Another school year has begun at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. One of the surprising elements of this semester has been my Mission’s class. One of our many assignments is Bosch’s classic on Missiology. Bosch may come to unique conclusions, but his conclusions are well worth studying. One of the central themes of Bosch is that the Missio Dei is rooted in the person of God. In other words, Missions is an ontological concept. It is a triune effort to bring the message of God to the nations. Unlike the popular truncated notion that missions serve merely as a tool to save sinners from God’s wrath, Bosch and others argue that it encompasses much more than the spiritual dimension. God is indeed concerned about the redemption of the cosmos.
The general tendency of the church has been to compartmentalize the work of missions to a mere category of the church (side by side with youth ministry, catechism class, etc,). Nevertheless, missions is not an aspect of the church, it is the overarching goal of the church.
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