The Bible Says
Reading Scripture as Participants in the Mission of God
When the great twentieth-century theologian Karl Barth was asked to sum up his life’s work, he reportedly replied, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”1 This is a moving statement for those of us who feel the biblical narrative communicates the essential truth about God to all who read it with open hearts. Yet, the Bible tells us many things, and Barth’s sprawling theological opus is evidence enough that saying more is useful for clarifying what the Bible means. The truth about the love of God in Christ may be inescapable for those whose reading the Holy Spirit guides, but the church in every age has been left with many questions about what else the Bible says to us, today, in our circumstances.
So how do we decide the meaning of what the Bible says? Whether the challenge is historical distance, cultural difference, canonical diversity, or theological dissonance, what the Bible says is subject to interpretation. For the church, the people constituted by participation in God’s ongoing mission in the world, interpreting what the Bible says requires attention to what God is doing in our midst. In other words, the convergence of what the Bible says and what God is saying compels the church to read Scripture as conscientious participants in what God is doing.
Interpreting the Bible as participants in God’s mission entails three commitments: (1) receiving Scripture in relation to the active word of God, (2) reading Scripture in view of God’s purposes, and (3) enacting Scripture in keeping with God’s work in our contexts. Accordingly, what the Bible says may become what God means for us to be and do.
The Active Word of God
First, how do we hear what the Bible says? The theological key to answering this question is the church’s confession that the living God actively speaks. We receive Scripture in relationship with God. This relationship entails a prayerful, worshipful, obedient posture that opens the church to God’s word mediated through our reading of the Bible.
From this perspective, it is important not to reduce the word of God to the Bible. The author of Hebrews beautifully writes, “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Heb 4:12).2 This claim, of course, does not refer to the Bible, which had not yet been fully written, much less canonized. Rather, it reflects the writer’s faith in the living and active God who speaks in many ways, supremely through Christ (Heb 1:1–2). When it comes to hearing the word of God through Scripture, the vital issue is how the church’s involvement in the living God’s redemptive action shapes our interpretation of the Bible. Three movements characterize this formative engagement: vocation, application, and imagination.
Vocation. The Triune God calls the church to participate in the redemptive actions of Father, Son, and Spirit—the missio Dei (mission of God). “As you sent me into the world,” prays Jesus, “so I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). John earlier identifies Jesus as the Word, who is God (John 1:1) and who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The Spirit of Truth guides the church (John 15:26; 16:13) to participate in the mystery of the triune love that emanates in the sending of the Word (John 17:14–23). This vocation is the beginning of missional interpretation. But the church is free to respond, free to engage with the living and active word of God. Vocation, therefore, must be met with dedication to mission if it is to shape our hearing of the word of God through the Bible.
Application. What we do with the Bible practically is often called “application.” But this is a tricky word. Apply generally means something like “have relevance” (Does it apply?) or “put to use” (How should we apply it?). For many Christians, it means reducing every biblical text to a command or principle that can be “applied” to one’s “personal life.” Certainly, questioning Scripture’s relevance and use is integral to interpretation; Paul, for one, is concerned with its proper use (see 1 Tim 1:8; 2 Tim 2:15; 3:16). From a missional perspective, application requires careful attention to both the cultural and situational dynamics at work in the biblical texts and the cultural and situational dynamics at work in the local interpretive context. What is more, it requires participation in God’s mission in order to discern fitting applications. Far from a reductive exercise in personal appropriation, application is an ongoing practice of communal discernment in light of God’s work in the world through the church. Application, therefore, involves the challenging process of contextualization in mission.
Imagination. The results of missional interpretation are deeper than the mere determination of right practice. Reading the Bible as participants in God’s mission transforms the hearts and minds of God’s people. Such interpretation is an instrument of the Holy Spirit to form eyes that see and ears that hear. The consequence is a missional imagination—the capacity to envision the world according to God’s purposes. For some, imagination is a frivolous thing, subjective and insubstantial. On the contrary, it is the expression of human worldviews, which are the bases for comprehending God’s work. Accordingly, Paul writes, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen” (Eph 3:20–21). The fact that God’s work exceeds our imaginations is an invitation to interpret Scripture with faith and hope. In this sense, the church reads the Bible expecting transformation through mission, not only of the world but of ourselves.
Together, dedication to mission, contextualization in mission, and transformation through mission enable the church to hear what the Bible says. Vocation, application, and imagination represent interpretive capacities grounded in faithful participation in the ongoing activity of the word of God revealed ultimately in the incarnate Word according to the guidance of the Spirit of Truth. Receiving Scripture in relation to the active word of God is a function of the purposeful exercise of these capacities.
The Ongoing Story of God’s Purposes
Second, how does God’s mission shape our understanding of what the Bible says? Three sources of understanding meet in the missional interpretation of Scripture: text, church, and world. The theological priority of God’s mission guides this engagement. Consequently, the church interprets the Bible, itself, and its context according to the revelation of God’s purposes in Christ.
The mutual relationships between text, church, and world are vital; isolating any one is detrimental to biblical interpretation. The attempt to understand the text of Scripture apart from the church’s relationship to God’s mission and the realities of the world’s plight results in deadly abstraction. The attempt to be the church apart from the revelation of God’s purposes and a redemptive relationship with the world results in a self-centered ecclesiology. The attempt to analyze the world apart from the story of God’s mission and the church’s vocation results in impotent speculation.
Faithful interpretation of Scripture is aimed at being the body of Christ in the world according to God’s purposes.
Thus, the theological guidance of God’s mission is essential. Without it, the canon dissolves into fragmented bits of religious experience, the church wanders selfishly toward personal salvation, and the world wallows in irreconcilable difference.
Text: The story of God’s mission. The Bible bears witness to the story of God’s redemptive purposes. From creation to new creation, the canon of Scripture reveals the God whose triune mission reaches its climax in Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, the Son of God. The church rightly reads every passage of Scripture in light of the revelation of Christ’s mission to redeem all nations and all creation.
Church: The instrument of God’s mission. God is at work in the world in many ways, before and beyond the church. But God’s people are called to participate in this work. As the body of Christ, the church embodies the transformative grace that sets the world right through the power of the Holy Spirit. For biblical interpretation, the result is virtuous reading—the eyes of faith, hope, and love that can perceive what the text means for God’s work in local contexts.
World: The realm of God’s mission. God’s redemptive purposes are directed toward the good creation that lives in sinful rebellion and its consequent subjugation to corruption. At the same time, the cultural diversity of the world is a manifestation of God’s creative goodness. The good news of the kingdom of God responds to both the world’s brokenness and the world’s manifold goodness, and the church reads the Bible faithfully in relation to these realities.
God’s mission is the theological linchpin of faithful biblical interpretation. It holds together our understanding of text, church, and world in a cohesive, ongoing story of redemption. Maintaining these relationships theologically enables the church to read Scripture in view of God’s purposes for the world.
The Practices of Participatory Reading
Third, how does the missional church embody what the Bible says? The word embody captures the essence of missional interpretation more than others, like understand or obey. Understanding and obedience are indispensable, of course, but they must be embodied in the life of the church caught up in God’s mission. Faithful interpretation of Scripture is aimed at being the body of Christ in the world according to God’s purposes.
But what exactly does the language of embodiment signify here? The essential issue is how the church’s bodily engagement with God’s work in others reshapes our reading of Scripture. In this sense, embodiment deals with the hermeneutical consequences of interacting as bodies with bodies in the real world—bodies that suffer poverty, subjugation, sickness, and death. The church, therefore, reads the Bible aright in light of solidary relationships with human beings whose bodies constitute the world of meaning in which interpretation happens. In short, we read Scripture not as disembodied minds but as bodily selves whose stories are intelligible and transformable through the realities of human existence.
The incarnation of the Word is the ultimate affirmation of human embodiment and the theological North Star of missional engagement with the other: to be sent as Jesus was sent is to be sent in the flesh. For missional hermeneutics, this means that enacting the story of God’s mission as signs and instruments of God’s purposes in the world entails practices of interpretation that embody Scripture. At least four reading practices serve the embodiment of Scripture in the life of the church: reading on purpose, in place, with others, and after participation.
Reading on purpose. The church interprets the Bible for the sake of understanding what God is doing through our embodied witness. How the story of God’s mission unfolds in our midst varies from context to context. Thus, the missional church reads the Bible with an interest in discerning what God is up to here and now. Because we interpret Scripture in order to understand God’s ongoing mission, missional reading is purposive.
Reading in place. The church interprets the Bible with careful attention to our context. Our socio-cultural realities shape the church’s embodiment of God’s purposes. Thus, the missional church reads the Bible with an interest in discerning what participation in God’s mission looks like among our particular neighbors. Because we interpret Scripture in order to understand how Jesus would incarnate the gospel in our context, missional reading is contextual.
Reading with others. The church interprets the Bible in relationships born of embodied participation in God’s mission. The limitations of the church’s understanding of God’s work invite us to let these relationships shape our interpretation. Thus, the missional church reads the Bible with an interest in discerning what other’s perceptions of God and world can teach us. Because we interpret Scripture in order to understand the insights of our neighbors, missional reading is solidary.
Reading after participation. The church interprets the Bible in light of the experience of mission. Engagement with God’s work in the world transforms the church’s embodied perceptions of God’s purposes. Thus, the missional church reads the Bible with an interest in discerning how participation in mission has given us eyes to see and ears to hear. Because we interpret Scripture in order to understand the meaning of our experience of God’s mission, missional reading is reflective.
Reading on purpose, in place, with others, and after participation is a comprehensive set of practices that serves the church’s enacting of Scripture in keeping with God’s work through us in contextual relationships. The embodiment of Scripture calls for intentional reading practices; missional interpretation does not happen on accident. Practically, then, missional interpretation of the Bible is purposive, contextual, solidary, and reflective.
Vocation, application, and imagination designate the capacities through which the church receives Scripture in relation to the active word of God. Text, church, and world designate the relationships through which the church reads Scripture in view of God’s purposes. Purpose, place, others, and participation designate the practices through which the church enacts Scripture in keeping with God’s work in our contexts. Through missional interpretation, what the Bible says becomes what the Bible means for us, the church called bodily into what God is doing in our midst.
Greg McKinzie (PhD in Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary) is the missions minister at Stones River Church of Christ (Murfreesboro, TN), where he spends much of his time with homeless and recently incarcerated neighbors. He is also an affiliate assistant professor at Fuller and formerly served as a cross-cultural missionary (Arequipa, Peru). He writes and podcasts regularly on theology, discipleship, mission, and culture at www.theologyontheway.com.
Roger E. Olson, “Did Karl Barth Really Say ‘Jesus Loves Me, This I Know….?,’” Patheos, January 24, 2013, available at https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/01/did-karl-barth-really-say-jesus-loves-me-this-i-know/ (last accessed Thursday, September 28, 2023).
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.