A Book Review from Books At a Glance
by Jacob C. Boyd
There are several different motivations that can be identified when assessing why Christians serve as missionaries. Missionary Motivations: Challenges from the Early Church assesses the early church’s motivation to preach the gospel to help inform the modern approach to missions today. It is a historical missiological book, to help the reader understand the history of missionary work in the early church, while then also showing the theological implications to their motivations. Burden explains, “This book is an effort to ‘hear what the Spirit says to the churches’… – that is, to tune our ears to what the Holy Spirit was saying to our forerunners in their missional context, and to learn how to better undertake the works to which God calls us here and how” (xi).
This book is broken into two parts. After the introductory chapter one, where Burden introduces several theological considerations that creates the foundation of the book, he surveys the evangelistic efforts of the early church as Christianity expanded in the first several hundred years after Christ. This first part of the book seeks to answer the question, while considering different regions of the world, “What was it that motivated Christians to spread the news of their new religion beyond the safe and comfortable boundaries of their own home areas?” (15). Chapter two considers the motivations within the Roman Empire. Chapter three considers the motivations within the eastern expansion of Christianity, including places like India, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, Armenia, Georgia, etc. Chapter four considers the motivations for the southern expansion of Christianity, or rather the lack of motivation. This fourth chapter actually looks at the main research question inversely, due to the lack of missionary zeal in this region. Chapter five considers the motivations for the central Europe expansion of Christianity, looking at people groups such as the Goths, Gauls, Franks, etc. Chapter 6 considers the motivations with the northern Europe expansion of Christianity, such as Ireland, Scotland, England, etc. For the most part, the different motivations considered in this historical survey focus on theological factors such as the theology of Christus Victor, the centrality of the church, and obedience.
Part two consists of chapters seven through nine and they seek to answer the question, “What does mission look like when undertaken in the spirit of early Christianity?” (89). Chapter seven assesses the motivation of the early church based on the theology of Christ’s present reign. Chapter eight considers the theology of human identity and how Christians are individual emissaries of the King. The ninth, and final, chapter offers insights for Christians today on how to do missionary work “in the spirit of early Christianity” (113).
One of the greatest contributions of this book is the way Burden touches on a contemporary missiological debate by exploring the history of early missionary work. Today there is more literature being published on the importance of the church in the missionary effort. Burden introduces this theological conviction as he highlights the emphasis the early church had on the reign of Christ. He explains, “Christians believed that their community – the church, represented in thousands of local instantiations – was the embassy of the Messiah’s heavenly reign” (7). It is through the local churches around the world, acting as embassies for the kingdom of God, that the kingdom of God is expanded to the ends of the world in a literal and visible way.
While this emphasis is found throughout the book, he dedicates chapter seven to further unpack this motivation of the early church. According to Burden, bringing forth communities of faith over and beyond individual conversions was the main motivation. “The goal was not to so much to save individuals as to establish new local churches or monastic communities” (90). While Burden recognizes that establishing new local churches and saving individuals are not mutually exclusive, he does come close to suggesting that they are. He explains that even though this distinction may not seem to be that great, between Christian communities and individual conversions, he explains, “the distinction runs deeper than it appears at first glance” (90). The reason it runs deeper is because it is the community that “constitutes a new incarnation of the reality of the reign of Christ” (90).
Burden sets himself up well to softly and appropriately suggest that the end of missions ought to be visible – in the establishment of local churches. He humbly suggests, “To do mission in the spirit of early Christianity, the establishment of worshiping communities should be in the forefront, not only because of what churches can do, but simply because of what churches are (120). Local churches ought to be the goal of missions, not because it is a practical method to do missionary work, but because local churches are symbols or signs of the kingdom of God here on earth, “which bind heaven and earth together in the work of God and the fulfillment of Scripture” (120). According to Burden, the early church’s missionary efforts were highly motivated by their high view of the church; and therefore, so should our missionary efforts.
Besides the ecclesiological emphasis on the early church’s motivation for missionary work, Burden also identifies several others such as holiness, the imitation of Christ, the meaning of worship, etc. In summary, Burden concludes, “Adding the insights of the early Christian period to the wisdom of our own missiology will strengthen the whole and will ready the church for the day when the kingdom comes in all its fulness, and the earth will be full of the knowledge of the glory of the Lord” (125).
Missionary Motivations: Challenges from the Early Church is a helpful resource for anyone who is interested in the history of early missions and desires modern day application.
Jacob C. Boyd
First Baptist Church of Springfield