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Showing posts from August, 2013

Issues Facing Missions Today: 4. Mission Strategising

Issues Facing Missions Today: 4. Mission Strategising I recall the enthusiasm of a mission committee back in the 1980s as its members redirected their resources and attention to the 10/40 window [the largely non-Christian region of the world lying between 10 and 40 degrees latitude north of the equator] and ‘unreached peoples.’  Here, it was thought, lay the unfinished task to take the Gospel to the nations.  Such mission strategising clearly pointed away from ministry in, say, Rwanda, where the statistics reported an overwhelmingly evangelised and Christian country.  Just a few years later, the Rwandan genocide took place in ‘Christian’ Rwanda.  Such strategising also took the focus away from post-Christian, northern European countries. In this post, I wish to challenge the use of statistics alone to determine mission strategies and offer five topics for mission strategising instead.  I’ll be the first to say that I appreciate all the statistics, maps, and historical trends t

Why Foreign Missions? 20i. The Gospel According to Paul—Word Study: Alētheia and Alētheuō (Truth)

Why Foreign Missions? 20i. The Gospel According to Paul—Word Study: Al ē theia and Al ē theu ō (Truth) In addition to the words ‘Gospel,’ ‘Proclamation,’ ‘Word,’ ‘Witness,’ and ‘Mystery,’ the word ‘Truth’ ( al ē theia ) is also used in Paul’s letters in reference to the Gospel.  A study of this word will round out my investigation of word studies into what the content of the Gospel was for Paul.  Some further discussion on the Gospel for Paul will follow this study. The word ‘truth’ in Paul encompasses both the Gospel and related teaching.  It also encompasses true belief, true life, and true behaviour.  Truth is, moreover, personal, since it has to do with God himself.  In this regard, it is most clearly known in the Gospel, which is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  To reject Jesus is to reject the truth; to accept Jesus is to receive salvation.  Again, this is not only a matter of accepting what should be believed about Jesus—the content of truth.  It is also to enter into a tr