With the descent of the Holy Spirit and the establishment of the Church, with his pouring out into the world, with his continuous presence in the world, a new movement of re-creation of the cosmos was inaugurated, a movement which exalts humanity and transforms the universe. Mission constitutes a prerequisite for the advent of the kingdom: ‘And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world … and then the end will come’ (Matt. 24:14). However, the final Judgement is also a global event: ‘All the nations will be gathered before him’ (Matt. 25:32). Everything, in the eschatological epoch, pertains to the entire oecumene. At the same time, surprise and the shattering of commonly accepted things remain a fundamental element of the Judgement. Those who ‘did good’ as well as those who ‘practised evil’ had never predicted that the criterion and the basis for the decision of the Judge would be Christ’s identifying of himself with the humble and persecuted of the earth: ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me’ (Matt. 25:40). Our support of the poor and the afflicted of the entire earth is essentially a union with the Lord who was afflicted for us. This aspect makes eschatology ceaselessly revolutionary, missionary, and relevant.

Not only troubled humanity but also the entire creation takes part in Christian mission. According to Orthodox thought, the entire world is led toward transformation. The entire universe has been called to enter the Church, to become Christ’s Church, so that subsequently, at the end of the ages, it may become God’s heavenly kingdom. The Church is the centre of the entire cosmos, the space in which its destiny is decisively determined. Everything the Church possesses, she possesses for the benefit of the entire cosmos. She radiates it and offers it, transforming everything. The entire cosmos – not only humanity but also the entire universe – takes part in the restoration which has been completed by the redeeming work of Christ, and rediscovers its destiny in glorifying God.

There is a concept, mainly developed by the Greek Fathers, according to which the person, in its exaltation toward the personal God, has the obligation to include with it the entire world. Defined through this concept is the special respect due not only to each human person but to the whole of creation. Everything is to be brought under Christ (Eph. 1:10). All things ‘in heaven and on earth’ will find their purpose, which is Christ. It is in this mystery of God in which we are participating when we are working in a missionary capacity. This vision liberates us from any closed, individualistic piety and gives to mission a global, eschatological perspective.

What about the Internal Problems of the Church?

And what will happen with ‘the internal problems of our Church,’ those which we detect all around us, in our country, and generally in the traditionally Christian countries, in Europe as well as in America? We shall limit ourselves to two clarifications, explaining synoptically how we conceive global Orthodox mission in our times.

First, we do not claim a romantically conceived ‘external mission’ but we refer to the Church’s self-awareness, universality, and fullness. To the various objections and arguments regarding the priorities of each particular local Church, the best and final answer is the last commandment of the Lord, that which he left behind before his departure from the earth, as it was conveyed to us by St Luke (Acts 1:8): ‘you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’. The commandment covers the local and the global. In reality, there is no dilemma, there are no correlative conjunctions ‘either … or’. Both are necessary, internal and external mission.

We do not have the right to confine ourselves to our internal problems. We are obligated to extend our vision and our interest toward the global community which is being born in our times. No one is more realistic than those who carefully observe the human problems and challenges – the human destiny – and who are working for freedom, dignity, and the search for truth, with a global perspective in their thought and love. The Church in its entirety is obligated to spread the gospel to the entire world, to those who are near and those who are far, and to manifest interest in the entire humanity, in every expression of human life.

It is time for us to learn to function within the framework of our local Church while maintaining a global and eschatological perspective.

Second, each and every local Church community, as long as it participates in the catholicity of the Church, is obligated to participate in the pain and struggles of the whole Church, in all the longitudes and latitudes of the earth. Of course, a particular local Church presents its own characteristics; and it is with these special characteristics that it is called to glorify God and to give its witness. At the same time, however, it is a necessity and a duty of every province and congregation to experience the global as well as the local aspect of the Church.

In order to be authentically ‘catholic’, every local Church is obligated to work and pray for the more deprived countries, for the regions where people are hungry for the word of God, where Christian presence is very little detectable or altogether non-existent. There are still millions of people who are waiting to hear the