A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by A. C. Carter
Christianity has always been a spreading faith. The New Testament book of Acts chronicles early Christians going from one place to another to preach the gospel, make disciples, and reproduce churches in every city and town in the then-known world. Over the centuries, this practice became known as “missions” which derives from the Latin term for “sending.” Numerous volumes have been written on missions history, theology, and strategy, but Justin Schell gives a concise summary of a whole-Bible view of missions with his new book, The Mission of God and the Witness of the Church (Crossway, 2024).
Schell is not the first to attempt this; readers familiar with the field of missiology will likely be acquainted with Christopher J. H. Wright’s book, The Mission of God, or David J. Bosch’s seminal work, Transforming Mission. These books have been the standard-bearers for a biblical theology of mission for many years. Judging based on size and scope, Schell does not seek to unseat them as chair texts in missiological literature. Rather, Schell offers a course correction to the common view in contemporary missiology that mission is an attribute of God for which He creates a people. Instead, Schell argues that mission is “God’s revelatory work intended to establish a divine-human communion within creation” (p. 2). This frames mission within the broader context of God’s purpose for covenant union with His people.
For many years, evangelicals have been admonished to live “on mission,” “join God’s mission,” or to go on a “mission(s) trip.” In this way, mission has become at the same time universal, but vague. Schell quotes Wright saying, “It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, but that God has a church for his mission in the world. Mission was not made for the church; the church was made for mission” (p. 5). Schell intends to invert Wright’s statement. Schell’s view is that God’s purpose is to establish a relationship with humanity; as such, the mission is given to the church rather than the church being created for the mission (p. 5). Schell demonstrates this by detailing the covenant purpose of God from beginning to end of scripture, highlighting the revelatory nature of mission through the biblical storyline.
Schell thoroughly demonstrates the nature of mission in scripture, as well as the product of mission when done biblically. By focusing on these elements, his understanding of mission does not change through the biblical story. The nature of mission from Eden to eternity is the revelation of God to humanity; the product of faithful mission is restored communion between God and humanity. Even creation itself, Schell argues, exists so people could be in relationship with God (p. 30). Schell shows that there is great continuity of God’s singular plan for humanity between the Testaments. By highlighting typologies such as the Exodus (p. 45) and the Temple (p. 63), he shows that God’s plan from the beginning has been to reveal Himself most clearly in the antitype fulfillment of these OT shadows (p. 72).
But Schell is also quick to point out the discontinuity between the Testaments that arises in the execution of the mission. No longer are God’s people congregating in one central location waiting for the nations to stream to them. Rather, they are commissioned to go make disciples of all the nations of the earth (p. 75), serving as an international witnessing community to the gospel of Christ (p. 93). This mission will continue until Christ returns because “the church’s mission is primarily one of verbal witness … we are sent out into the world to plead with people to be reconciled to God” (p. 107).
Given that this book is part of Crossway’s Short Studies in Biblical Theology series, Schell does a masterful job of condensing a biblical theology of mission into 108 pages; however, the Christocentrism and elevated ecclesiology of this work left me wanting it to be more robust. The ways in which Schell identifies areas of continuity and discontinuity seem to align closely with the hermeneutical framework of Progressive Covenantalism as outlined in Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum’s Kingdom through Covenant. Surprisingly, Schell never references KTC, nor other major works by Gentry or Wellum. He references Covenant and Dispensational perspectives, as well as Presbyterian and Baptist scholars. Developing a biblical theology of mission while tip-toeing this fine line could benefit from a foundation in a thoroughly developed framework like KTC.
I found myself tremendously encouraged by this work! Much of my doctoral research has been in the areas of ecclesiology, the hermeneutics of covenants, and global missions. Having sympathies with some of Schell’s grievances about the contemporary landscape of missiology, this book seemed appealing for its theological method. I found it to be a fire hydrant of biblical theology with more richness on each page than I could absorb in one reading! Schell rightly returns missiology to a sub-discipline of ecclesiology by demonstrating mission is a function of the church for the purpose of fulfilling its commission to make disciples of all nations. His book will be a great blessing to pastors, scholars, and field workers all working together faithfully to make disciples of all nations until Christ returns.
A. C. Carter