Mar 20, 2014

Reading the Old Testament Missiologically


"Mission is often thought of as a New Testament and post–New Testament phenomenon. Is it possible to read the Old Testament also as a missional text? The clearest justification for doing so is that Jesus himself told his disciples to read it that way. In Luke 24 he twice surveys the whole canon of Old Testament Scripture and claims that ‘this is what is written’: both that the Messiah would come, suffer, die, and rise again; and that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to the nations (vv. 45-47). The first claim reads Scripture messianically; the second reads Scripture missiologically — and Jesus urges this double hermeneutical strategy on those who read the Old Testament in conscious relation to himself.”


Christopher J. H. Wright, “Mission and Old Testament Interpretation,” in Hearing the Old Testament: Listening toGod’s Address, ed. Craig G. Bartholomew and Dvaid J. H. Beldman (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 186.

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