“There has been a long tradition which sees the
mission of the Church primarily as obedience to a command. It has been
customary to speak of ‘the missionary mandate.’ This way of putting the
matter is certainly not without justification, and yet it seems to me that it
misses the point. It tends to make mission a burden rather than a joy, to
make it part of the law rather than part of the gospel. If one looks at
the New Testament evidence one gets another impression. Mission begins
with a kind of explosion of joy. The news that the rejected and crucified
Jesus is alive is something that cannot possibly be suppressed. It must
be told. Who could be silent about such a fact? The mission of the
Church in the pages of the New Testament is more like the fallout from a vast
explosion, a radioactive fallout which is not lethal but life-giving.”
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist
Society (Grand Rapids, 1989), page 116.
Thank you to Rev. Ray Ortland for posting this quote on his blog.
