SCM Studyguide: Christian Mission. Stephen Spencer

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СКАЧАТЬ saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the gospel.’ (Mark 1.14–15)

      Jesus’ words make clear that the subject of his ministry is not to be his own rise to power or glorification; he is not launching a campaign centred on himself and his own authority. Instead he is launching a campaign about something much wider and bigger – a new reality that is beginning to break into the life of the world, namely the coming of the kingdom of God. Jesus points away from himself to this overarching reality. All that he says and does is not an end in itself but a pointer or sign to what God is doing universally. He is taking up the role of a herald, one who goes around announcing a forthcoming event. One commentator expresses all this in the following way:

      Everything that Jesus says and does is inspired from beginning to end by his personal commitment to the coming Reign of God into the world. The controlling horizon of the mission and ministry of Jesus is the Kingdom of God. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus derive their meaning from the announcement of the Kingdom of God. (Knitter 1996, p. 89)

      But he is not just announcing something. He also calls for a personal response among his listeners: they are to ‘repent and believe’. He calls on the people to change the direction of their lives, as John the Baptist had been doing, and prepare for the coming of the kingdom. So he is combining a ‘macro’ dimension, of announcing God’s will and purpose for the nation and the world, with a ‘micro’ dimension, of calling for a change of consciousness and outlook in people’s own hearts and lives.

      How can this dynamic and complex interaction be characterized as a whole? What kind of role was he expressing? Was he primarily a rabbi figure, teaching a new kind of wisdom, or a political figure, canvassing for a change in government, or a healer and exorcist, bringing healing to individual people’s lives? The figures in the Old Testament who both announced God’s forthcoming purposes for the people and called on them to respond in their hearts were, of course, the prophets. They also combined a ‘macro’ dimension, of announcing God’s will and purpose for the nation and the world, with a ‘micro’ dimension, of calling for a change of consciousness and outlook within the lives and hearts of their listeners. Walter Brueggemann’s famous definition of prophetic ministry, based on his own extensive studies of Old Testament prophecy, expresses this well:

      The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us . . . [it] serves to criticize in dismantling the dominant consciousness . . . [and it] serves to energize persons and communities by its promise of another time and situation toward which the community of faith may move. (Brueggemann 2001, p. 3)

      Jesus, it seems clear from the first chapter of Mark, was taking up this type of role: his ministry was to be a prophetic one.

      Other Gospels and commentators

      Many passages from the Gospels confirm this by making clear how his contemporaries saw him as a prophet: Matt. 16.14 / Mark 8.28 / Luke 9.19; Luke 9.7. See also Mark 6.15; Matt. 21.11; Luke 7.16; 24.19. Jesus describes himself as a prophet in Mark 6.4; Luke 4.24; 13.33. The Fourth Gospel also uses this term to describe Jesus in 4.19; 6.14; 7.40; 9.17. Peter and Stephen refer to Jesus as a prophet in Acts 3.22; 7.37.

      Matthew’s Gospel summarizes Jesus’ ministry in a similar way: ‘And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people’ (4.23; see also 9.35). And in Matthew’s Gospel the disciples are also given, as their first priority, the task of seeking the kingdom (6.33), and proclaiming it and working for it (10.7–8).

      Luke also emphasizes the kingdom of God as central in the proclamation of Jesus (see 4.43; 8.1; 9.11). In the important opening scene of Jesus’ Galilean ministry in Nazareth, as Graham Stanton points out, Luke’s presentation stresses how the coming of Jesus marked the fulfilment of the promises of Isaiah 61.1–2. Even though ‘the word “kingdom” is not used . . . many of the main points of this passage are related to “kingdom” sayings which Luke includes elsewhere’ (Stanton 1989, pp. 189–90).

      Hooker, in The Signs of a Prophet: The Prophetic Actions of Jesus (1997) shows that the symbolic actions were an integral part of Jesus’ identity as a prophet. For the vast majority of times that he was called a prophet – Mark 6.4, 15 and parallels; 8.28 and parallels; Matt. 21.11; Luke 4.24; 7.16 and 24.19; John 6.14 and 9.17 – refer to or are juxtaposed with accounts of what Jesus did. Jesus was regarded as a prophet, not simply because he spoke like a prophet, but because he acted like a prophet (Hooker 1997, p. 16).

      Other recent scholarship has supported this view of Jesus (see Powell 1999, for an informative introduction to the whole field). One example is the historian E. P. Sanders, who concludes his penetrating study of the Gospel evidence by describing Jesus as a prophet of the end-time:

      Jesus saw himself as God’s last messenger before the establishment of the kingdom. He looked for a new order, created by a mighty act of God. In the new order the twelve tribes would be reassembled, there would be a new temple, force of arms would not be needed, divorce would be neither necessary nor permitted, outcasts – even the wicked – would have a place, and Jesus and his disciples - the poor, the meek, and lowly – would have the leading role. (Sanders, quoted in Powell 1999, p. 123)

      Another well-known example is N. T. Wright (1996), who surveys the historical evidence surrounding Jesus’ ministry and draws the following conclusions:

      How then was Jesus perceived by the villagers who saw and heard him? All the evidence so far displayed suggests that he was perceived as a prophet. His speech and action evoked, even while they went beyond, contemporary pictures of prophetic activity. Furthermore we must conclude that Jesus was conscious of a vocation to be a prophet . . . it is possible to explain a good deal of his career, not least its dramatic conclusion, from this basis. (Wright 1996, pp. 196–7)

      Wright also shows how Jesus’ messiahship and his message about the inauguration of the kingdom of God were part of this prophetic vocation:

      Jesus saw himself as a prophet announcing and inaugurating the kingdom of YHWH; he believed himself to be Israel’s true Messiah; he believed that the kingdom would be brought about by means of his own death at the hands of the pagans. (1996, p. 612)

      This conclusion is important for our purposes because it allows us to clarify the type of role Jesus called his followers to continue after the resurrection. It is, as argued, the role of a prophet, one who ‘forth tells’ God’s purposes for the world in word and action and who calls on people to respond in their hearts and lives. This is not to deny that he was also Messiah and Son of God but these were not roles that could be passed on to the disciples: they describe what was unique about Jesus, rather than what was transferable to others. A different title, the one most commonly used by others of him in his own day and the one scholarship today uses to sum up the generic character of what he was doing, is that of prophet. If we are to characterize the kind of ministry Jesus lived and bequeathed to his followers, it is that of prophecy.

      Mission principles

      Mark 1.14–45 also reveals a number of other practical principles within Jesus’ Galilean ministry:

      1. His mission arises out of the 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, which was a time of listening to the silence, to his own thought and temptations, to Scripture and to his Father. He returns to such places at various subsequent points (e.g. 1.35). Also it is noticeable how, more often than not, he listens to those who come to him with their needs and requests and pays close attention to what they say (e.g. 1.30–1). Contemplative listening therefore frames the action of his ministry and is a key part of all that follows.

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