The Old Testament Missionary —

In early October, I was invited by Pastor Rod and Ryan to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation at Wycliffe College in the heart of Toronto. The conference was chock-full of Reformation scholars; each presentation reinforced the other by highlighting the gapping contrast between our modernized sense of Protestant theology to its intellectual forefathers, the sixteenth-century scholarship of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wycliffe, Huldrych Zwingli, Erasmus of Rotterdam, William Tyndale, among others.

In 1517 Europe, the Church and State were married, for better or for worse. The Catholic Church had its hand in every back pocket and its face in every bedroom, so the degree of impact the Reformation had on a social, political, ecclesiastical and cultural scale, especially in regards to the Christian mission, was colossal. With the printing press on the outside and the Reformers hoisting the flag of justification by faith alone from the inside, it was a perfect storm. The Church sadly split, yet radically shifted from a sacramental system of vantage point dictation, ordinances and observances to a present moment participation of faith and first-person experience of gospel-centric theology. Now with the Bible in every household and the gospel in every hand, evangelical propagation became personal rather than institutional.

For those who, perhaps, have not reflected on what the Christian mission actually means or have never been acquainted with the term missiology, the word mission itself comes from the Latin verb missio, which means, “to send”. In laymen, it is known as the Great Commission; in scholarship, it’s referred to as the Missio Dei (“Mission of God”), where the main purpose, mandate and moral duty for each missionary is “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15) and “…make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20). This was not only the mission of the apostles – since the word apostle means the “one who is sent” – it was the mission of Christ Himself (John 17:8, 18) and His subsequent disciples[1].

“And, like most Reformation scholars, temptation to isolate the Epistles in place of the Gospel and favour their theology over the historical narrative is readily available.”

Missiology, then, through the lens of the Reformation’s five solas, particularly sola Scriptura and Martin Luther’s deep-seated conviction of justification by faith alone (sola fides), is concerned with how to contextualize the gospel to a particular culture. Aided by social research and applied science today, it is now a multi-disciplinary study and branch of practical theology about how to most effectively evangelize the gospel message and cultivate a growing church in relation to the world around it. This approach has only expanded in scope. Due to new technology over the last hundred years, mission work went from a tireless hands-on grind of travelling, converting and planting new churches (congregation), no matter the cost, to a weekly upload from one’s bedroom, so to speak. It went from a strict focus on local growth to now understanding its global impact and imperative.

As such, the issue today is less about how to get the Word out and more of an apologetic of Scriptural authority. As simple as the gospel may sound, its scope is so pervasive that people often get their knots tied up on how to do it right, particularly in correlation to God’s Will in the Old Testament. And, like most Reformation scholars, temptation to isolate the Epistles in place of the Gospels and favour their theology over the historical narrative is readily available[2].
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Now, with respect to each speaker – their integrity I dare not put to question – there was one blanket statement addressed, in particular, that really snagged my line. Each presentation drew from the Reformer’s determination that there was no basis, evidence or any amount of precedent in the Old Testament to support, let alone theologically substantiate, missiology found in the New Testament. That is to say, the Old Testament is totally absent of missionaries and our missiological duty. This – apparently – causes tremendous difficulties in the intellectual community. How are we to effectively justify our purpose, mandate, and mission present in the New Testament with no Old Testament representation (specifically in relation to the Law)? I will address that question in a moment – first, the presupposition that there is no missiological basis in the Old.

Is there any basis in the Old Testament for missionary work?

After listening to each presentation, question and answer naturally followed suit. Instinctually, the obvious thought came to mind: “What about Jonah?” The answer to which was less than satisfactory. Like a fish out of water, it was quickly dismissed as irrelevant, “Well, I would hardly consider reluctance, pettiness and casting judgment on people as missionary work” followed by “I am not well versed in the Old Testament, can we stick to the New” (to put it briefly)[3]. It was overly presumptuous of me to have assumed that the academics at large had considered Jonah already. Frankly, in my mind, it was such a blatantly obvious example of Old Testament missions that I was taken back by the very idea that Jonah was not even worth discussing. Jonah was “sent” by God to travel to a foreign nation and preach a message from God against it as a means for repentance (Jonah 4:1-2). Granted, Jonah did not bring baptism, communion, or discipleship as revered in the New Testament, nor did he give the Law or offer sacrifice at Nineveh as required in the Old Testament. The soteriological ends in God’s command may appear rather empty without iconic representation. So, perhaps, the men of Nineveh are not considered saved in this account; they are just spared from destruction. Or, perhaps, the speakers prematurely took the bite and relegated Jonah to a divine comedy or satire, as so many liberal scholars before them.

Be that as it may, ​I will concede that Jonah is far from the ideal candidate of what we would consider a “missionary” today. Plainly, he comes across as a self-righteous, intolerant, prejudice diehard, yet despite his faults, God wanted him (and no one else) to preach at Nineveh, the prominent city and symbol of Assyrian power. In all irony to the scholars at hand, Martin Luther, for all of his strengths, was no saint either – he was an anti-Semitic, anti-cleric, intemperate, over-indulgent son of a gun. And most poignantly, both men stubbornly decided, at one point or another, who should have the right to hear the Word of God: For Jonah, the Assyrians should not; for Luther, the Jews should not. And, from an earthly standpoint, if I were forced to pick sides, Jonah actually had a moral reason to be ‘damned angry’ (Jonah 4:9) with the amoral conduct oozing out of Assyria, like burning people alive, skinning people alive (“flaying”), building towers or cladding city walls out of stretched skins, dismembering or plucking genitalia off men like “seeds of cucumbers”[4] and so on, whereas the Jews contemporary to Luther gave no such horrific violations. Sometimes God calls people right for the task, not necessarily those right by our standards or even, at times, with Him (2 Chronicles 36:22-23) – even if that means they have scales for skin. I think it is fair to say that neither Jonah nor Luther are the ideal moral icons to model yourself after for evangelism as opposed to, say, the Apostle Paul.

The Narrative. It ought to be obvious by now that it is not Jonah’s character or his theological sensitivity I intend to highlight – it is the overarching narrative itself and the Author’s intent that bears witness to the pragmatic heart and theological insight we see in the New Testament. For one, consider that Jonah is a rather odd book of prophecy. The predictive prophetic content is only five Hebrews words deep: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed” (Jonah 3:4). Admittedly, it also lacks the traditional characteristics of other historical books in Scripture and has strong ironic undertones. By consequence, whether historical or satirical, it begs to be read from an overarching perspective, to dive deeper into the thematic structure that underpins the story just to scratch the surface of its greater meaning and moral application, which then draws prophetic context and thematic unity from other Scripture.

Irrespective of culture and historicity, the art of storytelling was and still is known to be the best and most widely used method for general learning, especially moral truths and spiritual realities. This fact only intensifies in light of Scripture. For more than millennia the Christian worldview, by in large, was principally understood through the scope of narrative, that is historical narrative and traditional narrative of anecdotes, allegories, metaphors, and parables[5].

Similar to how the Scriptural narrative as a whole is selectively composed, the prophetic allusions, metaphors, and symbols that coincide with thematic structure of Jonah is curated in a way to construct a typological narrative, bypassing whether one considers the story of Jonah to be historical fact or fiction (considering Jonah is referenced as a real person in the historical canon of 2 Kings 14:25). For those who are not aware, typology is a non-verbal prophecy (as opposed to a direct verbal prophecy) and may include rituals, symbolism, imagery, or patterns to elicit a message, such as the Passover Lamb represents Jesus Christ delivering His people from death. This is especially true in regards to the Missio Dei, which finds sustenance from a New Testament vantage point. In fact, the historical position of the Church, as advocated by Tertullian, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, and John Calvin, was that Jonah was as a type of Christ, given the plain parallels of their accounts, and Judaism saw Jonah’s story as archetypal of God’s grace and willingness to deliver from death (1 Maccabees 6:8)[6]. Neither the ancient cultures nor sixteenth century theologians saw satire or comedy when they read Jonah. For these reason, it is not out of reach to assume the moral of this story has a clear proto-missiological precedent that prophetically foreshadows the Great Commission as a pre-Christ form of missions.