I am currently in a doctoral program, studying semiotics—cultural symbols—which requires a great deal of reading. Probably the greatest benefit of an education is the wise guide (teacher) who can give a curated tour of the best there is in any given subject, and such is the case with this program. Dr. Leonard Sweet has opened the door to an entire world of scholars and theologians who look beneath the surface of things and reveal mysteries. Now I would like to open that world to you.
Reform Theology (The Real Kind)
According to J.D. Payne, we should not only be regularly reforming how we understand scripture, we should be regularly reforming our practices as the Church, particularly in how we do missions. He gives a very basic understanding of what apostolic missions were and presumably should be today, on pages 17-18. The apostle Paul developed his own theology and strategy of missions in the specific context of his world. By that same logic, we should be able to do the same today. Our apostolic missions may look different, therefore, and that is totally appropriate, so long as we adhere to the basic meaning of what apostolic work is.
He made some points that I take to heart.
- Missions thinking is still about “those people over there” overseas, other cultures, other people groups. But because of globalization, we need to change that anachronistic world view and see apostolic work as possible right here.
- Missions work has become so broad in meaning that just about any good deed done “over there” is seen as mission. Apostolic work is much more specific (p. 34).
- Missing missions: seminaries teach people how to be pastors, not apostles (41).
- Missions and colonialism are tightly linked. Today, missions have become mostly pastoral in nature, aiding overseas churches in a paternalistic way.
A pastoral approach maintains control rather than empowering and releasing others to be and function as pastors. Pastors are to be permanent fixtures with churches; Apostolic teams are to be scaffolds until the work is complete.
J.D. Payne, Apostolic Imagination: Recovering a Biblical Vision for the Church’s Mission Today, 39
As a corrective lens stating what is holding the church back, the above might be my favorite line in the whole book.
Foreign Missions
- How do we evangelize people who feel they know Christianity for what it is without actually having heard the Gospel (people who seem inoculated to all things Jesus)?
- By the same token, how do we shepherd and perhaps evangelize people who have felt burned, betrayed, and beguiled by the Church and therefore by God?
- How do we disciple our church in evangelism work?
- How can we recognize, train, support, and encourage apostles?
Apostolic Calling
His discourse on the various ways to understand who the apostles were was interesting, and I am glad he sees the apostolic calling as reaching beyond The Twelve. I agree we need to use better language and have a better idea about what being an apostle means.
Pioneers use their imagination and then they move forward, exploring as they go, often amending their maps and their plans as they learn the terrain. Paul, whose story we know best, and as Payne also used for an example, did this very thing. With a small travel team, he set out to change the world, and he was resilient and imaginative enough to do and be whatever the moment required.
The graph on page 120 aids in understanding apostolic work. Like the wild, wild west, once the pioneers knocked out a row of houses and laid down a street, it was time to find a sheriff and call it a town. The pioneers moved on, and the town grew into its own. Just so, apostles move on while pastors and teachers remain to help the church grow.
There is little question Paul’s first purpose was spiritual, but Acts also records the real miracles of healing that accompanied his message. I cannot believe Paul ever entered a community to feed and heal people without also mentioning why he was there, and where his power and impetus came from. This is a guide to mission work today, the first importance of preaching the gospel with words as well as deeds.
Do All Roads Lead to God?
In an effort, I think, to understand God’s love of all peoples, and also to understand how it can be that other peoples have wisdom, good character, and altruism without having the Holy Spirit, the “all roads lead up one mountain” thinking has spread. It is unquestionable that compassion requires seeing people as people, as three-dimensional people.
The feeling arises of wondering, then, how we could love more, and better, than God?
Does not God recognize, as we do, the spirituality and fine character of those who do not know Jesus? I can understand the youngest generation feeling that it is patronizing at best, dishonoring and demeaning at worst, to promote Jesus as the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life. But, I think this wrinkling discomfort runs through a lot of Christians, Christians of all ages.
And there is also the changing attitude towards the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement (the idea that God will punish sinners and the only way out of that punishment is to receive the atonement Jesus provides by substituting himself for us), and towards the belief in hell, Satan, and demons. When I was a teen, we were taught the Romans Road, and a diagram that had the cross spanning the precipice of hell to bring people safely from this life into life in eternity. These models are no longer relevant to our current culture, considering where people are today in how they see the world. Paul lived in a very religious time, but we are rapidly leaning into a time that does not believe in a spiritual realm occupied by deities. (I have no answers, only observations and questions).
The Risk of Imagination
I also think being imaginative is not endorsed by most churches, denominations, and pastors. Once the structure is in place, the energy goes towards tending the structure, and I think Payne is saying that. Such roles as apostle and prophet, with their maverick-like aspects, are inherently not about sustaining current structures, and so many denominations have done away with recognizing those callings today.
How can the structured church retain enough resilience to actively disciple apostles and prophets, and evangelizers, without feeling threatened by such people’s imagination and innovation?
How may foreign missionaries plant a church in a culture unlike the missionary’s native culture without a colonizing effect? What does it mean to tell a Muslim woman living in, let us say, Iran, to be the best Muslim she can be in the name of Christ? To live out her faith in keeping with the precepts of her own culture? What would such a church look like in that context?
The 12 … or The 120?
Payne revisits the idea that Jesus “birthed the church” with its twelve apostles plus later James and Paul (p. 116). Payne, apparently, dismisses that Jesus had been training his one hundred and twenty closest followers as disciples with an apostolic mission, and this was confirmed and affirmed by the anointing of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. This one-time, spectacular event enabled all of them to proclaim the gospel in all the languages represented in the crowd.
We are given something of John’s and Peter’s story early on as they preached together. James ends up leading the mother church in Jerusalem. We hear virtually nothing of the others. Later, Philip the evangelist, taken on as a deacon, does a good bit of apostle work in Samaria, and with the Ethiopian eunuch. But otherwise, Luke simply does not pursue the stories of most of the people who came bursting out of that upper room.
I see it differently. I think Jesus anointed and empowered 120 male and female disciples to apostolic missions, and they turned to the Twelve as their leadership core. They are the ones who planted churches. That is important.
I am not sure whether Payne was just reporting or endorsing, but I am going to put it out there that we “bear witness” to the risen Christ best by incarnating Jesus. Not sure why that has to be an either/or situation (p. 126).
Home Missions
Payne repeatedly states
The biblical understanding of the apostolic work is primarily about crossing cultural gaps, not oceans.
J.D. Payne, Apostolic Imagination: Recovering a Biblical Vision for the Church’s Mission Today, 148
I couple that with Payne’s statistic on the remarkably high number of unreached people in the US.
- What would an apostolic mission look like in one’s home country?
- Who would be on this apostolic team?
- How would this team be supported if they were to truly have the freedom to be apostles as the first-century apostles were?
Some Nits
Problems with the ESV
Payne quotes from the ESV, and there are problems with that. 1 Thessalonians 1:5 does not have the word “men” in it. The word is “kind” conjugated for male plural. Yet though it is possible Paul’s travel team was comprised of only the signators Paul, Timothy, and Silvanus, Paul regularly traveled with and worked beside women as well, as did Jesus, so “we” in that sentence could easily have included a larger team of both women and men (p. 20).
Poor Greek Translation
The author translates Ephesians 4:11 himself and conflates pastor and teacher with a dash. That is incorrect Greek (p. 38). All pastors teach in some way, but not all teachers are called to pastor. These are two distinct roles with distinctive traits, callings, and spiritual giftings.
Junia is a Woman
The male rendition “Junias” is a medieval fiction first promulgated most likely by Giles of Rome in the mid-thirteenth century. The name is “Junia,” and she is a woman. Also, “Greet the brothers” is misleading. The word, though conjugated as male plural, includes both male and female persons, as is made obvious by the whole of Romans 16.
Hair-Splitting
I found myself getting restless with all the hair-splitting on terms, methods, principles, concepts, and strategies throughout this book. Finally, towards the end, Payne suggests we pray and leave room for God to guide.
Love First
1 Corinthians 12 is not a strong enough argument to dismiss the holistic approach (p. 131). 1 Corinthians 13 states that all is nonsense without love. James, John, and Peter equally endorse and reinforce love as of first importance.
