One of the benefits of serving churches on both sides of the Atlantic is the ability to see a culture with fresh eyes, from the “outside-in.” For me, the biggest difference between serving churches in Romania and in the U.S. is in the area of “pragmatism.”

“What Works?”

Church leaders in the U.S. tend to view numerical growth as success and then ask the question “What works?”

Church leaders in Romania, because of their Eastern orientation and past history under Communist persecution don’t find “What works?” a terribly important question at all. They are more likely to view church practices in light of other questions:

• How does this strengthen our identity? 
• Does this build the church? 
• Has this been done before? 

Sometimes, I yearn for the simplicity of Eastern European ministry. Pastoral ministry is stressful anywhere, but the stress in Romanian contexts is almost always connected to shepherding, whereas the stress in American contexts is connected to growing. Pastor Paul Negrut describes the American mindset quite well:

“Numbers have become the fundamental criterion for evaluating success in ministry. But the truth is…fruit that does not remain is not true fruit and brings no glory to God.”

As a result of having served in both contexts, I confess a sense of frustration in both the overabundance of pragmatic thinking in American churches and the utter lack of pragmatic thinking in Romanian churches.

The following statement is a generalization, but there is truth to it. Romanians ponder and sometimes fail to act; Americans act and sometimes fail to think.

There’s got to be a better way, and I believe it can be found in the questions we ask.

It’s Good to Ask Good Questions

Church leaders should always be asking good questions, even pragmatic ones.

In Romania, Christians are used to being the beleagured minority. But sometimes, I wonder if my Romanian brothers and sisters are too satisfied with how things are. Their self-preservation in the midst of persecution can keep them from self-sacrifice for the mission.

That’s why I counsel Romanian pastors to ask some of the pragmatic questions they hear from their American friends. Every church ought to ask three:

1. What does fruit look like? 
2. Are we seeing fruit?
3. What would help us see fruit? 

Americans fast forward to the “what brings fruit” question without having firmly established what true fruitfulness is. But if you skip the first question, you lose the emphasis on true discipleship and wind up with superficial churches filled with unregenerate people. (And don’t be surprised when lost people who think they’re saved don’t evangelize.)

Romanians, on the other hand, are often so focused on the nature of true faith and repentance that they fail to ask the difficult questions related to their effectiveness in missions and evangelism. Moving on to the second and third points (both of which are somewhat pragmatic in nature) can be helpful in evaluating the spiritual state of a congregation.

Precarious Pragmatism

Don’t fall into the trap of making numerical growth the goal, but don’t fall into the other ditch of being satisfied with little to no fruit. Instead, examine what the Scripture teaches about fruitfulness. Then, think like a missionary. Find the best ways to share the gospel in your context. Ask tough questions. Trust God to work.

The supernatural work of a sovereign God in conversion is not a reason to sit satisfied with unfruitfulness, but a reminder to kneel before King Jesus and beg Him for wisdom and passion in bringing the harvest.

Jimmy Scroggins is a pastor friend of mine. He currently serves at First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Jimmy is passionate about church planting in multiple forms and is involved in a mission network called SendSFL. I’m excited to see new methods of church planting that can supplement and support traditional planting strategies. Today, Jimmy joins me on the blog for a discussion about the future of church planting.

Trevin Wax: One of the things we’ve talked about before is how the church planting structure in North America puts the planter under enormous pressure to attract givers to the new plant, not necessarily new converts. Elaborate a little on how you think our structure and strategy can unintentionally hinder passionate evangelism.

Jimmy Scroggins: First, I want to be clear that I have huge admiration for church planters. Their boldness and confidence in God to go out and start a church from scratch is amazing to me. I am also a strong supporter of church planting churches and organizations, and I am truly grateful for the current wave of resources that is being directed towards new church starts in North America.

Trevin Wax: That said, you have some misgivings about some church planting strategies.

Jimmy Scroggins: Yes. I worry that our standard strategy for funding planters is unlikely to start the number of sustainable, evangelistic, healthy congregations needed to advance the kingdom relative to the growing population and increasing lostness of our culture. The favored approach seems to go like this:

1. Identify a talented, driven, and probably well-networked planter.
2. Help him raise several hundred thousand dollars to fund him and his church for 3-5 years.
3. Count on him to lead his new church to grow fast enough so that by the time his funding runs out his church is self-supporting.

Trevin Wax: What’s is deficient about this strategy?

Jimmy Scroggins: The math simply does not work. Take Southern Baptists, for example. We are working to plant 15,000 churches in North America by 2022. If we are going to raise 100k each (a pretty conservative number for most contemporary church planters) to fund those churches, we are going to invest 1.5 billion dollars in the successful church plants (if you make it 300K per church – that makes it $4.5 billion).  Assuming a 70% success rate (which would be phenomenal to the point of unrealistic), we would have tried to start around 21K churches, with a total investment of over $2 billion.  I am afraid the math simply doesn’t work if we are hoping to plant that many churches in that amount of time.

Trevin Wax: Besides the math, what concerns do you have?

Jimmy Scroggins: I’m afraid this strategy forces the church planter to focus on attracting givers more than on evangelizing lost people. It really doesn’t matter how many lost people he reaches or baptizes; his sustainability and “success” will be evaluated and celebrated only if his fledgling congregation gives enough money.

The planter’s ability to remain “in business” is directly tied to his ability to shift the costs from his sponsor churches to his own congregation before his startup money is exhausted. It is unlikely that new believers will be able to carry that load fast enough. He has to go hard after transfers from other churches in order to make it work. So again, the focus of the church planter almost has to be on attracting givers as opposed to reaching lost people.

Trevin Wax: So where do we go from here? Your church, while certainly intentional about funding traditional church plants, is also involved in other kinds of gatherings. Tell us about that.

Jimmy Scroggins: As you said, we are indeed participating in traditional church plants, and by traditional I mean the funded approach with full-time planters and some type of “launch-large” strategy. But we are convinced that these types of plants take too long, cost too much and fail too often - at least if we are going to get to 15,000 by 2022. We have begun to develop and invest in two different approaches that we believe will be more effective, especially in metropolitan contexts where Southern Baptists have been weak.

First, we are going all in for bivocational church planting.  We are working to identify, recruit, train, and place men in new church plants who will never require a full-time salary from their church.  There are scores of white collar, middle and upper income, educated, successful professionals in our churches who have untapped capacity in terms of their time and energy. These guys can be motivated and equipped to plant churches. Of course, God has to call them, but we can help them hear God speak.

Previous generations of church and denominational leaders have basically said:

“If you are called to the ministry, you quit your job, you move your family several states away for seminary-based training, you learn to live in near poverty, and you help your wife and kids adjust to their new life and their new standard of living in their new town. And about the time you get halfway settled into the seminary community – you graduate and move again to a small church in a small place and begin your journey in ministry.”

No wonder very few people will voluntarily heed the call!

We believe there is a better way. We want to train church planters from our own church to plant new churches in our own community. They don’t have to move their families. They don’t have to find new jobs. They don’t have to strike out on their own. We can pour into them, help them develop their spiritual gifts, help them discover their unique calling, help them find a neighborhood that needs a gospel church, and ultimately help them form a church planting team.

Trevin Wax: What experience have you had in developing the bivocational church planting strategy?

Jimmy Scroggins: At First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, we have established a church planting residency program to equip bivocational church planters from our church family. The response has been overwhelming. We have ten men in our first cohort this year, and the waiting list for the 2013 group is already established.

We are pretty excited about bivocational church planting because it is a way to help make the math work. Although these churches will look very much like traditional, funded church plants, we believe they will have a greater chance of success because the pastors will not have to depend on the fledgling church as their sole source of financial support.

Trevin Wax: What’s the other approach you take?

Jimmy Scroggins: We are committed to reaching people that most church plants cannot afford to reach. There are thousands of people in our community who are homeless or very poor. Many are immigrants and many are in our community illegally. Traditional church planters can’t spend time reaching these folks. They can’t give enough to support the new work. But we have recently discovered a way to effectively go after these people.

One of our sister churches in West Palm is teaching us how to plant “rabbit churches” (so named because they multiply really fast). This church uses lay people to start new congregations in homeless camps, trailer parks, apartment complexes, and retirement centers. We are learning from this approach, and we are seeking to plant churches for “the least of these.”

A “rabbit church” looks like a middle-aged deacon pulling up to the homeless camp with metal folding chairs stacked in his pickup. He arranges those chairs around a tree and calls the men and women out for donuts, singing, and Bible study. These people can’t or won’t give much money at all, but since this type of church doesn’t cost anything, they make budget every single week.

Trevin Wax: How will these methods affect the future of church planting?

Jimmy Scroggins: We are convinced that these two approaches – using bivocational planters to start traditional-looking church plants, and using lay-preachers to start “rabbit churches” – could be the future of church planting. And since these two strategies are very similar to effective approaches found in the Bible and throughout church history, we are confident they are going to work.

One thing’s for sure: traditional, funded, full-time church planters are not going to plant enough churches to truly penetrate the lostness of North America.

I’ve begun a new series on Mondays that focuses on the church’s mission. First, we looked at Andreas Köstenberger and Peter O’Brien’s Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, which provides a summary of the Bible’s teaching on mission from a salvation-historical viewpoint. Last week, we tackled Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God, an ambitious project with an expansive missiological vision intended to transform one’s hermeneutical approach to the Scriptures.

Today, we’re looking at a book with a more narrowly conceived purpose than the previous two. Eckhard Schnabel’s purpose is not to survey the entire Bible; nor is it to provide a new hermeneutic for reading Scripture. Paul the Missionary zeroes in on Paul as a model missionary.

“I write about Paul with a view to challenge pastors and missionaries, students and practitioners to read Paul again, more closely than before, and to evaluate the goals and the methods of their pastoral and missionary ministry in the light of the missionary work of the apostle” (14).

Schnabel’s goal is to interpret the New Testament accounts of Paul’s missionary work as well as his letters in order to understand Paul’s goals and methods.

Defining “Mission”

Unlike the previous two books (Salvation to the Ends of the Earth and The Mission of God), Paul the Missionary begins with a broad definition of mission that could be applied to more than one faith group. Schnabel defines “mission” or “missions” as a faith community’s work “to win other people to the content of faith and the way of life of whose truth and necessity the members of that community are convinced” (22). Christian missionaries are marked by their intentionality and geographical movement in verbally proclaiming the gospel.

Schnabel helpfully places Paul within the context of the other apostles and their mission work. A missionary’s task is to communicate the gospel to those who have not heard or accepted it, communicate “a new way of life” that replaces the old behavioral patterns of the converts, and then integrate converts into the church.

“Thus, missionaries establish contact with non-Christians, they proclaim the news of Jesus the Messiah and Savior (proclamation, preaching, teaching, instruction), they lead people to faith in Jesus Christ (conversion, baptism), and they integrate the new believers into the local community of the followers of Jesus (Lord’s Supper, transformation of social and moral behavior, charity)” (29).

Paul as Missionary Theologian

The early Christians fulfilled their mission by verbally proclaiming the gospel from region to region. This explains why Paul was open to traveling anywhere that people expressed a willingness to listen to his message. His desire to reach all with the gospel led him to transcend ethnic or class barriers.

As the self-professed “apostle to the Gentiles,” Paul lobbied for full Gentile inclusion in the people of God. He would not allow Gentiles to be treated as second-class Christians, for such a distinction ultimately contradicted the gospel message of Christ’s death on the cross.

In Paul’s letters, we catch a glimpse of a missionary theologian who sought to build up the churches that he established even as he continued to maintain his missionary ministry to those who had not yet heard the good news.

Working within the framework of the Old Testament’s history of mission, Paul understood that he must preach to the Jews first and then to the Gentiles (140). He also understood his specific role as a “pioneer missionary” responsible for laying the foundation for new churches (152).

Paul’s Gospel

What was the content of Paul’s gospel? The message centered on “Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish people and the Kyrios of the world” (183).

This gospel permeated the life and work of Paul, not merely as the content of his message, but also the shaper of his mission.

“Missionary work and theological reflection about the gospel depend on one another” (140).

Likewise:

“The crucified and risen Jesus Christ is the content of missionary preaching and thus the foundation, the criterion and the measure of church planting and church growth” (151).

Schnabel carefully notes some of the assumptions behind Paul’s preaching ministry.

• The apostle’s message is proclaimed with the Old Testament story as its backdrop, a story that centers on the one true God who calls unbelievers to cast aside their idols and worship him.
• Because Paul occasionally mentioned the kingdom of God without explanation in his letters, Schnabel also assumes this concept was one of his foundational teachings.
• Likewise, Paul’s letters presuppose his readers’ knowledge of who Jesus was, which indicates that Paul preached about the historical life of Jesus and the theological significance of his death and resurrection by which we are rescued from God’s future judgment.
• Paul’s gospel included a call to respond to this message. He urged unbelievers to repent by turning away from their idolatry and putting their faith in the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

Though Paul’s message always centered on Jesus, his presentation likely changed depending upon his audience. When preaching to Jews, Paul focused on the messianic identity of Jesus and sought to prove from the Scriptures that God has granted forgiveness because of Jesus’ death.

Paul’s Missionary Goals

What did Paul intend to accomplish through his preaching and missionary work? Schnabel looks at the pattern of Paul’s missionary journeys and concludes that Paul’s desire was to preach to Jews and Gentiles living in cities between Jerusalem, Illyricum, and Spain so that local communities of new converts would be established in these regions.

Conversion was not the only goal of Paul’s work. He clearly saw the establishment of churches as part of his missionary calling – communities where people would worship together in light of Christ’s salvation and learn together the whole counsel of God.

Schnabel also believes that Paul’s intent was for these small communities to have a missionary mindset of their own in order for individual members to share their faith with others.

Evaluating Paul the Missionary

The strength of Schnabel’s book is that he successfully distills the heartbeat of Paul’s mission work along with the theological content of his gospel proclamation. By narrowing his focus to one individual, Schnabel provides a strong biblical foundation for his own suggestions regarding missionary practice.

Without taking away from this book’s many strengths, I would like to point out a few weaknesses in Schnabel’s approach.

Lack of Kingdom

First, by focusing only on the accounts of Paul’s mission work in Acts and his letters, Schnabel sometimes separates Paul’s message from its foundational context. Nowhere is this more evident than in Schnabel’s lack of treatment of the “kingdom of God.” Schnabel recognizes that Paul used the phrase, and he admits Paul’s use indicates the concept was part of his teaching. But because “the kingdom” rarely appears in Paul’s writing, Schnabel concludes that it is not a “central category for his theology as we encounter it in his letters” (81).

Schnabel is right if he is defining “central category” in terms of “explicit topic for discussion,” but surely there is evidence that the kingdom is a “central category” in terms of foundational teaching. (We could say something similar regarding Paul’s treatment of monotheism. It may not often be explicitly discussed, but it is certainly assumed and built upon, even if not explored and defended at every turn. One would hardly say monotheism is not a “central category” for Paul’s theology.)

Furthermore, though it is true the phrase “kingdom of God” is scarcely used in Paul’s writings, the royal titles of “Christ” and “Lord” are combined with Jesus in numerous instances. One wonders how the kingdom of God is not worthy of exploration when Jesus is declared “king” over and over again in Paul’s preaching and his letters.

Resistance to Focusing on Strategies

Another weakness in Schnabel’s work is his distaste for any contemporary mission activity that focuses on “strategies” and “methods.” The explicit disavowal of contemporary strategies does not show up until the end of the book, but throughout Schnabel’s study of Paul, he reminds us often that Paul did not follow “a defined and regular plan” (37). Likewise, his missionary travels were not according to a “grand strategy” (224), even if he focused on cities so he could seek out Jews.

While Schnabel is right to remind us that “effectiveness in missionary work and in pastoral ministry does not depend on people or programs” but is the “result of God’s activity” (151), it is also true that God chooses to work through people and programs. It is undeniable that Paul’s method of preaching to Jews first and then Gentiles (not to mention his utilization of any and all venues where people would welcome his message) was a strategy that God used mightily.

Schnabel’s disregard of “strategies” and “methods” leads him to contradict himself at times. We are told that Paul did not pursue or focus on a particular ethnic group, and yet we are also told that Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles and that he began first with the Jews.

Downplaying Methods

Finally, Schnabel is right to remind us that the Spirit of God is responsible for drawing people to salvation, but at times he appears to pit the Spirit’s work against the fruitfulness of “effective missionary methods” (358). The Spirit should always get the credit, but we should not downplay the specific methods employed as the means through which the Spirit worked.

So, while on the one hand, we must heartily affirm with Schnabel that “the search for a method that will guarantee success in our attempt to convince listeners of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ is misguided” (401), we must also not despise the careful use of different tools and methods that the Spirit may use as the means to reach people.

Schnabel’s view of short-term mission trips is likewise pessimistic, pointing out the dangers (which are real) while glossing over the potential benefits. The result of Schnabel’s multiple cautions is that the reader could be less inclined to engage in cross-cultural missions and strategies.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Schnabel’s work is careful and thorough. He provides us with a terrific overview of Paul’s mission work and teaching. But readers should understand that some of Schnabel’s biases lead him to draw unwarranted implications.

I’ve begun a new series on Mondays that will focus on the church’s mission. Last week, we looked at Andreas Köstenberger and Peter O’Brien’s Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, which provides a summary of the Bible’s teaching on mission from a salvation-historical viewpoint.

Today, we’re tackling Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God, an ambitious project with an expansive missiological vision intended to transform one’s hermeneutical approach to the Scriptures.

In other words, instead of searching the Scriptures with a flashlight hoping to shine light on “mission” wherever it may be found, Wright believes mission is the flashlight that illuminates the whole Bible. Along these lines, he offers a novel way of reading the Bible, an approach that sees the mission of God as the key that “unlocks the whole grand narrative of the canon of Scripture” (17). The Bible is simultaneously a witness to and a product of the mission of God. Therefore, the text of Scripture ought to be read as having originated in issues and controversies confronted by the people of God seeking to fulfill their mission.

“The text in itself is a product of mission in action” (49).

Reading the Bible Missionally

Wright urges Christians to read the Bible as a missional text. Many believe the Bible should to be read in light of Christ’s person and work (messianically), but Wright also recommends we read the Bible in light of Christ’s mission (missionally).

“Jesus himself provided the hermeneutical coherence within which all disciples must read these texts, that is, in the light of the story that leads up to Christ (messianic reading) and the story that leads on from Christ (missional reading)” (41).

At one level, this emphasis on mission is simply another way of saying that the Bible needs to be read within the framework of its grand narrative. Wright is clear that the story of the Bible is about God, his people, and the future of the world. At another level, Wright’s proposal is fresh in that it establishes the mission of God as the hermeneutical engine that drives the grand narrative.

What is the Mission?

If mission is the key to unlocking the Bible, it is important to define what the mission is. Wright gives priority to God’s mission and then places the church’s mission within that framework:

“Fundamentally, our mission (if it is biblically informed and validated) means our committed participation as God’s people, at God’s invitation and command, in God’s own mission within the history of God’s world for the redemption of God’s creation” (23).

Since the mission of God is central, Wright warns against reducing the church’s mission to the explicit commands we find in the New Testament (such as the Great Commission). Mission imperatives divorced from their “foundational indicatives” (the truth about the world as affirmed by God’s revelation) will lead to a shrunken understanding of redemption that fails to do justice to the “comprehensive glory” we find in Scripture (61). This theme of expansive mission is one that arises often in Wright’s work, and we will evaluate it below.

The Strengths of the Grand Narrative Approach

The strength of Wright’s proposal is his focus on the grand narrative as the true story of the true God. Against the postmodern turn that deconstructs meta-narratives, Wright grounds all mission activity in the reality of the biblical God, the reality of the Bible’s overarching story, and the reality of God’s people who are called out for the sake of the nations.

Also beneficial is the way Wright ensures that the person and work of Christ is continuously connected to this mission. In Jesus we meet the one true God, have the climax of the biblical story, and become part of his people.

God’s Mission to Be Known

The mission of God is to be known. God’s desire to be known is observed most clearly in two Old Testament events: the exodus and the exile.

In both occasions, in salvation and in judgment, we see God’s passion to make himself known to the world through his interactions with his chosen people. Ultimately, both events point forward to Jesus, who will fulfill the mission of the God of Israel.

“The God of Israel, whose declared mission was to make himself known to the nations through Israel, now wills to be known to the nations through the Messiah, the one who embodies Israel in his own person and fulfills the mission of Israel to the nations” (124).

Mission in Light of Human Idolatry

Idolatry is the root sin that best corresponds with Wright’s missional understanding of the Bible. Wright sees idolatry as humanity’s rejection of the Godness of God and a failure to submit to his moral authority.

The consequences of idolatry are devastating, producing disorder in human relationships and turning upside down God’s original intention for humanity to worship him as Creator instead of worshipping creation.

The mission of God, then, in light of human idolatry and its effects, is to restore all of creation so that it will be ruled by redeemed humanity to the praise and glory of God.

“Our mission, in participation with that divine mission, and in anticipation of its final accomplishment, is to work with God in exposing the idols that continue to blur the distinction, and to liberate men and women from the destructive delusions they foster” (165).

Mission in the Old Testament

Mission in the Old Testament is launched through the calling of Abraham, whom God chose to be the channel for his blessing to flow to the nations. Abraham was called to obey God, a calling that plays an important role in our understanding of how God’s mission goes forward.

God chooses to involve people in his plan. His intention to bring blessing is not separate from human obedience in being the agent of blessing. This blessing is not only spiritual in nature, but includes all the good things that God provides for his people in this world. Wright goes so far as to recommend Christians consider the call to Abraham in Genesis 12 as the Great Commission (214).

The people of God in the Old Testament are not tasked with the centripetal mission we see in the New Testament. Still, there is an unmistakably missional orientation to their chosen status as a people, as well as their holy living.

God’s desire is to bless the world through Abraham’s descendants. He also desires that Abraham’s descendants obey God and walk in holiness. God’s choice of a particular person (Abraham) and a particular people (Israel) is the way God has chosen to accomplish his mission of restoring all creation. Particularity serves universality. Israel’s election is for God’s mission.

“In short, Israel’s identity (to be a priestly kingdom) declares a mission, and Israel’s mission demands an ethic (to be a holy nation)” (375).

Holistic Mission in the Old and New Testaments

One of the key features of Wright’s book is the push for a more holistic understanding of the church’s mission. He finds support for this view in the exodus event as a paradigm for mission.

Wright chides those who interpret the exodus merely in spiritual terms by marginalizing the political, economic, and social dimensions of the narrative. He also sees the other extreme as problematic: using the exodus to make a political statement without keeping in mind the spiritual dimension.

Wright musters additional support for a holistic view of mission by appealing to the Old Testament teaching on the year of Jubilee. He believes “the wholeness of the jubilee model” needs to inform the church’s mission so that evangelism and social ethics are done in light of our future hope (300).

“It is a distorted and surely false hermeneutic to argue that whatever the New Testament tells us about the mission of the followers of Christ cancels out what we already know about the mission of God’s people from the Old Testament” (304).

The New Testament extends deliverance to the spiritual root of our idolatry problem. It does not exchange a social message for a spiritual one.

In his reading of the New Testament, Wright again affirms holistic mission that goes beyond evangelistic proclamation. The content and scope of mission in the Bible must define the content and scope of mission for believers today. He urges Christians to take seriously the foundational elements of mission seen in the Old Testament.

“We pay no compliments to the New Testament and the new and urgent mandate of evangelistic mission it entrusts to us in the light of Christ by relegating the Old Testament and the foundations for mission that it had already laid and that Jesus emphatically endorsed. Whole Christian mission is built on the whole Christian Bible” (306).

Anticipating criticism that a holistic mission necessarily leads to a lack of focus on the cross, Wright argues the reverse – that the blood of Christ is what makes possible every dimension of the good news. Christ’s work provides grace that is big enough to restore all that has been affected by sin.

The Ultimacy of Evangelism

When it comes to evangelism, Wright shies away from the terminology of “priority” because missional engagement may not always begin with evangelism. Wright is concerned that “priority” is understood in temporal terms, and the complexities of mission needs rarely lend themselves to presentation in this way.

Instead, Wright chooses the term “ultimacy,” meaning that the ultimate purpose for all mission activity is evangelistic proclamation of the gospel.  Mission that does not include evangelism is defective, not holistic. Biblical mission must have the proclamation of the cross of Christ at the center. The cross accomplishes and fulfills the mission of God in its entirety: dealing with human sin, defeating the powers of evil, destroying death, removing the barriers between Jew and Gentile, and healing and reconciling all creation.

Concluding Thoughts

Wright’s project is certainly ambitious, and its strengths are numerous. It is helpful to read the Bible as a project of missional reflection and within the grand narrative, which focuses on Jesus Christ – the Sent One from the Father.

Still, there are weaknesses in this approach, primarily in Wright’s advocacy for holistic mission. While I agree there is more than one dimension to the mission (proclamation of the gospel through words must be accompanied by demonstration of the gospel through good deeds), the way Wright makes his case is often flat instead of textured.

In arguing for a both-and approach to applying the exodus paradigm, Wright seems to put political and social ethics on one side and spiritual needs and solutions on the other, as if they are two equally weighty things side by side. In his terminology, the spiritual need is the deeper one and the social needs are implications. He is right.

But if eternal suffering in hell is one of the motivations for evangelism, then it should follow that evangelistic outreach is of the utmost importance. Political and social activity will be of eternal significance only insofar as they demonstrate the truth of that evangelistic message.

In other words, the weight of eternal suffering ought to make ultimacy pulse with passion for proclamation and demonstration – not as if they are two equal planes that need to be kept upright (one temporal and one eternal), but in seeing everything related to mission as ultimately designed to proclaim the gospel that relieves all suffering, especially eternal hell.

Therefore, it is not enough to say that mission is deficient if it does not contain gospel proclamation. We ought instead to say that mission is non-existent if our deeds are ever disconnected from the motivation and intention of proclaiming the gospel verbally.

Up Next

Next week, we’ll be looking at a scholar who comes down differently than Wright on some of these issues - Eckhard Schnabel and his book Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods.

Last week, I introduced a new series on Monday that will focus on the church’s mission. In upcoming weeks, I will summarize three recent theologies of mission and consider the strengths and weaknesses of each approach.

Today we’re looking at Andreas Köstenberger and Peter O’Brien’s Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission, which provides a summary of the Bible’s teaching on mission from a salvation-historical viewpoint.

Salvation to the Ends of the Earth is a welcome addition to the New Studies in Biblical Theology series edited by D.A. Carson and published by IVP (UK). The strength of this series is its attempt to synthesize the various strands of biblical teaching on a given subject without losing the individual voices and emphases of the Bible’s authors. Salvation to the Ends of the Earth accomplishes this task admirably. The authors intend “to explore mission comprehensively throughout the entire sweep of biblical history…” (19) which leads them to combine a biblical-theological method with a salvation-historical approach to the books of the Bible.

What’s the strength of this method? 2 things:

• It affirms the unity of the Scriptures without denying the diversity of individual authors in their respective treatments of the subject of mission.
• There is a reciprocal element to this approach: we observe how “mission” spans the Testaments and helps us make sense of the canon, and at the same time we observe how the individual emphases of canonical authors help us make sense of “mission.”

This two-way conversation serves to strengthen and sharpen our understanding of mission in the Bible as well as our understanding of the Bible in light of God’s mission.

What’s the weakness of this approach? In seeking only to summarize and synthesize the various biblical teachings on mission, the authors must hold back from speaking too clearly or forcefully regarding current issues in the field of missiology. Because their goal is biblical synthesis, they exercise restraint in speaking to issues the Bible does not address directly.

Summarizing the Old Testament’s Teaching on Mission

Köstenberger and O’Brien begin their biblical theology of mission with the Old Testament. In the creation story, we see God as distinct from humanity, even as humanity is dependent upon him. God is the ultimate sovereign ruler over all of creation.

As the Old Testament progresses, we glimpse more attributes of this Creator God. After humanity’s plunge into darkness as a result of their rebellion against God, we see the Lord himself fulfill the role of the missionary who seeks to gather his people and display his glory. “The goal of mission is the glory of God, that he may be known and honoured for who he really is” (52).

The Creator’s rescue mission begins with his call to Abraham, whom he chooses to be the “mediator of the blessings to all peoples” (30). God’s covenant with Abraham provides the basis for the relationship between God and his people.

The rest of the Old Testament focuses on God’s dealings with Abraham’s descendants, the people of Israel. God redeems Israel for a particular purpose: to be the people through whom the promises to Abraham will ultimately come to fulfillment. In this way, God’s choice of Israel to be his people is not a contradiction of God’s universal intentions, but is an integral part of his plan (50). The response of Israel to God’s gracious choice must be to stand apart from the world and put on display the holy love of the God who has chosen and rescued them. The mission of Israel is to serve the world by being distinct from it.

Was Israel Called to be a Missionary?

Israel’s role as a light to the nations raises the question of Israel’s mission. Were the children of Israel called to be missionaries in the cross-cultural sense we often think of today? Were they called to engage in a missionary task? Did they do so?

Köstenberger and O’Brien believe the answer to this question is no. In a broad sense, there was certainly a missional orientation to their corporate life together. Their holiness and “set-apart” identity had a missionary intention behind it. But there is no indication that Judaism in the Old Testament and in the second-temple period was a missionary religion if “by ‘mission’ is meant a conscious, deliberate, extensive effort to convert non-fellow-religionists to one’s religion…” (64).

The Old Testament vision of Israel’s missional identity is centripetal, not centrifugal. The picture is one of the nations coming to Israel, not Israel going to the nations.

Called to Missional Holiness

Though Israel was not called to cross-cultural missions, there was still a missional orientation to their identity as a set-apart people for the glory of God. Yet even in this, the people failed. What God intended Israel to be was never fully realized due to Israel’s faltering obedience and outright rebellion.

To preserve the glory of his name, God sent his people into exile, but in faithfulness to his covenant promises, he preserved a remnant of the faithful.

“The nation in exile cannot live up to what it means to be ‘Israel’, so the Lord must find a ‘true and worthy Israel’” (47).

As the Old Testament draws to a close, the need for God’s deliverance becomes prominent. The prophet Isaiah indicated that the covenant made with Abraham will come to pass through the Servant of the Lord. The Old Testament concludes with the prophecies yet unfulfilled and God’s covenant promises still in the future.

Summarizing the New Testament’s Teaching on Mission

As Köstenberger and O’Brien turn their attention to the New Testament, they introduce one of the main thrusts of this book: the mission of Jesus is the most fundamental mission in Scripture, and contemporary Christians need to view their own ministries in light of Christ’s work.

This theme is clearest in their exploration of the Gospel of John, which focuses on Jesus Christ’s mission as the Sent One from the Father who is entrusted to fulfill the task that has been given him. The work of Christ is two-fold: to reveal the Father through his life and teaching and redeem the world through his sacrificial death. The Gospel of John makes explicit the connection between Christ’s mission and the disciples’ mission.

“Their relationship to their sender, Jesus, is to reflect Jesus’ relationship with his sender” (222).

Thus, Köstenberger and O’Brien recommend that the contemporary church be more conscious of its relation to Christ’s mission (224).

Mission to All Peoples

Though the early Christian mission was unique in terms of its relationship to Israel, it was not unique in terms of its relationship to Jesus. The mission is outward focused, and thus breaks with the Judaism of the day, and yet because it is grounded in the Old Testament’s promise of Gentile inclusion in the people of God, it leads the disciples to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.

The book of Acts connects the mission of the apostles (as witnesses) to the mission of Jesus (the missionary “par excellence”) who was sent because of the mission of God. Köstenberger and O’Brien underscore the fact that these are not three missions, but one.

Mission and Discipleship

The Gospel of Matthew conceives of the church’s mission in terms of discipleship, which includes “a person’s need to grow in faith” (95) as well as a global emphasis “not merely to disciple individuals, but entire nations, indeed, all nations” (105). The goal of the mission then is not merely to evangelize and make converts, but to see those converts living in obedient faith as a response to the gospel.

Obedient faith requires proclamation of the gospel, summarized in the Gospel of Luke as the message that, because Christ suffered and rose, repentance and forgiveness is available to all. The message of the missionaries centered on the good news of the kingdom and Jesus Christ the King.

The Mission of Paul

In turning to Paul’s missionary work, we see the theme of ongoing mission come through again in this book. The authors argue that Paul conceived of his work in relation to the work of Jesus. He preached the gospel, a message he spoke of as if it were a “personal, living force,” which contained inherent power to fulfill its purpose (192).

In going to the Gentiles, the Apostle Paul sought to fulfill his missionary commission of seeing people from all nations obey King Jesus and believe in his name. As he wrote to the churches he planted, he encouraged them to continue the mission of disciple-making, not in the same way he did (through apostolic ministry), but according to their personal gifts. The methods and actions may be different, but the heart to see people saved must be the same.

Concluding Thoughts

After exploring the thread of mission running through the Scriptures, Köstenberger and O’Brien offer some concluding thoughts. One of their conclusions is this:

“the divine plan of extending salvation to the ends of the earth is the major thrust of the Scriptures from beginning to end…. The Lord of the Scriptures is a missionary God who reaches out to the lost, and sends his servants, and particularly his beloved Son, to achieve his gracious purposes of salvation” (263).

As such, the mission of God revealed in the Scriptures is the most important plotline in the grand narrative.

Other conclusions include God’s sovereignty in matters of mission and salvation as well as the essential role of the church in fulfilling the mission.

“Conversion to Christ meant incorporation into a Christian community” (266).

This church-centered view of salvation is especially helpful in a society where individualism makes the church optional for a Christian. The authors understand that one of the key components of fulfilling the mission is the maturing of Christian congregations by preparing them for threats from within and without that seek to harm the witness of the body of Christ.

The value of this volume is in how the authors develop the concept of mission within the framework of the grand narrative and the individual emphases of each writer.

There is an admirable level of restraint in Köstenberger and O’Brien’s conclusions, a sign they wish to remain tethered to the Scriptures in providing general guidelines instead of specific instructions for contemporary society. Still, it would have been helpful to see a little more reflection, for example, in how the mission of Jesus is extended through the disciples.

Is the mission of Jesus only the proclamation of forgiveness? This seems to be the assumption in Köstenberger and O’Brien’s treatment of his foundational mission.

To what extent, then, do the works of Christ during his life shape our understanding of mission?

If proclamation of the gospel with the goal of making disciples is the central aspect of the church’s mission, does this imply that there are other elements to this mission?

How do we extend the mission of God in relation to his promise to restore and renew all things?

How do these concepts hang on one another?

These are questions left unaddressed by this volume. For good and for bad, they are not left unaddressed by the book we’ll be looking at next week: Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative, which seeks to establish missiology as the hermeneutical key to understanding the Scriptures.

After many years on the periphery of theological studies, the study of mission has increased in prominence and is now recognized as an important element in understanding the Scriptures, the church’s role in the world, and the world in light of the gospel.

The most intriguing element of this missiological renaissance is the disparate nature of its origins and influence. One can find various theological streams and various theologians in agreement that missiology has been an underrepresented aspect in theological discussion surrounding Scriptural interpretation.

For example, several recent commentaries on the writings of Paul put forth “mission” as the key to understanding his purpose for writing. Romans, once lauded as the epicenter of systematic theology in the New Testament, is routinely considered as a missiological treatise, with Paul’s missionary hopes at the forefront of the letter’s interpretation. (Consider William B. Barclay’s address to the Evangelical Theological Society in 1999, “Reading Romans Missiologically.)

Mission Mondays

I’ve decided to devote the next few Mondays to the subject of mission. In upcoming weeks, I will summarize three recent theologies of mission and consider the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Here’s what we’ll be looking at:

• Andreas Köstenberger and Peter O’Brien’s Salvation to the Ends of the Earth: A Biblical Theology of Mission provides a summary of the Bible’s teaching on mission from a salvation-historical viewpoint.
• Christopher Wright’s The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative takes a step further and seeks to establish missiology as the hermeneutical key to understanding the Scriptures.
• Eckhard Schnabel’s Paul the Missionary: Realities, Strategies and Methods makes an important contribution to this discussion due to the in depth treatment of Paul’s missionary thinking.

Because these books have different purposes, they cannot be evaluated simply in terms of their overall helpfulness. Instead, working from a common theme of mission, I will note the benefits and drawbacks of each book in light of their goals.

Looking forward to talking mission on Mondays!

During the first few years I spent in Romania, I kept a detailed journal. In recent months, I’ve been revisiting those notebooks, interested to see what I was doing ten, eleven, or twelve years ago on the same day.

Last week, I came across an interesting phrase. A pastor from the U.S. was visiting my university campus. We spent some time talking about ministry and the challenges of mission work. “We talked at lunch for quite awhile. It was so good to see him again. He is an inspiration…” and then came this line, “…and I always feel a bit revived after I’m with him.”

This got me thinking about friendship, and the strengthening effect of spending time with people who are life-giving. I always feel a bit revived…

This kind of feeling can only come from the person who is strong enough to give life without becoming the weaker for it. It’s the person who draws strength from strengthening others.

Sometimes, it seems like the critical person is the one who is powerful. Nagging, criticizing, constantly demonstrating their superiority… these types also exert a certain amount of control over people. But I doubt people walk away feeling “revived.” Rather, they probably feel drained. It’s life-taking not life-giving when you get an earful of everything that’s wrong with something or someone else.

I’m convinced that the stronger person, however, is the one who draws life from giving it, who is revived by reviving others, who is strengthened by strengthening others. The critical friend feels stronger by taking life from someone else. But the life-giving friend knows that true strength is demonstrated by giving life to others.

There are certainly times when friendship requires confrontation, when brotherly love requires constructive criticism. But the life-giving friend manages to offer criticism in a way that strengthens and builds up another, making sure the conversation is motivated by love and undergirded by joy.

What kind of person are you? Don’t analyze yourself; ask your friends and family members, the people who know you best.

Are you the kind of person others would talk about this way: “I always feel a bit revived after I’m with him or her.”

I don’t think I’m there yet. But one day, I hope to be.

I know firsthand the difficulty of learning a new language.

When I first moved to Romania, I spent my weekends in a village where only a handful of people spoke any English. I had a heart for the teenagers in the village, and I knew that my mission depended in great measure on my diligence and determination to speak Romanian.

Early on, I accumulated enough knowledge to think that I could understand about half of what was being said. Actually, my understanding covered about half of the general ideas of the conversation, and that was true mainly because my years of studying another Latin language (Spanish) were finally paying off.

Once, after preaching at a church, I was met at the door by one of the older ladies. I was with a translator, so I thought couldn’t mess up the conversation too badly. I had met with this lady and her husband in their home a few months before, so I asked her how her husband was doing. Tears welled up in her eyes as she told me he had passed away. But instead of understanding that she had spoken of his death, I understood that she was crying because he was near death. So, I answered back quickly that I would pray for God to do a work! The translator looked at me, stunned, and said in English, “Trevin, she said he’s dead!” Needless to say, I started being more cautious about assuming I understood.

Babeling

The difficulty of learning another language made me wonder why there are different languages anyway.

Biblically speaking, this question takes us back to the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11. There we see people uniting around a common cause – to make a great name for themselves and build a tower up to the heavens. God, however, will have no part of any empire except His own. So He comes down and confuses their languages so that they scatter across the earth.

[On a related note, isn't it fascinating to see how different languages are a result of our sin, and yet God takes even the effects of our sin and transforms them into something that will give Him praise? At the end of time, God is not going to obliterate all languages. Now He sees the diversity of languages as part of the beauty of His creation. Every tongue, tribe, and nation will praise God. The different languages won't go away. They'll all be in service to praising King Jesus. It's amazing to consider how God will transform even the effects of our sin and somehow put them in service to praising King Jesus!]

Reversal of Babel

On the Day of Pentecost, we see an initial reversal of Babel. God gives everyone understanding so that instead of God’s mighty works being proclaimed in just one language – Hebrew, for example – they can be proclaimed in many languages. O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!

This is the end of Babel and the beginning of a new humanity.

Instead of people climbing up to God, we testify that God came down to us – not in judgment, but for salvation.

Instead of people gathering in one location to make their own name great, we are now scattering all over the earth to make God’s name great.

Instead of language being a barrier to man’s mission of self-glorification, languages are now redeemed in order for the Triune God’s mission of glorifying Himself to move forward!

Pointers to Pentecost

There are pointers to Pentecost in the Old Testament that we shouldn’t miss.

• This was a celebration of harvest. The crops were ready for harvesting.
• Not only that, the Jews of this time celebrated the giving of the Law to Moses.

At Pentecost, we see the Holy Spirit harvesting hearts, coming into the fields of people’s lives and cutting them to the heart with conviction.

At Pentecost, we don’t receive a new Law on Sinai. We receive the Spirit who will write God’s Law on our hearts.

The Holy Spirit gives us power. These people were filled with the Spirit. They watched as He spoke to ordinary people in their own language.

The beauty of Pentecost is that God wants to receive glory from all kinds of people, and to that end, He ensures that His gospel will be proclaimed in all kinds of languages. It’s easy to stumble over the tribes and nations listed here. It’s a long list of obscure names. But they aren’t unknown to God. He knows every one.

He knows your nation, your city, your town, your neighborhood. The Holy Spirit knows your dialect. He speaks to ordinary people like you and me, prompting us to share our faith, reminding us of what Jesus taught us.

Babel is no match for Pentecost. The nuances of thousands of languages are not enough to capture the glorious nature of salvation through Christ.

I’m always excited to talk with others who share my passion of seeing people come to know Jesus. Today, I’m glad to welcome Carl Laferton, Senior Editor at The Good Book Company. He is the author of Promises Kept, Good Question, and Real Men, and co-author with Mark Dever of the forthcoming Loving Church. He is married to Lizzie, and they have a five-month-old baby, Ben, who mercifully is sleeping through the night!

Carl Laferton: With Christmas, the challenge is to get people to hear the actual historical narrative. Most non-Christians think they know the story – donkey, innkeeper, three kings, and it’s all cute and cuddly and non-challenging – but actually, they know a made-up nativity play that has obscured the gospel.

So the challenge is the same. We all think we know what it’s about. Familiarity can breed contempt. But the solution is also the same – simply to look again at the real events, to hold them up and marvel at them, and to see the gospel told through them. The gospel is brilliant!

I think the best books are the ones that show you the gospel from the Bible narrative and then get out of the way while the reader is blown away by it. As a believer, I need to be excited and moved by the gospel this Christmas. And I need my non-Christian friends to be told and (I pray) excited and moved by the gospel this Christmas too. So with Christmas Uncut, I was trying to do that – not to do lots of apologetics or present a set of doctrines but to tell the biblical story, show the gospel, and get out of the way!

Trevin Wax: You do it well. I love how you emphasize the Bible story and only add little comments here and there to give some explanations where necessary. Speaking of apologetics, at the end of the book, you deal with some common objections – not only to the Christmas story but also what the story represents: who Jesus is and what He has done. What are some of the common objections you hear in evangelistic conversations? 

I’ve deliberately kept them short. They’re meant to show that the Christian faith is credible, not to be the last word in apologetics (in my experience with apologetics, there is no last word!).

But I deliberately put them at the back of the book because I want people to get to grips with the story and come face to face with Jesus and start thinking: Wow, wouldn’t it be great if this were really true?

The best bit of advice anyone ever gave me about evangelistic conversations (other than “pray”!) was to talk about Jesus with people and to talk about the Gospel narratives. So in answering a question, I want to point someone to Jesus as the answer so that the conversation is centered on Jesus rather than on assent to a particular doctrine or intellectual argument about a specific issue. In Christmas Uncut, no one’s asking me a question, so I’m free to dive straight into looking at Jesus!

Trevin Wax: Do you find the same objections in the UK as we find in the US?

Carl Laferton: I’ve not spent enough time in the US to know how exactly similar you guys are, but from talking to friends, it sounds like the non-Christian cultures on either side of the Atlantic are pretty similar. But whatever the culture, I would think that Jesus is the ultimate apologetic!

Carl Laferton: I think there’s a bit of a gap at the moment, which Christmas Uncut is attempting to fill. A 16- or 24-page booklet is great in many ways (which is why The Good Book Company has produced dozens!), but it doesn’t give you space to let the narrative breathe, to lead people gently along through the story and show them the gospel. And if you give them out after a church event where the gospel’s been explained, it’s often only about the same length as the talk was!

Then there are lots of books that are minimum 150 pages and often over 200. And there are loads of people both in the UK and the US who simply don’t read books of that length, either because they weren’t brought up to or because they don’t have time to.

So I see Christmas Uncut not as a “long tract” but as a “short book.” Sixty-four pages means someone who doesn’t read much hopefully won’t think, That’s too long for me or I don’t have time for that, but it does give the reader time and space to think things through.

Trevin Wax: It seems that as Western societies have moved away from Christendom, those of us who want to evangelize suddenly realize we’ve got a lot bigger task before us. We’re not just giving the gospel but also the foundational elements of a worldview in which the gospel makes sense. Do you sense that too? If so, how do we need to rethink evangelism in light of the new reality?

Carl Laferton: The question of gospel and foundational elements is one that I am grappling with. Having been a post-Christian country for a little while now, the UK is “ahead” (not in a good way) of the US in this.

I suppose my main aim is to balance the two. In the UK, we have often focused purely on worldview and apologetics, and actually it’s the gospel that is the power for salvation (which is why a course like Christianity Explored, simply working through the Gospel of Mark, is so great).

I wonder if evangelism is most effective when our lives provide the apologetic – when someone looks at us and thinks, I would love to have their lack of fear/worry/anger and their peace/forgiveness/joy/etc. What is it that they so obviously have that I know I don’t? When that happens, we are embodying the truth that the gospel worldview “works” in reality. That’s the ground on which the gospel message takes fruitful root.

I find 1 Peter 3:15 - ”Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” – hugely challenging, not so much in the sense of saying, “Do you have your answers ready?” as saying, “Does anyone ever actually ask you what it is that makes you attractively different”?

But I know that people far more wise and godly and experienced than me are wrestling with this, and I know I need to keep thinking about how to witness to the gospel in a way that can best be heard by a non-Christian. Christmas Uncut grows out of a lot of conversations that went wrong as well as a few that – in God’s grace – went okay!

Carl Laferton: That Christians buy it, read it, and give it away. We’ve deliberately made Christmas Uncut as cheap as we can, with big discounts on bulk orders, so that churches can give it away to guests at Christmas outreach events and services and so that individual Christians can give it as an extra Christmas present.

Then, of course, my prayer is that as non-Christians read, they are so wowed by the real events and the gospel that unfolds through those events that they come to know Jesus as their personal Ruler and Rescuer. I’d love to think that in 20 years, there will be people who can’t remember the name of the book (or the author!) but who, through reading Christmas Uncut, came to know and love and live for the One that the book is pointing them to.

Many today are interested in the Holy Spirit. They may be curious about His gifts. They feel this mysterious third Member of the Trinity has been neglected. They (rightly) want to sense His presence and experience His power.

But fascination with the Holy Spirit can sometimes lead people to be interested in His powerful manifestations, as if the experience of His power were the end goal. When we look at the Holy Spirit’s work in the New Testament, however, we realize that the Holy Spirit does not just give us power; He gives us power for something.

Watch how Peter proclaims the gospel. First, he focuses on the story of Israel. Then he zeroes in on Jesus Christ and His resurrection. Finally, he exalts Him as King and Lord.

This is a message about Jesus Christ crucified and raised. But it is also a message for the people who are listening. That’s why Peter confronts his hearers: “You killed Jesus!” he says.

Still, Peter has no problem with indicting them all. Why? Because all people are guilty before God. Because in our guilt before God, we have all contributed the sins that put Jesus on the cross.

Take sides! God has vindicated Jesus Christ. The government condemned Him. The religious rulers condemned Him. They executed Him.

But God overturned their verdict, and in the moment of resurrection, the heavenly court ruled that Jesus Christ was the innocent Lamb of God sent to death for the sins of the world and now exalted as King over creation.

So which side are you on? If you persist in your sins, you are agreeing with Rome and agreeing with the Jewish leaders that Jesus was a false Messiah. But if you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you are standing with God’s affirmation. You are saying, “I stand with Jesus.” And in standing with Jesus, His verdict is yours!

The verdict of the evil one – that you are worthless, that you are helpless, that you are hopeless, that you are nothing but a hell-deserving sinner – it is overturned. The accuser’s mouth is stopped. You are vindicated along with Christ in His resurrection. His death was your death. His life was counted as your life. His resurrection is your resurrection.

Gospel Proclamation as the Evidence of the Spirit’s Work

When Peter was filled with the Spirit, he immediately began proclaiming the gospel. The Spirit’s power is mission-focused.

All this means that we are not filled with the Spirit if we are not proclaiming the gospel regularly. The Spirit indwells us and gives us power, yes. But it is power for proclamation. He is lifting up Jesus. And the more we are filled with the Spirit, the more we will lift Him up too.