Biblical Studies and Mission Studies :
Can there be a Dialogue of Disciplines?

John Roxborogh, ANZABS Conference, 4-5 December 2001

What do Biblical Studies and Mission Studies have to learn from each other? It seems easier to believe that it must be a great deal than to trace a history of particularly satisfactory dialogue of disciplines. This seminar invites discussion from practitioners of Biblical Studies as to how they regard practitioners of Mission Studies as clients of their scholarship, colleagues in theological education and writing, and as sources of questions and hermeneutical keys. A discussion of some analyses of the Old Testament (presented at the ANZAMS II Conference in Christchurch, 29 November) is included by way of example of the pitfalls and possibilities.

Christian views about the witness of the Hebrew Bible to the intentions of Yahweh for all peoples, and the role of the people of Israel in relation to those intentions, are not surprisingly shaped by the assumptions and concerns of debates within the Christian community. What is meant by the idea of “mission” also affects what we look for and what we find. Theologies of Scripture, and assumptions about the role of the Great Commission in the purposes of God, encourage readings that emphasize consistency and uniformity with little reference to context or development through time. A radical sense of discontinuity between the testaments can devalue evidence of missionary responsibility. Contemporary attitudes towards active and passive forms of evangelism look for support here as elsewhere.

While we cannot but approach any text with assumptions and questions, one would like to think that it would be possible to allow the text to challenge the interpreter more than lend support to externally formulated views. This paper surveys ways in which the Old Testament has been interpreted in select missiological writing, and invites discussion as to where we might go from here - particularly if missiology and ethics were to become serious partners in the hermeneutical task.

John Roxborogh

Biblical Studies and Mission Studies

In 1995 the American Society of Missiology used its annual meeting to invite consultation from what it referred to as “cognate disciplines” including biblical studies. Marion Soards from Louisville Presbyterian who presented this paper concentrated on the New Testament and noted ways in which “ biblical scholars have moved into a fresh complex era of interpretation.”[1] He discussed changes in relation understanding of first century Judaism, Jesus, and Paul. He also indicated that he considered mission studies to be of relevance for his own discipline. How, precisely, was less clear. Were they readers with a different set of questions? Did they have cultural experiences that might enable them to understand some issues that other scholars missed?

 In the other direction, David Bosch was probably among the better qualified of missiologists to feel that he could not wait for New and Old Testament scholars to answer the questions about mission he wanted addressed himself. It would be interesting to know how his treatment of the New Testament in his Transforming Mission is regarded by New Testament scholars not just others in Mission Studies.[2]

In a general sense it is possible to ask what mutual expectations there are of those in other disciplines as users of one’s own field scholarship, as colleagues in theological education and writing, and as sources of questions and perspectives that may prove useful. This is a matter for conversation, and part of the purpose of this seminar, but let me hazard a few impressions.

 There is increasing interest in biblical studies about taking seriously issues that arise in the contexts and contemporary life of the Christian church. This can be seen in questions for students in essays, and in addressing social and ethical questions in commentaries. In relation to mission ethics and Liberation Theology[3] appear to have made more impact than explorations in anthropology and cultural studies. The impact of cultural pluralism on hermeneutics is seen in terms of Western philosophy’s needs and permissions, rather than the evidence of reading scriptures in the light of international cultures and perspectives. It is important for these strands to come together, an issue for contextual and systematic theology, not just missiology and biblical studies.

 I have no reason to believe that collegial relationships are other than cordial, but from the missiological side I sense people are capable of complaining about a perceived lack of relevance in other disciplines while being vague about what an ideal situation might be. What do missiologists do when cognate disciplines start getting missiological? Are they grateful others have seen the light, or threatened? What do teachers in biblical studies do when the occasional missiologist is competent in Old or New Testament? I can only presume to make some suggestions about what missiologists might do:  

1. Will be content to see missiology as a dimension of ecclesiology. The phrase “mission is the mother of theology” might more accurately be stated as “mission is a catalyst for theology.” It is acceptable to seek to formulate truths about God simple for the sake of doing that, quite apart from the mission value of doing so.
2. Will work to clarify what is meant by mission.
3. Will seek to serve the theological academy and seminary by offering a crosscultural experience and global perspective, and by being willing to learn from other disciplines.
4. The question of whether missiology is a special department or a dimension of all theological disciplines is “both and” not “either or”.  It is not the only area where such considerations apply. Ethics and biblical theology have overlap issues where decisions have to be made in a particular teaching situation about who has primary responsibility and who secondary.
5. The defining specialties of missiology are its theological concern for clarifying the purpose of the church and a global perspective in exploring those implications.
6. Integration is not everything. Missiology can have an integrative function in the curriculum, but then so do most subjects. What missiology can also bear witness to is the voice of the margins, the learnings from liminality, the seeking of a proper balance between minorities and the dominant cultures.

 The Theology of the Old Testament and Mission Studies.

 Some discussion of biblical theology provides evidence of the way in which people with mission interests have used biblical scholarship.

 The classic treatments of Eichrodt and von Rad on the theology of the Old Testament explored, though hardly exhausted, the contrasting perspectives of a synchronic approach which emphasized a constancy of theme (in the case of Eichrodt that of covenant) and a diachronic view which emphasized the singularity of event in history and its interpretation (von Rad giving an emphasis on the importance of story). It is perhaps a little easy to say that these approaches need not be exclusive. More recent analysis has seen emphasis on the canonical text (Childs[4]), the faith of Israel (Dumbrell[5]), a magisterial “postmodern” treatment by Walter Brueggemann,[6] and a synthesis by Bernhard Anderson.[7] It is perhaps of the nature of the case that interest in mission tends to the synchronic and needs the balance of other approaches.

 In his lectures on theology of mission at the Bible College in the 1980s, Ian Kemp[8] drew attention to debates about the extent to which there is a missionary motif in the Old Testament. He noted that while for Blauw,[9] the Old Testament lacked deliberate missionary activity and mission lay in the future, Verkuyl could not understand “why various writers make such a point of avowing that the Old Testament makes absolutely no mention of a missionary mandate.”[10] Similarly contrasting views have been noted between Harnack and Bavinck.[11] Such differences of opinion should not be surprising given different understandings of the nature and importance of Christian mission, and the range of ways in which the Christian community relates to the Jewish Scriptures. David Bosch’s treatment of mission in the Old Testament in Transforming Mission was limited to 4 pages in a section on the New Testament. His view that “There is, in the Old Testament, no indication of the believers of the old covenant being sent by God to cross geographical, religious and social frontiers in order to win others to faith in Yahweh”[12] has been seen as unduly narrow.[13]

 Yet Bosch certainly believed the Old Testament contained themes of importance to Christian mission. Among commentators on biblical theology of mission generally attention is commonly drawn to the universal concerns of Genesis 1-11, the importance of the promise to Abraham (see also National Geographic for December 2001), the engagement of prophets with Israel’s neighbours, and the vision in parts of Isaiah and some Psalms of Israel’s role as a “ light to the nations.” The complex relationships between Israel and its neighbours are noted for their parallels in the experiences of the Church, and if discussion about universalism and particularism can seem unduly philosophical, they are acutely relevant.[14] Christians also wrestle with the temptations and responsibilities of an experience of the knowledge of God as creator of all. The inspiration of the Exodus motif for the political dimensions of mission and the place of the poor and marginalized in the purposes of God has spread beyond Liberation Theology.

 Nevertheless there are real differences of agenda and emphasis. Köstenberger and O’Brien regard the cluster of questions around whether Israel had an obligation to “go” as well as to “be”, “one of the most hotly debated among recent interpreters at both a popular and a scholarly level.”[15] A more satisfactory analysis is needed of what is going on when Christians visit the Hebrew Bible to seek to understand their own obedience to God in their times and places.

 Understanding what we mean when we talk about "mission"

 Part of the issue is the understanding of the word mission itself. If it is just about the concept of sending, then that can be found practically everywhere – purely lexical studies do not tell us very much.[16] The purpose of the Church can be considered in terms of its worship, its community, and its responsibilities towards its environment, both people and creation. It is a distortion to collapse all the valid dimensions of church life into its external mission. Nevertheless, if the intrinsic value of its worship and community life is not in doubt, it is useful to use the word “mission” to refer to responsibilities towards those outside the community of faith.

 It is important to determine what are the indicative issues that constitute mission, though they may be various and change over time. In studying mission theology during the period 1948 to 1975 Rodger Bassham identified five areas of analysis: a) theological basis; b) church-mission relations; c) evangelism and social action; d) Christianity and other Faiths; and e) Mission and unity.[17] David Bosch, in a paper published in 1993, took the themes of compassion on the lost and marginalized, martyria – witness in suffering and martyrdom, God as the author and sustainer of mission, and history as concrete events in which God acts.[18] The 2005 Conference of the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism is to focus on “churches as reconciling and healing communities”[19]

 Actual engagement in mission raises other questions. These include attitudes towards other religions and cultures, idolatry (not all of other religious practice constitutes idolatry), attitudes towards other cultures in the community, questions of social justice, political liberation, dealing with creation, the role of God in realizing promises, parallels in the experiences of call and the realities of leadership in a political world. Questions of civil responsibility and economic and social justice in the community are also part of mission. If there are issues of spiritual formation and discernment then experiences of seeking God’s guidance are relevant. If there are moral and justice issues which are understood differently in different times and cultures, then that is of relevance in wrestling with culture issues today.

 Of course these are not the only agenda’s that inform the study of the Bible and of the Old Testament in relation to mission. A desire to see a uniformity of purpose across the testaments finds material consistent with a “Great Commission” or other dominant reading of the New Testament. Concern for justice, active mission, or more passive models, all colour a missiological reading of the Old Testament.

 Basic hermeneutical distinctions are important – including between what is normative and what is descriptive, the dynamic between what people should have done and what they did do, between enduring themes and the particularities of history, between the story of particular groups, and that of the wider world at the time. And behind the hermeneutics must also lie the necessary tools of Old Testament scholarship generally.

Newbigin and Hunsburger’s discussion of election

 As discussed in an ANZAMS presentation in 2000,[20] the issue of mission in the Old Testament can also be explored around the question of the reason for the election of the people of Israel. This is a major theme in Lesslie Newbigin’s theology analyzed by George Hunsberger.[21] Newbigin joins with Barth and others to seek to shift interest in election in the Reformed tradition away from questions of “why me?” and personal privilege, to those of corporate purpose and responsibility. He disagrees with the idea of Abraham’s call to be a blessing to others being seen as focused on the work of Christ,[22] rejecting that as an overly instrumental view (as in Oscar Cullman) of Israel in which her history has no significant purpose other than to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus the Messiah. Newbigin talks instead of “bearing the witness of the Spirit” as a purpose common to Israel and the Christian church.

 This is an important debate and Newbigin’s critiques are telling; yet problems remain. “Bearing the witness of the Spirit” may be a useful overarching descriptor, but it is still reading a type of mission responsibility into the life of Israel.

 If we want a picture of what Israel was meant to have done in relation to its own life, to God, and towards the nations, it is instructive to look at sin in the Hebrew Bible. Sin is about failures in faith, worship, loyalty, morality, idolatry and social justice, but it is not about failure in external mission. The prophets are relentless in highlighting many things, but not that. If Israel was meant to have the sort of mission commitment Newbigin and others suggest, why is this not a major element in the prophetic tradition? Is not the story instead a reminder of the importance of other dimensions of the life of faith – worship, morality, internal as well as external justice, that carry over into the life of the church? Newbigin may have wished to avoid an instrumental view of the people of Israel in relation to preparing the way for the Messiah, but it is not really clear that he has escaped having an instrumental view of the church however dynamic and nuanced is his understanding of mission, in relation to a plurality of cultures and to other religions. He appears to have widened our understanding of the mission of Israel, and narrowed that of the church to those things we call mission.

Walter Kaiser

 Walter C. Kaiser Jr’s views on the missionary obligation of Israel have been popularized through Winter and Hawthorn’s Perspectives on the World Christian Mission[23] and set out more completely in his Mission in the Old Testament. Israel as a Light to the Nations.[24] Some versions of Perspectives illustrate the idea that Israel had a missionary mandate that it failed to carry out with pictures of a patriarchal figure falling flat on his face, and the obligation being picked up by the Christian Church.

Kaiser like Verkuyl is concerned that the relevance of the Old Testament to Christian mission is not given its due. His book is a tidy summary of the key elements in the Old Testament portrayal of “others”: Genesis 1-11; the promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3; discussion of Moses and Pharaoh, the call to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” Exodus 19:4, Psalms 67 and 96, accounts of Gentiles who believed, the Servant Songs in Isaiah, and the story of Jonah.

These issues and passages are important, but the assumptions associated with them need to be explored. There is not a strong sense of development over time, or of taking account of different circumstances. A desire to demonstrate consistency in God’s purpose across the testaments is one thing, but Kaiser appears to want to demonstrate that consistency not simply in terms of how one might understand God’s purposes over a long historical period and in different circumstances, but in a uniformity of what people of God ought to be doing in all circumstances. One looks for a theology of the purpose of the people of God that is less anxious to support both a particular view of the nature of Scripture and a particular view of the nature of mission. Others with a “high” doctrine of Scripture and a strong commitment to mission have not found it necessary to come to the same conclusion as Kaiser. Köstenberger and O’Brien consider that the tradition of interpretation which “claims that God gave Israel the task of missionary outreach, and that the failure of the nation to engage in this role is part of the reason why he had to come up with a better plan” is “unsatisfactory both exegetically and theologically.”[25] They quote Goldsworthy’s comment that “It does not appear that being a nation of priests was ever understood as meaning a nation of evangelists and foreign missionaries.”[26]

 The debate is reminiscent of discussion about the attitude of the Reformers to mission. It remains hard for some Protestant traditions to accept that the early Protestant leaders were Reformers and not people with the missionary vision of William Carey. It seems difficult to realize that the 19^th century missionary movement is not necessarily normative, or that in history people who seek to be biblical in relation to a certain set of circumstances do not have the answers for all other times and places.

 Christopher Wright

 Christopher Wright is another Evangelical who has written on the Old Testament and Mission over a period. He is less concerned than Kaiser to make the Old Testament fit a particular mould, and he has developed his methodology in a way that is more sensitive to broader issues in Biblical scholarship.

 The themes Wright develops in his later publications can be found surveyed in a 1984 article on the Bible and religions.[27] Wright is less interested in the question of mission as obligation for Israel towards others than in the attitude of God towards other religions, and in the ethical responsibility for a just society. The significance of this approach is that it has a focus on a dimension of mission enquiry which cannot be resolved by global statements about the universality of God’s interest and the responsibility of God’s people in the light of that, and it associates the processes of learning about mission from the Old Testament with the methodology of how ethical decision-making may be informed by the Old Testament. While Wright is conservative in his conclusions and hesitant to affirm saving activity outside the community of faith, his overall approach takes seriously both the dimensions of mission questions which later generations may ask, and what the Old Testament may say about those and other issues when the weighting of its concerns do not parallel those of later generations.

 In his article in the Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions,[28] Wright concedes the lack of a Jewish mission across cultural and geographical boundaries, but locates the significance of the Old Testament for mission particularly in the mission of God and the promise of the Abrahamic covenant with its balancing of universal concern and particular experience. He explores ways in which the promise of being a blessing to the nations might be worked out. The task of being a “light to the nations” had its centre in ethical distinctiveness. The understanding of sin gives an “ earthy realism” in the Old Testament’s “comprehensive analysis of the human predicament in terms of moral rebellion, the personal, social, historical and ecological effects of sin, alongside the rich vocabulary through which this whole taxonomy of evil is expressed, all combine to forestall a shallow vagueness about what salvation needs to be.”[29]

 Wright notes the importance of the Exodus and jubilee as historical and institutional expressions of redemption and of justice, and the relevance of wisdom literature “with its strong creation base and its adaptation of the wisdom of cultures to the faith of Yahweh” as a resource “not directly tied to the redemptive-historical tradition of Israel.” He also explores the way in which Old Testament motifs, particularly the Servant in Isaiah, inform New Testament understanding of Christian mission.

 Elsewhere Wright draws attention to the missionary implications of a radical monotheism, implications that carry over to the New Testament when affirmations about Yahweh are applied to Jesus.[30] Prophetic calls provide “fertile soil for Christian reflection on the challenge of missionary vocation” – though the point of commonality is the discernment of God’s will and response to it, not the particularity of the tasks. The incorporation of individual foreigners are a pointer to the promise of blessing to the nations through Abraham.

Conclusion

We cannot answer the question of the missionary nature of the Old Testament in terms of global assertions about the support or lack of support that might be found for a particular vision of what Christian mission ought to be. It is more fruitful to explore relevance; to break down the issues that arise when Christians in different circumstances seek to know and do God’s will in their time. It perhaps should be theologians as much as anyone who set forth the contribution of the Hebrew Bible to the universal purposes of God. It may be ecologists who remind us of the dimensions of creation that are a legitimate and necessary Christian concern. The experience of the particularity of the love of God, and the universality of God’s compassion remain a challenge for the Church whose commitment to mission outside of itself can never be taken for granted, whatever our theological tradition. Justice within the community itself is not an irrelevant consideration for Christian organizations and churches, not just society. As Wright has noted, the wisdom literature is important for affirming ways in which culture can be incorporated in faith. It can be added that in the realm of ethical decision making the placing of wisdom values alongside the starker judgments of the Deuteronomistic tradition helps us explore issues where the solutions are not given, but have to be worked and thought through. Wright seems to suggest that it is the distinctiveness as much as the particularity of the ethical decisions which are important giving hermeneutical room to move, yet taking the traditions seriously in themselves.

 Although we are warned against applying the New Testament to the Old, in fact the New gives clues that can be helpful to making sense of the older traditions. The problem with Kaiser may be less his application of New Testament visions of mission to the Old Testament, than what his understanding of the New Testament happens to be. Wright is more open to ideas of development and fulfillment, but does not see those as evidence of God changing his mind. His concepts of mission include the social, ethical and ecological as well as the worship of Yahweh. Mission may include proclamation across boundaries, but it does not always require it.

 There are other perspectives still we might note.

 First, what do the most Jewish of the Christian documents tell us about the ideal Israel? If part of the problem of Kaiser’s view of Old Testament mission is his understanding of Matthew’s “Great Commission” part of the solution lies in taking Matthew seriously as a whole. Jesus has a mission to his own people that keeps breaking out into Gentile territory. The contrast between the sending of the 12 in Matthew 10 where they were to avoid Gentile towns and Samaritan territory, and of the disciples to all nations, in Matthew 28 : 19 is one mirrored by that of the eras of the two testaments. The Great Commission is not about a diluted over-spiritualized Gospel, but of making disciples, teaching and baptizing, about the commands summarized earlier in the Sermon on the Mount. Such a reading does not diminish the problems the people of Israel experienced, but it saves us from trying to make them Christians before their time. It allows us to value their era for the rich things it may teach us still.

 Secondly it has to be asked if the problems Kaiser, Wright and others have identified reflect too much the questions of “sending” churches concerned with self-justification in the light of the Old Testament. New Zealand Maori could identify with the Old Testament references both to a promised land, and to the experience of conquest. The relevance of the Old Testament can be very different when seen from the side of the colonized and missionised. Godfrey Phillips was probably not the first to raise the possibility that the Gita might be the Indian Christian’s Old Testament and to explore the way in which the real world of the Old Testament spoke more clearly than the abstractions of parts of the New.[31]

 Finally, we need to ask what difference it makes exegeting the Old Testament for Mission in the context of New Zealand. There are issues of land and culture, of the place of minorities, and of the way in which we interpret the injustices of the past and seek reconciliation. Ways in which the wisdom of other cultures needs to be rescued and affirmed. Questions of lessons of ritual and purity and what they say about the understanding of God before the coming of the missionary. These issues have relevance for mission studies, but they are hardly exclusive to missiology. Perhaps that is so with many of our questions. Maurice Andrew’s Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand[32] weaves scholarship and context with regard to issues that arise in the text and in the particular history of this country.

 The category of mission is too narrow a framework to capture what that has to say, yet mission in New Zealand must learn not only from the Old Testament but also from the Old Testament as read in our literature, history and scholarship. A sense of security here may also help us in the task of rising above a sense of our own importance to recognize and participate in God’s mission outside of our own boundaries. It may be that the Bible taken as a whole helps us own a greater range of valid mission responses than we are sometimes willing to acknowledge.

 References Cited

 Aichele, George, et al., The Bible and Culture Collective, The Postmodern Bible, Hew Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995.

Anderson, Bernard W. Contours of Old Testament Theology, Fortress, 1999.

Andrew, M. E., The Old Testament in Aotearoa New Zealand. Wellington: Deft, 1999.

Anderson, Bernhard W. Contours of Old Testament Theology, Minneapolis, MI: Fortress, 1999.

Bassham, Rodger C. Mission Theology, 1948-1975 : Years of Worldwide Creative Tension--Ecumenical, Evangelical, and Roman Catholic. Pasadena, Ca: William Carey Library, 1979.

Blauw, Johannes. The Missionary Nature of the Church; a Survey of the Biblical Theology of Mission. [1st ] ed. New York,: McGraw-Hill, 1962.

Bosch, D. J. "Reflections on Biblical Models of Mission." In Toward the Twenty-First Century in Christian Mission. Essays in Honor of Gerald H. Anderson., edited by James M. Phillips, and Robert T. Coote, 175-92. Grand Rapids, MN: Eerdmans, 1993.

Bosch, David Jacobus. Transforming Mission : Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, American Society of Missiology Series ; No. 16. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1991.

Brueggeman, Walter. Theology of the Old Testament. Testament, Dispute, Advocacy, Fortress, 1997.

Childs, Brevard S. Old Testament Theology in a Canonical Context, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1985.

Christians and Churches Called to Reconciliation and Healing (PR-01-31) [Press Release]. World Council of Churches Media Relations Office, 2001 [cited 11 September 2001].

Dumbrell, William J. The Faith of Israel, Apollos, 1988.

Goldsworthy, G. "The Great Indicative: An Aspect of a Biblical Theology of Mission." Reformed Theological Review 55 (1996): 2-13.

House, Paul R. Old Testament Theology, IVP, 1998.

Hunsberger, George R. Bearing the Witness of the Spirit. Lesslie Newbigin's Theology of  Cultural Plurality. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.

Hwa Yung, "Transforming Mission," review of David J. Bosh, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Maryknoll: NY Orbis Books, 1991., International Review of Mission LXXXI, no. 322 (1992).

Kaiser, Walter C. "Israel's Missionary Call." In Perspectives on the World Christian Mission, edited by Ralph D. and Steven C. Hawthorne Winter, 25-34. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 1981.

———. Mission in the Old Testament : Israel as a Light to the Nations. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2000.

Kemp, Ian S. "The Missionary Motif." In Theology of Mission Class handout, Bible College of New Zealand. Henderson.

Kim, Kirsteen "Post-Modern Mission. A Paradigm Shift in David Bosch's Theology of Mission?," International Review of Mission LXXXIX, no. 353 (2000).

Köstenberger, Andreas J., and Peter Thomas O'Brien. Salvation to the Ends of the Earth : A Biblical Theology of Mission. Leicester, England, Downers Grove, Ill.: Apollos ; InterVarsity Press, 2001.

Legrand, Lucien. Unity and Plurality. Mission in the Bible. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1990.

McDaniel, Ferris L. "Mission in the Old Testament." In Mission in the New Testament : An Evangelical Approach, edited by William J. Larkin, and Joel F. Williams, 11-20. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1998.

Phillips, Godfrey E. The Old Testament in the World Church with Special Reference to the Younger Churches. Vol. 2, Missionary Research Series. London: Lutterworth Press, 1942.

Ridder, Richard R De. "The Old Testament Roots of Mission." In Exploring Church Growth, edited by Wilbert Shenk, 171-80. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1983.

John Roxborogh, "The History and Scope of BISAM within IAMS: 1972 - 1992," in To Caste Fire Upon the Earth: Bible and Mission Collaborating in Today's Multicultural Global Context, ed. Teresa Okure (Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: Cluster Publications, 2000).

———. "Is 'Mission' Our Only Mission? Revisiting the Missionary Nature of the Church." in Proceedings of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association for Mission Studies Inaugural Conference Bible College of New Zealand, 27-28 November 2000 (2001).

Saayman, Willem and Klippies Kritzinger, eds., Mission in Bold Humility. David Bosch's Work Considered. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1996).

Schreiter, Robert J. "Book Review : Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in the Theology of Mission. By David Bosch, Maryknoll, N.Y.; Orbis, 1991," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 15, no. 4 (1991).

Senior, Donald, and Carroll Stuhlmueller. The Biblical Foundations for Mission. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1983.

Soards, “Marion L. Key issues in Biblical Studies and their Bearing on Mission Studies,” Missiology 24, no. 1, (1996), 93-104.

Towner, Philip H. "Paradigms Lost: Mission to the Kosmos in John and in David Bosch's Biblical Models of Mission," Evangelical Quarterly 67, no. 2 (1995).

Verkuyl, Johannes. Contemporary Missiology : An Introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978.

Wright, Chris. Christian Mission and the Old Testament: Matrix or Mismatch [cited 25 November 2001]. http://www.martynmission.cam.ac.uk/COldTest.htm.

———. Living as the People of God : The Relevance of Old Testament Ethics. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1983.

Wright, Christopher J H. "The Christian and Other Religions: The Biblical Evidence." Themelios 9, no. 2 (1984): 4-15.

———. "Old Testament Theology of Mission." In Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, edited by A. Scott Moreau, 706-09. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2000.

West, Gerald Biblical Hermeneutics of Liberation. Modes of Reading the Bible in the South African Context, Second Revised Edition, Foreward by Norman K. Gottwald, Pietermaritzbur, Maryknoll: Cluster Publications, Orbis, 1995.