Luther's view of how the Gospel reached people (that is, mission, to use later terminology) is developed from the Bible and its description of how the Gospel would be proclaimed for both Jews and Gentiles. Some problems in the evangelical-revival camp have developed from the denial of this essential unity of domestic and foreign preaching of the Gospel. As a result, for a long time we have talked about Western Christendom's established churches and Christianity as something completely different from foreign missions. Luther certainly saw the important and the unique in foreign mission, as this study will show. At the same time, he holds together or integrates the church's expansion of the Gospel in the West and on the front lines with non-Christians. The reformer starts from the basic premise that Jews and Gentiles are the audience for the Gospel and develops a mission universalism in which the Reformation's home front and the foreign from are held together. Mission happens on both fronts based on the same commission and sending of Christ. According to Luther, we have in principle one battle with two battle lines. His thinking harmonizes well with the contemporary understanding of home and foreign missions in which the sending by means of the Gospel is the same in both instances.
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1 comments:
Great Post, Rooy makes the same point in his book, "Lutero Y La Mision" which should be in English, not that I mind it being in Spanish, but, really...
I figure though that he wrote it in Spanish to allow the myth that Luther had nothing to say about missions to continue in the English speaking world. His book was ten dollars compared to the Orberg at somewhere around 50 in both English and Swedish.
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