Remember the Enmity

It sounds like a strange word: "enmity." Whenever I ask Catechism students what it means, mostly I get blank looks. It seems that we don't talk about enmity so much nowadays. When I tell them it means "hostility" and shares the same root word as "enemy," they start to get the picture. If a person feels enmity toward someone else, then they regard him as an enemy. There is hatred between them. Enemies are on opposite sides of a battle.

The Fruitful Grain of Wheat

As servants of the Lord Jesus Christ living on this side of the cross, we labor with joy in the dawn of the new creation — praying for God's mercy upon the nations, that He would constrain the earth to come, and that He would send forth His Word and bring the strangers home. We pray these things with confidence and boldness, based on the finished work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, for it is His finished work that compels us to plant churches. Many themes, texts, and teachings of Scripture, of which the reader is quite likely aware, demonstrate the need for church planting.

The Place of Mission in New Testament Theology

It is important to have clarity on the place of mission in the theology of the New Testament? Kostenberger first clarifies the nature of mission, New Testament theology and Scripture. He then assesses the significance of mission within the scope of the New Testaments message as a whole. A survey is presented of the New Testament theologies by Rudolf Bultmann, George Ladd,and N. T.

Seeds of Missiology in the German Erweckung (1815–1848)

It is the contention of this article that seeds of a missiology emerged early in the nineteenth century in Germany. This was necessitated by the vitality of the religious awakening known as the Erweckung. The purpose of this article is to set forth some of the impulses that led at a later date to the systematization of mission theory.

Is Belief in Christ Necessary for Salvation?

This essay focuses on the question, will God give the opportunity of salvation to those who have never heard the gospel of Christ? It wants to give a fair presentation of three different responses to this question: the unevangelized are lost, there is a future chance after death for the unevangelized, and the unevangelized are saved or lost depending on their response to the light they have.

Paul Writes to the Greek First and Also to the Jew: The Missiological Significance of Understanding Paul's Purpose in Romans

This article considers Paul's purpose in writing Romans. Wu wants to demonstrate exegetically that Paul's motive in writing Romans was to motivate them to support his mission to the “barbarians” in Spain. He argues that the letter’s theology exists to allow Paul to preach the gospel where Christ had not been known (Romans 15:20). Wu works out the implications for the church's missiological and pastoral practice.

The Challenge of a Systematized Biblical Theology of Mission: Missiological Insights from the Gospel of John

Christian mission currently appears to be suffering from an acute identity crisis. This crisis has to do with at least two major factors: the increasing interdisciplinary nature of missiology and the rapid pace of change in the world around us. Each of these has significant implications for the church’s missionary task. Few would oppose in principle the efforts made to draw upon the valid findings of the various social sciences.