A lively exchange about neo-Calvinism has been taking place between Graham Ware and Andrew Vis, with Gideon Strauss (of course) putting in his two cents. One of the issues is the relationship between the cultural mandate in Genesis 1:28 ff and the great commission in Matthew 28:18-20. There is a tendency in some circles to play the two off against each other.
A good antidote to this thinking can be found in Paul Marshall, Heaven Is Not My Home: Living in the Now of God's Creation. Marshall emphasizes that the great commission actually reinforces the cultural mandate:
We can be sure of this commission's success, because Jesus tells us he has authority not only in heaven but on earth as well. And because Jesus has authority over the nations, then the disciples are called to teach the nations to observer all he has commanded. The Great Commission itself includes our tasks in the world. The Great Commission is a calling creation-wide and creation-deep: it calls the nations to obey God.
When men and women turn to Jesus Christ in real, concrete repentance from sin and, by grace through faith, are restored in God's favor, they are called to begin to live out the healing and restoration of Christ's redemption, taking up their Christian responsibility for the direction of human life and culture. Evangelism is, in a way, the recruiting process for this life whereby people are called out for service to God's kingdom. Evangelism calls people to repentance and to love for God. We are called to a new life of service to our neighbors. This is the Christian life (pp. 209-210).
To those who would argue that the cultural mandate somehow detracts from the importance of the great commission, Marshall cogently argues:
Sometimes it seems that our evangelism is about calling people to join an army that consists of nothing but recruiting officers -- people who call other people to join the army. But people should be recruited into the army that is the Church in order to carry out a task beyond mere recruitment (p. 208).
We are, in other words, calling people to membership in a kingdom where there are flesh and blood people living out redeemed lives in ordinary and extraordinary ways. They are engaged in the tasks of farming, manufacturing, trading, rearing children, teaching, learning, writing and reading books, composing and singing music, running foot races and, yes, preaching and hearing the word of God. The kingdom of God consists of life lived in all its fulness in conformity with God's law.
The great commission calls the nations to obedience -- obedience to the cultural mandate given by God at the beginning of creation.
No comments:
Post a Comment