B003TFE8L0 EBOK by Wright Christopher J. H

Author:Wright, Christopher J. H. [Wright, Christopher J. H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ah, at last, witness! Yes indeed. For, as we pointed out in the last chapter, those who know God are required to make God known. And that requires the medium of words as well as deeds. There are things to be said; there are stories to be told; there are affirmations and truth claims, warnings and challenges, announcements and appeals.

And so we come in this chapter and the next one to consider this verbal dimension of the mission of God’s people. We will do so by considering two major terms that the Bible uses for such word-focused mission: bearing witness (ch. 10) and announcing good news (ch. 11). And as before, we will launch our study from careful examination of Old Testament texts that have major echoes in the New.

“We’re not all called to be evangelists, but we are all called to be witnesses.” That’s something I heard often as a young Christian. The point of it was that although some Christians are specially gifted for evangelistic ministry, not all are (as Paul says in Eph. 4:11, and by implication, 1 Cor. 12:29 – 30). However, even those of us who are not called to be evangelists are all called to be faithful witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ and to be willing to speak up for him when opportunities arise.

The instructions of Jesus to his disciples on the Mount of Ascension provided initial support for this understanding: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Like its companion verse in Luke 24:48, this probably refers primarily to the special place of the original disciples/apostles as eyewitnesses of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus himself.1

However, I was taught (rightly I think) that even though the apostolic witness had a unique function in authenticating New Testament Christianity, witnessing to Christ was something that went beyond the apostles. All following generations of believers were enlisted in the ongoing task of bearing witness to the same Lord Jesus Christ, in whom they had come to believe through the apostolic witness. We would have quoted 2 Timothy 1:8 to support that, and of course (being well-taught youngsters) we knew that the word for “martyrs” in Revelation is the same as “witnesses” (so it might get a bit rough).

What I didn’t learn in those young days was the connection (which I believe was intentional) between the words of Jesus to his disciples on both occasions in Luke 24 and Acts 1 and the words of YHWH to Israel in the book of Isaiah (Isa. 43:10, 12; 44:8). But doing biblical theology for life enables us to spot that connection immediately and draw out its implications for our witnessing mission. For after all, what else was Jesus doing according to Luke (Luke 24:27, 45 – 47) but biblical theology for life – the ongoing life of his disciples for all generations to come?

Let’s take our minds back, then, from the resurrection

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