Christopher Wright’s purpose in writing The Great Story and the Great Commission is to “enrich readers’ appreciation of the great narrative drama of the Bible and help both individual believers and churches to integrate every dimension of our missional life and witness around the centrality of the biblical gospel” (p. x). Readers familiar with Wright will recognize themes from his more extensive work, The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2006).

In the first of three foundational chapters, Wright summarizes the missional hermeneutic of Scripture. He argues that the Bible must shape and direct our participation in God’s mission. In chapter 2, Wright shows how the Scripture’s various parts tell a single story by outlining the biblical narrative, a “drama in seven acts” (p. 15). Chapter 3 describes how a missional hermeneutic directs our participation in the drama by telling us where we fit in God’s mission, challenging us on how to live, governing our doctrinal constructions, and sending us out as participants.

In chapter 4, Wright first summarizes the church’s mission by focusing on the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18–20) as programmatic. He identifies the following three dimensions of missions from this text: building the church (evangelism and teaching), serving society (compassion and justice), and caring for creation. Chapters 5–8 expand on these and how they relate to the Great Commission.

Chapter 5 is about building the church through evangelism and teaching; the connection to Matthew 28 is explicit. Chapter 6 on serving society (compassion and justice) emphasizes Jesus’s words, “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (v. 20). Then, based on Jesus’s declaration of his Lordship over heaven and earth (v. 18), Wright describes the goodness and glory of creation (ch. 7), the place of creation in God’s redemptive purpose (ch. 8), and the resulting missional demands the Scriptures place upon the church to care for creation.

Wright concludes in chapter 9 by emphasizing that the whole mission belongs to the whole church. Everyone can’t do everything, but everyone can do something. All should be prepared to share their faith and teach others; some are specifically gifted as evangelists and teachers. All should be ready to do good, show compassion, and speak up for what is right; some have the calling and training to pursue these things professionally. All should live responsibly in their use of and care for creation; some have the calling and training to pursue these things vocationally (pp. 148–49).

There is much to appreciate in this book. Wright emphasizes a theocentric view of missions by reminding readers that the mission is God’s, the story is God’s, the gospel is God’s, the Great Commission is God’s, the creation is God’s, and the glory is God’s. He provides the big picture with the missional hermeneutic and biblical narrative, then “zooms in” to the Great Commission before “zooming out” to show how the different dimensions of mission nestled in the Great Commission are reflected throughout the biblical narrative.

Advocates of both sides of the Prioritism-Holism debate might feel challenged by this book. Wright advocates for holistic missions by articulating how compassion, justice, and creation care are legitimate and indispensable dimensions of Christian missions alongside evangelism and teaching. Yet, he insists, the gospel must be the nonnegotiable center of all, not in a way that makes these “other things” peripheral, but in a way that holds everything together, like the hub of a wheel. This is a helpful analogy because it does not legitimize other dimensions of missions at the expense of the centrality of the gospel.

Wright’s view of missions may be broader than others’, but he does not advocate an “everything is missions” approach. Instead, he challenges the church to recognize it exists for God’s mission. God is working to rid his creation of evil and redeem for himself a people from every tribe and nation (p. xiii) who know, love, praise, and worship him (p. 74). Therefore, God’s people seek to align everything they do with his mission, and do everything for his glory (p. 144).

Wright’s commitment to the Scriptures, the gospel, the Great Commission, and its implications is clear and emphatic throughout the book. His arguments are biblical, balanced, helpful, and compelling. True, Wright gives significant attention and space to creation care, but it seems necessary to make his point, especially to those hesitant to embrace creation care as missional. Even so, his emphasis remains rooted in a “biblical theology of creation” rather than the current cultural and political arguments regarding ecology and creation care (pp. xiv, 110).

Readers will likely feel the need to discern where to focus. The biblical mandate for evangelism and discipleship is explicitly church-centered, and resources (gifts) for the missionary task are given explicitly to the church. Compassion and justice are clear implications of the gospel; the mandate for creation care, while legitimate, is less explicit. Keeping the gospel central is a challenge while also seeking to steward creation and live out the implications of the gospel.

This book is a concise, accessible, and engaging summary of how the Great Commission relates to the larger biblical narrative and to the mission of God to redeem his creation. Anyone interested in any dimension of missions will be encouraged and challenged by reading it.